East African Wildlife Society - Forest Conservation in East Africa

Story by Guido Broekhoven and Gideon Gathaara
Originally printed in Swara magazine, Sept/Oct 1995

This article is an introduction to the specific forests and their conservation status as discussed in this issue of Swara.

East Africa Is Particularly famous for its savanna ecosystems and their big herds of large mammals. Yet, the region also harbours a remarkably wide variety of natural forests, supporting a wealth of biological diversity and endemism among plants, birds and mammals.

The East Africa forest types include:

• Lowland rain forest which occurs in Kenya and Uganda, and as a component of some relic grass-land-forest mosaics in Kenya and Tanzania, and also as small remnants of coastal forest in Kenya and Tanzania.
• Mountain rain forest and submontane forest are found in all three countries. The submontane forests of the Eastern Arc in Tanzania and Kenya have long been famous for their many rare animals and plants and particularly high rate of endemism.
• Dryland forests and woodlands which are found throughout the region.
• Swamp forests and mangroves. Swamp forests occur in Tanzania and Uganda and mangroves are found in patches all along the coastline of Kenya and Tanzania. It is now generally accepted that the forests of East Africa fulfill many functions at local, national and international levels: in addition to being the source of wood and non-wood products, they provide and irreplaceable habitat for many plant and animal species, protect watersheds, are part of the social and cultural life of many people and influence local climates.

This article will look at some of the major issues in relation to the management and conservation of the region's forests. The articles by Butynski about the Tana Delta (page 28) and Bennun about the Arabuko Sokoke Forest (page 22) will describe in more detail some specific forests and their biodiversity.

Main Issues In Forest Conservation

In the 1980's, it became clear that there was increasing need for much greater emphasis and investment of both human and financial resources in natural forest management and conservation. Several initiatives were designed and implemented to this end. Tanzania was among the first countries in the world to develop a Forest Action Plan (in 1989), Kenya and Uganda followed with the Kenya Forestry Master Plan and Uganda Forest Rehabilitation Programme respectively. The programmes aim at developing a long term strategy for the management of national forest and tree resources and they all attach considerable importance to improved conservation and management of natural forests.

The implementation of these plans and other forest conservation initiatives in the region have had varying success to date and fierce debate continues about the principles underpinning appropriate forest management and conservation. Some of these issues will be reviewed in the following sections.

How Much Forest Do We Need?

The status of forest in East Africa

All three East African countries share the problems of small, fragmented areas of forest under extreme pressure of encroachment and exploitation. The remaining forest patches make up less than three percent of the land area in the region and these forests are often heavily degraded. It has been suggested that the forest cover in East Africa was much more extensive some millennia ago. Yet, precise information on the history of the forest cover in the region is lacking.

Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine how much natural forest cover a country or region needs, it has been generally accepted that the few remaining natural forests in East Africa are too precious to lose. Yet, even without delving too deeply into the discussion about the definition of forests, natural forests, forest cover, etc, it is clear from the information presented in Table 1 and from other sources that there is still a reduction of the area of natural forest taking place in the region. This reduction is due to clearing for agriculture and settlement, with mining, small holder encroachment and urban development having impacts in localized areas.

Forests on government land are managed by local authorities (district forest reserves or trust land) or by the central government (forest reserves). Some decrease of the area of natural forest is due to excisions from forest reserves. A recent study by IUCN about trends in forest cover in Kenya concluded that 'in spite of intentions stipulating that forest excisions [from government forest reserves] should cease, degazettement continues, and the forests that are excised are often significant in terms of biodiversity or in size, and important criterion in the maintenance of biodiversity.' The study furthermore concluded that since 1986, Kenya has lost about 15,000 hectares of natural forest due to excisions.

Whose Forests?

Forest management strategies, ownership and access rights

Much of the present debate about forest conservation centres around who should manage the forests. Government forest reserves have been established since the beginning of this century and are managed by the government, originally to supply industrial forest products and to generate revenue. Increasingly forests are seen as also being valuable for the conservation of biodiversity and for catchment functions. Yet, these forests were, more often than not, used extra-legally by people living in and around them. When the central government took over the control of forest resources local forest management arrangements, which had existed under traditional tribal law, were effectively weakened. Thus, the forests often became open access areas for local people and forest use became based on a free for all situation: no longer controlled through local forest management arrangements, local communities started to overuse the forest. This problem was further compounded by the fact that forest departments generally do not receive sufficient funds for forest conservation, since natural forests that do not produce timber are often seen as liabilities rather than assets.

The challenge for modern forest management is to reconcile the different interests in the forest (local, national, international), in particular the often overlooked local interests, and to develop long term and sustainable management strategies which meet the needs of all sectors of society.

The first step in this process is to identify the groups that have an interest in the management of the forest. These groups include local communities living around the forests and using its products, and both government and non-governmental institutions. The next step is to enhance the commitment of these interest groups in the conservation and management of the forest, through a carefully designed sharing of the authority and responsibility for the management of the forests. This is particularly relevant now that, due to economic reforms and Structural Adjustment Programmes, the role of central government becomes more focused on policy development and the responsibility for implementation is devolved to districts and other decentralized structures.

These shared management arrangements must take into account the local, national and global functions of the forest. A recent review of literature by WWF and IUCN in relation to local participation in natural resource management showed that in this respect it is important to take into account the following questions:

Do local people get sufficient incentives to participate in the management of the forest?

Do all groups involved have an adequate role in decision making, making sure the policies and proposals are realistic and desirable?

The challenge for conservationists is to accommodate the socio-economic needs (demand) of the people that use forest products with the ecological constraints (supply) of the forest. This is often done through the promotion of sustainable use of forest products by local communities and the promotion of alternative products for forest products.

The article by Hoelsloot and Onyango about Mount Elgon (page 33) illustrates an attempt to do just that: to improve the conservation of important forest sites through community participation. Similar initiatives are also implemented in Kenya (eg: on Mount Kenya) and in Tanzania (eg: in the East Usambaras Mountains). The goal of these projects, sometimes referred to as Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs), is to manage the forest and its biodiversity in a sustainable way through a combination of local protection activities, sustainable use of forest products, and the provision of alternatives for forest products that are overharvested.

How To Manage Forest?

Forest conservation beyond projects

There are many indirect factors which slowly and inexorably may be influencing the future of the natural forests and which are undermining their sustainable use. Demographic changes, such as expanding populations and migration; rapidly changing social and cultural circumstances; macro-economic reforms; conflicting policies and land-use trends are examples of such factors. How can these broader issues be addressed?

The conventional approach to addressing forest conservation problems has been through implementation of special projects focused on a particular 'problem' and generally implemented through a single line agency (eg: a forest department). However, it is being recognized that many forest management problems require a range of responses that complement and integrate the work of various agencies at different levels (regional, national and local) as well as non-governmental agencies and others. There is a need to think beyond conventional projects to new project structures designed to link together all actors in relation to the broader development issues. Cooperation is necessary at different levels and between different sectors of society. Not only at the local level with the people that use forest products, as discussed above, but also at regional and national levels:

Regional Cooperation

Some forests in East Africa are shared by two countries. Examples include the Mount Elgon Forest, shared by Kenya and Uganda, and the Sango Bay – Minziro Forest complex, shared by Uganda and Tanzania. Proper management and conservation of these forests will need cooperation between the countries involved. Other issues where cooperation will be beneficial include, amongst others, monitoring of timber trade (See Marshall's article on page 24) and capacity building for forest conservation.

Cooperation at national level

Cooperation in the development of policy, legislation and planning between different government sectors and between the government and private and non-governmental institutions is required to address the complex underlying causes of the growing human pressures on the forest resources. Planning should be aimed at identifying, analyzing and understanding these underlying causes and on determining how these can be mitigated. Forests of high biological diversity need to be identified and their management integrated into a broader geographical, intersectoral and long term perspective.

Outlook

Several promising initiatives are being implemented along the above lines by different sectors of society, including government and non-governmental organisations. Pilot projects are underway which explore new approaches to forest conservation and which build on local structures and management systems. Yet, much still remains to be done to create the enabling environment to exploit the potential of these initiatives and to stop further forest degradation and loss of forest cover.