In Tanzania, villagers can declare and benefit from village land forest reserves under the Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) policy. While research indicates that CBFM results in more sustainable management of reserved forest areas on village land, its impacts across broader village landscapes are unknown. This case illustrates how existing forest and land policies and practices of implementation discourage landscape level forest conservation and how a current rush for ‘unused’ village land areas for conservation, agribusiness or forest plantations implies an incentive for villages to clear unreserved forests to secure their land rights.