Death of Cedar Trees Cause Great Concern
March 19, 1998

Catherine Mgendi, Daily Nation Newspaper, Nairobi, Kenya (reproduced with permission of writer). Other Nation articles available on the WWW at: http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/Today/index.html

      Kenya's only indigenous softwood forests are under siege from little understood pests and diseases, a forestry advisor of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Mr. James Denny Ward has said.
     "When you find a dead tree every five meters you walk, this is surely an environmental, and ecological catastrophe," says Mr. Ward.
     He says aerial photographs taken during a 1994 resource survey around Samburu Lodge for instance, shows extensive areas of dead, grey trees with absolutely no greenery.
     Mr. Ward, who previously worked as a consultant for the Forest Department, was in the country earlier this month to attend a workshop on the use of the Internet as a communication tool for integrated pest Management within Sub-Saharan Africa.  The workshop was organized by the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (lcipe) in Nairobi.
     A Moi University forestry lecturer, Prof. Joe Mwangi who also attended the workshop confirmed the devastation of cedar forests, saying the most severely affected forests are in Maralal, Nanyuki and Narok areas.  Other affected areas are on the slopes of Mount Kenya and Elgon, and in Rift Valley, especially in Baringo and Kabarnet.
     The cedar tree, Juniperus procera, is one of Africa, most important indigenous softwoods thus the name — the African Pencil Cedar.
     Kenya, according to Mr. Ward, has the bulk of Africa's remaining cedar trees.
     Most of Kenya's cedar trees, which closely resemble the cypress except for a very pleasant scent, are on average more than 500 years old with girths of between three to four feet, says Prof. Mwangi.
     He says that some of its key uses include production of durable timber and building poles, while its bark is traditionally used as rooting material.  The cedar's extensive canopy and its limited water requirements also make it useful in the protection of water catchment areas.
     According to a past issue of Green Horizon, a newsletter of the Forest Health Management Centre, cedar forests cover some 200,000 hectares in Kenya.
     A 1994 report titled Assessment of Forest Diseases in Kenya With Specific Emphasis on Cedar Decline says:   "Many of the cedar trees are over 500 years old and are dying over a very short — five to 10 years period of time.  Thousands of hectareas of cedar trees are dying in several places in Kenya."
     Studies preceding the report found out that 80 to 90 per cent of the tree samples collected from some areas either dead or dying.
     The report, which was prepared by another USDA Forest Pathology consultant, Mr. Robert L. Anderson, for the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, attributed the widespread death of the cedar to 14 factors.
     In Northern Narok for instance, the small leafless parasitic dwarf mistletoe plants were found firmly anchored on cedar stems extracting the trees' nutrients.
     Other than draining the trees, mistletoe infestation also makes the trees susceptible to infection by other micro-organisms, according to the report.
     It says that the Narok cedar were also found to be severely infected with bacteria that cause branch and stem galls, which in turn disrupt the trees' vascular system.  In severe cases, entire tree trunk is completely encircled by the galls, the report says.
     Debarking of trees for roofing materials, or by livestock is listed as yet another major cause of the trees' death.  According to the report, most of the trees examined had 50 to 100 per cent of their trunk circumference ringed off, and as low as the tree bases too, making them vulnerable to attack by disease-causing agents.
     Another factor was decaying of cedar stems and roots as a result of fungal infections.  The report says the fungi gain access to the trees when debarked or scarred by fire, travel up the truck and down to the root system killing the tree from the inside.  The decay process takes at least 30 years.
     Another fungus of the genus Cercospora was attributed to the death of cedar forests in Maralal.  It causes needle blight.
     "The symptoms seemed to start in the lower branches close to the main stem and moved upward and outward until green shoots remain only on the growing tip with devastating effects," the report says.
     Other factors listed as possible causes of the cedar's death include the cypress aphid, twig and bark beetles, bark borers and so on.
     "It appears that these factors are the major components of a complex causing the cedar decline.  With the exception of the dwarf mistletoe and possibly the cercospora needle blight, it seems that many factors work together to produce the decline symptoms," the 1994 report says.
     Prof. Mwangi and Mr. Ward say what needs to be done is to heighten the protection of the tree above that given to other indigenous forest species.
     "The cedar has to be considered as an endangered species and treated like the rhino," the two said adding, a "Save the Cider" campaign would enable urgent mobilization of resources for thorough studies on what could be killing the tree.
     However, they say certain emergency measures must be taken now before the studies begin.  These include assessing the extent of damage so far, creating awareness on what is happening in order to mobilize as much support as possible for saving the tree, and finding alternative roofing materials for communities that use the cedar bark.
     They also say re-establishing cedar forests by, for example prioritizing the planting of cedar during national tree planting days, and keeping out livestock from the forests are other measures that can be taken to avert the catastrophic loss of the country's cedar forests.
     Says Mr. Ward: "The death of the cedar is not just about loss of trees; it is also about the loss of an entire ecosystem.