The overriding problem facing the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests hotspot is degradation, fragmentation and loss of the only remaining habitat for many known (and unknown) globally threatened species. This is the result of many factors, such as growing human population exerting pressure on forest resources and land; poverty leading to unsustainable use of forest resources; under-resourced government institutions; a legacy of outdated environmental policies and legislation; and lack of political will. The hotspot is dominated by a large and expanding economically impoverished human population. Despite the high biological importance, legal protection for important areas in the hotspot is either weak, lacking altogether or poorly enforced. Most sites lack strategic management and action plans. On the positive side, these problems are widely recognized and various initiatives (including institutional, policy and legislative reforms) have been launched to address them.
Over three-quarters of forests in this hotspot are highly or very highly threatened. In the Eastern Arc, 75 percent of the major sites are ranked as highly threatened (South Pare, West Usambara and Mahenge) or very highly threatened (Taita, North Pare, Ukaguru, Rubeho, Uluguru and the lower slopes of the Udzungwas) (GEF 2002: derived from Burgess et al. 2001). East Usambara, Nguru and the higher altitudes of the Udzungwas are considered to be under medium threat.
Site-specific levels of threat have also been assessed for 101 coastal forests in Kenya and 103 coastal forests in Tanzania (Figure 4) (data from WWF-EARPO 2002). All of these forests are under some threat and almost 80 percent are judged to be highly (57 percent) or very highly (32 percent) threatened. The levels of threat are very similar in the two countries.
Major threats were identified for the Eastern Arc Mountains as part of the GEF PDF Block B process (GEF 2002) and for the Coastal Forest Mosaic by the WWF-EARPO workshop in 2002 (Table 3). Threats were identified, categorized and analyzed differently by GEF and WWF-EARPO, so caution is necessary in comparing the results. For example, recognition of the distinction between ultimate (e.g. human population growth and negative value systems) and proximate threats (over-exploitation) was inconsistent. A general treatment of the threats follows, amalgamating and re-arranging the categories in Table 3 to facilitate presentation. Table 4 elaborates these threats (e.g.pressure on forest resources) and gives local examples.
Historically, commercial agriculture has been responsible for some clearance and fragmentation of forest. There are large tea estates in Iringa, Tanga and Kagera on land that was formerly forested. Some patches of forest in these estates have been preserved, e.g. at Ambangulu. In the lowlands, sisal estates also cleared large areas of forest, especially around the East Usambaras in Tanzania. The largest current threats, however, come from the commercial cultivation of vegetables, which are sold in the local markets and from the growing of cardamom and other spices under forest cover. These activities result in forest clearance and the destruction of undergrowth in the forest. They are an important contributor to rural livelihoods and therefore pose a real problem for forest conservation as the population and the demand for arable land grows.
Over the past 100 years, subsistence agriculture (mostly for maize) has been responsible for the disappearance of most areas of unprotected forest. Forest is cleared for farm land, as it has better growing potential, but, after a few years, the soils are exhausted and yields reduce to those of other nearby non-forest agricultural lands. Inappropriate farming practices (shifting cultivation with short fallow periods, slash and burn, cultivation on steep slopes in Eastern Arc Mountains) are common. The inevitable result, which is exacerbated by population growth, is increased demand for land, leading to encroachment on forests. In the absence of expanding urban employment and livelihood opportunities, these problems are certain to increase in the hotspot. Effective agricultural extension, promoting more sustainable and productive farming methods, can help in mitigating this threat, but price incentives, combined with strong controls or constraints on agricultural expansion, are a more potent weapon.
Commercial Timber Extraction
There have been national moratoriums on commercial logging in high forests in Tanzania since the early 1990s and in indigenous forests in Kenya since the late 1990s, but enforcement and monitoring have been erratic in both countries. In Tanzania, where the local district forest officers (DFOs) report to the local district authorities rather than to FBD headquarters, the command structure is compromised and local pressure on DFOs to ignore illegal logging can be strong. In Kenya, high-level political connections enabled certain large timber companies to continue to extract indigenous trees despite the moratorium, although their activities have mainly focused on other areas of the country (e. g. Mount Elgon). Throughout both Kenya and Tanzania, the threats are greatest to forests where high value timber like camphor (Ocotea usambarensis) or mvule (Milicia excelsa) is present.
In practice, the government system of obtaining licenses to log trees from forest reserves is often ignored and the majority of logging being undertaken in the reserves is illegal. There is a great deal of commercial timber extraction by small-scale poachers, responding to the demands of urbanization and tourism development. Very little of the value of this timber goes back to the poachers, who are usually at the bottom end of an exploitative network of foresters, middlemen and contractors. Forests close to tourist areas, such as Arabuko-Sokoke Forest near Malindi and Watamu in Kenya, suffer from the high demand for carving wood (Brachylaena huillensis) and timber for the construction of hotels, private residences and tourist attractions. The carving wood industry is much bigger in Kenya than in Tanzania and poaching of carving wood trees is most common in Tanzania near the Kenya/Tanzania border.
Other Forest Resource Extraction
Commercial fuelwood extraction and charcoal production are a problem near urban centres, with Dar es Salaam and Mombasa and the Stone City in Zanzibar as major markets. Fuelwood is also commercially harvested from Udzungwa Mountain National Park for local brewing. As roads are improved, more forests become at risk because of increased access for fuelwood and charcoal merchants. For example, Rondo and Kitope Forest Reserve are threatened by the development of a new road to Dar es Salaam.
Most timber for local construction in the villages close to the forests comes from the forests themselves, mainly in the form of poles of young trees. For larger buildings, doors and window frames planked timber is obtained from pitsawing groups working in the forests. As most of these teams are either operating in areas where logging is not permitted or they lack the licenses for the trees that they are cutting, the majority of timber being used in local construction is illegal. Most of this timber is sold and hence is, in reality, a commercial use of the forests, only to supply the local market.
A range of other products is extracted for various household uses, like medicinal plants, edible fruits, wild honey, grass and fodder for livestock and bamboo collection for tomato basket weaving. These activities can cause local problems, especially where extraction methods are destructive such as careless debarking of medicinal trees. Targeted species are already scarce.
Hunting is historically responsible for the absence of several large mammals (buffalo, rhino, elephant, leopard, bushbuck) from large areas in the hotspot where they used to roam. The local bushmeat trade threatens the smaller mammals. Although this trade is not on the scale found in West and Central Africa, local consumption of game meat can threaten rare wildlife. For example, the endangered Aders' duiker has been reduced to very low population levels by local hunters in Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, (FitzGibbon et al. 1995; Kanga 1996) and also in Jozani Forest in Zanzibar (Struhsaker & Siex, pers. comm.).
Mining within forests is currently a minor threat, but (as noted earlier) this may change: large reserves of titanium have been discovered on Kenya's coast, from Kwale to Malindi District and underneath Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. Tiomin Resources Inc. plans to strip mine four areas in coastal Kenya, starting with an area of 64 km2 in Kwale District, which will be mined for at least 14 years. All vegetation and physical structures will be removed and mineral deposits will be exposed to a depth of more than 30 m. Tiomin has promised to compensate the original landowners and to rehabilitate and return the land to them, but agreement has not yet been reached on its operations. There is considerable public concern about environmental impacts and the distribution of economic benefits, and the new Kenyan government appears to be taking a stricter line with Tiomin on these issues (Reuters 2003).
Fires are commonly used by rural farmers to clear fields prior to planting. Where population densities are high, vegetation from the fields to be farmed that season is cleared into piles and burned on the site. In general, few of these fires spread into forest margins or montane grasslands. Within the forests, fires are started for forest clearance for cultivation and these can get out of control and burn larger areas. Sometimes, wild honey harvesters start forest fires when they smoke the bees to get their honey. Fires are sometimes started deliberately for political reasons (e.g. in UMNP in 2000 during the election). Where human population density is lower, there is a much higher tendency for the slopes of Eastern Arc Mountains to be subject to wildfires that can have a number of causes and once started will spread up the slope in an uncontrolled fashion. Occasionally, these fires reach the forests and during dry years they can enter the forest and cause considerable damage. They also burn huge areas of upland grass in the Eastern Arc Mountains.
Because of the different ways in which threats have been identified and analyzed in different portions of the hotspot, it is difficult to include all the data in an overall ranking of threats in the hotspot. The most compatible datasets come from site-by-site analyses of threats for 114 sites in the Tanzanian Coastal Forests (WWF-EARPO 2002) and for 136 sites in the Tanzanian Eastern Arc Mountains (data from Neil Burgess). Figure 5 summarizes this data in ranked form for the top 10 threats common to both datasets.
The top 10 overall threats (in ranked order) are agriculture and encroachment, fire, timber extraction, polewood cutting, population growth, charcoal production, grazing, hunting, mining and roads. Population growth was included as a threat in both datasets, although it may be better considered as an ultimate factor, driving the other proximate threats. Two additional threats were identified only for the Eastern Arc Mountains Forests (corruption and medicinal plants) and another seven only for the Coastal Forests (settlement, urbanisation, fuelwood, carving wood, salt, tourism and open access). Of these additional threats, three (carving wood, salt and tourism) may be genuinely restricted to the coastal forests. The apparent restriction of the other additional threats to either the Coastal or the Eastern Arc Mountain Forests is almost certainly an artefact of the different analyses used. For example, corruption and fuelwood extraction are a problem in both ecoregions.
Despite these problems and the exclusion of the Kenyan data, Figure 5 provides a reasonable picture of the relative importance of the overall threats in the hotspot. Population growth, hunting, grazing and mining rank higher in the Eastern Arc Mountains. Agriculture and encroachment, timber extraction, polewood cutting and especially charcoal rank higher in the Coastal Forests. Some of these differences in ranking may result from different degrees of legal protection in the two countries. In both, the most important threats arise from the immediate needs of people, rather than from any large-scale developmental projects or corporate ventures.
Root causes of threats in the hotspot were analyzed in workshops during proposal preparation both by GEF and WWF-EARPO (GEF 2002; WWF-EARPO 2003). Table 5 is adapted from the GEF analysis, which broadly captures the root causes identified by WWF-EARPO and lists some of their manifestations. The order of presentation of these root causes is not a ranking of their importance.
In the likely absence of positive macro-economic changes and of large-scale industrialization in the continent, the next generation of rural farmers in Africa will continue to depend heavily on the free resources that that they can extract from their surroundings. The first three root causes in Table 5 (population growth, poverty and inefficient land use) will, therefore, continue to generate threats to forests and forest lands for some time to come. What is less clear is how much conservation organizations can do about these problems and what proportion of their limited resources should be invested in the attempt. Development agencies have been active in Africa with far more resources for many decades, yet rural poverty persists. Another difficulty is that the path to development often involves the massive ecological transformation of landscapes and it is precisely this process that is destroying tropical forests. This is what makes conservationists and development practitioners such awkward partners (Struhsaker 1997; Oates 1999; Terborgh 1999).
The fourth root cause in Table 5 is negative value systems re conservation and lack of environmental awareness. A variety of innovative approaches to raising conservation awareness have been developed during the last 50 years and international conservation organizations have succeeded in putting biodiversity issues firmly on global agendas. The hotspot focus of CEPF and the resources it commands, is a good example of this, but the need to reach the rural poor is what is implied in Table 5. This is as urgent as ever, but all too often it generates contradictory messages. Unless awareness can be linked to incentive, only the contradictions are seen. In the absence of material incentives for conservation, it is difficult to change value systems, particularly when poverty gives little opportunity to think beyond short-term needs. The most promising approach in parts of this hotspot may be through innovative awareness raising of water catchment values of the Eastern Arc Mountains.
Many conservation projects have tackled the issues of alternative livelihoods and of communal exchange and networking. The creation of alternative livelihoods is a useful local approach for civil society, especially when combined with good law enforcement by those institutions responsible for forest management. This combination is more rare than it ought to be. The problems of communal exchange and networking are now much less serious than they were, thanks to the growth of communications technology and to the increasing effectiveness of workshop and community outreach techniques. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the CEPF workshop organized as part of producing this profile was the first time that people working in the Eastern Arc Mountains and the Coastal Forests of Kenya and Tanzania had met to discuss common problems. It is also still true that exchange and networking is much more common among people working in NGOs and government institutions than at the community level. Workshops and meetings are expensive and they lose value when the same faces repeatedly appear.
The lack of local mechanisms for controlling forest exploitation reflects both a breakdown in cultural traditions and how the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments took such matters out of the hands of the local people sometime ago. That so little forest remains, outside forest and local authority reserves suggests that the government interventions were well advised. Where there has been continuity in forest protection by local communities, as in the case of some of the Kaya forests in coastal Kenya, there has been real success and the prospects for replication with other sacred forests in Tanzania are good. Where the continuity is lacking, the prospects are weaker. This is a serious issue for Participatory Forest Management initiatives in the hotspot. Sound technical advice on sustainable offtake is also, obviously, essential. Good networking on these problems should help.
The need for an ecosystem-wide strategic focus has long been recognized in efforts to conserve major water catchments such as the Ulugurus, which supply 3 million people in Dar es Salaam with water. In biodiversity conservation, the lack of such a focus has been the impetus for major conservation investments such as the big GEF project for the Eastern Arc Mountains. The CEPF approach of defining species, sites and corridor outcomes within the context of landscape level hotspots is also a systematic attempt to deal with this difficulty.
Weak forest governance is pervasive in the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests hotspot and is being increasingly addressed by involving more stakeholders, particularly among the local communities and civil society. Forest management is a multi-stakeholder business. As described in the section on policy and legislation, reform in both Kenya and Tanzania is directly tackling this issue. This reform is creating opportunities for both the private sector and for local communities to become involved in forest management. To date, most conservation organizations have paid far more attention to the latter than the former.
The issue of inadequate and poorly directed fiscal resources afflicts nearly every government department in Kenya and Tanzania. A good example in the hotspot is provided by Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. In the 1998-99 financial year, the Forest Department spent $106,497 on this 41,700 ha forest (Muriithi & Kenyon 2002), out of which 98 percent ($104,536) was used to pay salaries. This left only $2,114 for operational costs. In 1998, $7,536 was raised from this forest from fines, rents, timber royalties and sales of fuelwood, polewood and Christmas trees. The best that can be said for such a situation is that it is easy to persuade local communities that they have more to gain from their own enterprises than from sharing in official Forest Department revenues. Although the budget for Arabuko-Sokoke is obviously inadequate, it is nonetheless higher than those for most forests in Kenya and Tanzania. It works out at roughly $.2.5 per hectare, compared to overall estimates of $1.08 (Kenya) and $1.01 (Tanzania) per hectare for public expenditure on forestry (Whiteman 2003).
With funding like this, it is surprising that there is any protection at all. It is hard for Forest Department officers to do a good job in such circumstances, particularly when corruption comes from the top (as in the recent past in Kenya) and where the resource is valuable (e.g. carving wood at Arabuko-Sokoke). This problem can only be effectively tackled by a combination of long-term funding and institutional reforms (GEF 2002) in the context of good governance at national level. Site level interventions (training of guards, provision of uniforms and boots, etc.) are helpful, but their positive effects are at best short-lived unless the larger problem is tackled. Solving the larger problem is also necessary if community partnerships in management are to improve protection. In the absence of better governance from the top, participatory management may simply lengthen the food chain for illegally harvested forest produce.
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