Survey and Inventory of Amani Botanical Garden -
Implementation of the Survey

The field work was conducted between the 22 October and 19 December 1996. This involved a considerable amount of survey work with measurements, slashing, re-opening and re-establishment of ABG boundaries based on the Greenway survey and maps. Much work was required for demarcating boundaries on the ground and delineating those boundaries graphically, numerically and/or in writing.

The field survey work was divided into two phases. Phase one was to survey the external boundaries, and phase two to re-survey the internal boundaries.  Major survey and mapping guidelines for the whole Amani Botanical Garden boundaries was obtained from the following sources:

The Amani Botanical Garden originally was established within the research station estate. Over time parts of the estate was gazetted as forest reserves (Amani West and Amani East Forest Reserves). However, parts of the estate, and surprisingly parts of the Amani plantations (later called the Amani Botanical Garden) remained outside the gazetted forest reserves but belong to the research station estate, now occupied by the National Institute of Medical Research. Presently, as the survey shows, parts of the ABG lies within the forest reserves now to become the Amani Nature Reserve, while parts lie outside in the former estate area, which either is within the public land or the holder of the title to the Amani Research Station estate. Part of ABG in the south is found on public land.

Species identification, boundary demarcation, naming and locating the 19 main plantation blocks with a total of 133 compartments was made. These were marked by temporarily labelled pegs in the field. These will be replaced immediately by permanent labelled signboards.  Additionally, the tree species present in the compartments, which either have regenerated or were originally planted, were identified.  Only identification and naming of species was done without a more detailed inventory of numbers and status of the plants present in each compartment.

A great number of the original trees planted have died and others have possibly been exploited, especially in the NIMR-ARC area.  Hence, it was rather difficult to be able to determine exactly which year they had been planted. Moreover, there was regeneration of original as well as other species in the compartments.

Small, spot-shaped plots were not demarcated. Only compartments large enough to be easily detected and demarcated were marked.

The following plantation blocks, with their compartment numbers, were included.

See attached Map 2 and Table II showing the location and schedule descriptions of the above plantation blocks and compartments.

The office work, which included mapping and area compilation, was done between the 19 December, 1996 and  26 February, 1997.

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