Forest cover and change for the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya circa 2000 to circa 2010 Final report Karyn Tabor, Japhet J. Kashaigili, Boniface Mbilinyi, and Timothy M. Wright Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2 1.1 Biodiversity Values of the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests ....................................... 2 1.2 The threats to the forests ............................................................................................................. 5 1.3 Trends in deforestation ................................................................................................................. 6 1.4 The importance of monitoring ...................................................................................................... 8 Methods ........................................................................................................................................................ 8 2.1 study area ............................................................................................................................................ 8 2.1 Mapping methodology ........................................................................................................................ 8 2.3 Habitat change statistics ..................................................................................................................... 9 2.4 Map validation .................................................................................................................................... 9 Results ......................................................................................................................................................... 10 3.1 Deforestation rates ........................................................................................................................... 10 3.2 Forest cover and change map ........................................................................................................... 11 3.2 Habitat cover and change statistics .................................................................................................. 12 Table 2. Forest cover and change for the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal forests (Tanzania and Kenya). ................................................................................................................................................ 12 Table 3. Mangrove cover and change for the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal forests (Tanzania and Kenya). ......................................................................................................................................... 12 Table 4. Forest cover and change for Kenya’s Districts. ..................................................................... 12 Table 5. Forest cover and change for Tanzania’s Districts. ................................................................. 13 Table 6. Rates of deforestation inside verses outside conservation areas in Kenya .......................... 14 Table 7. Rates of deforestation inside verses outside conservation areas in Tanzania ..................... 14 3.3 Validation .......................................................................................................................................... 14 Table 8. Validation Matrix ................................................................................................................... 14 Discussion.................................................................................................................................................... 14 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 15 References .................................................................................................................................................. 17 Appendix A .................................................................................................................................................. 20 Table A1. Forest cover and change for Kenya’s KBAs. ........................................................................ 20 Table A2. Forest cover and change for Tanzania’s KBAs. ................................................................... 21 Table A3. Forest cover and change for Kenya’s protected areas. ...................................................... 22 Table A4. Forest cover and change for Tanzania’s protected areas. .................................................. 23 Table A5. Forest cover and change for Kenya’s forest reserves. ........................................................ 30 Table A6. Forest cover and change for Tanzania’s forest reserves. ................................................... 30 Introduction 1.1 Biodiversity Values of the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests The Eastern Arc Mountains The Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests of Kenya and Tanzania (EACF) are very important due to their biological richness (BirdLife International, 2013), have been designated a hotspot by Conservation International, and are also considered one of WWF’s Global 200 priority ecoregions. Many thousands of species of plants and animals are found in these forests and nowhere else on earth (EAMCEF, 2012), and these include at least 100 species of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles; at least 500 plants and huge numbers of smaller creatures including butterflies and millipedes. The name “Eastern Arc Mountains” (EAM) originated as a handy way to describe the unique area of forests that contained many rare plants and animals (Lovett, 1998). The areas are characterized by a high level of species endemism, a severe degree of threat and exceptional diversity of plant and animal communities. The mountains span the crystalline rock mountains of eastern Tanzania and south-eastern Kenya that the biologists have long known about the extraordinary species richness. According to FBD (2006), the Usambara Mountains in north-eastern Tanzania were one of the first areas to be studied seriously, starting about 100 years ago. Gradually other areas such as the Uluguru Mountains were visited by scientists and also proven to be biologically very important. Studies in the Udzungwa Mountains started in the 1970s. These revealed that many of the species thought to be found only in the Usambara Mountains were also present in southern Tanzania. Studies in the Livingstone Mountains (also crystalline rock mountains) further south above Lake Nyasa showed that these mountains contain different species from the rest of the mountains and are thus not included in the definition of the Eastern Arc Mountains (Lovett, 1998). On the Tanzanian side, the Eastern Arc Mountains therefore include North Pare, South Pare, West Usambara, East Usambara, Nguu, Nguru, Uluguru, Malundwe, Ukaguru, Rubeho, Udzungwa and Mahenge (Figure 1). The hotspot is believed to contain at least 1,500 endemic plant species, 16 endemic mammals, 22 endemic birds, 50 endemic reptiles and 33 endemic amphibians (Lovett & Wasser, 1993; Burgess & Clarke, 2000; Myers et al., 2000). The 2002 IUCN Red List identifies 333 species as either critically endangered, endangered, or threatened in the hotspot. Twenty out of twenty-one African Violets found in the Eastern Arc Mountains are endemic. According to Siex et al. (2011), the Kihansi spray toad Nectophrynoides asperginis, endemic to the Uzungwa Scarp Forest Reserve, is now probably extinct in the world. Recent studies (Burgess, 2012) revealed rediscoveries of species previously thought to be extinct. For example Erythrina schliebenii Harms and Karomia gigas (Faden) Verdc., have been rediscovered in the little-known Namatimbili–Ngarama forest block located some 35 km inland of Kilwa in south-east Tanzania. Nectophrynoide swendaye, another hyper-endemic, was recorded at a new site,0.5 km from the original site in Uzungwa Scarp Forest Reserve (Siex et al., 2011) while the Critically Endangered Long-billed Tailorbird Artisornis moreaui was recorded at the Misalai village landscape (Leonard et al., 2010) thus extending the range for both species. A recent compilation of the past records of the African golden cat Caracal aurata, Africa's least known felid; suggest that this species’ range extends to Arabuko-Sokoke Forest on the Kenya coast (Butynski et al., 2012). Figure 1. Figure 1 shows the Eastern Arc Mountains and the reserve network they contain (FBD, 2006) BirdLife International, (2013) revealed the continued discoveries in the EAM in Tanzania, especially among reptiles and amphibians. Recent analysis of reptile and amphibian data collected since 1997 from the Eastern Arc Mountains mostly by the Natural History Museum of Trento has doubled the number of these species known to be endemic to the mountains (TFCG, 2010). The yet to be completed analysis has identified a number of evolutionary significant units, with c 300 new distribution records and c 70 nondescript endemics. These discoveries are said to double the number of amphibian species known to be endemic to the Eastern Arc Mountains (TFCG, 2010). In the South Ngurus 16 herpetofauna species strictly endemic to the mountain block have been identified and the list could be found in BirdLife International, (2013). Despite the discoveries, studies conducted by Borghesio et al. (2010) in 2009 and 2010 strongly