THE PROJECT SITES: 

WHAT ARE THE BIODIVERSITY VALUES?  

MINZIRO - SANGO BAY SWAMP-FOREST 

(TANZANIA – UGANDA)

This is a continuous forest across the Tanzania, Uganda border.  The forest is believed to have been a refugium, providing a haven for forest species during Pleistocene climatic changes.  As a result, there are many endemic taxa, (species or sub-species found nowhere else on earth) including a dominant tree, the swamp Podocarpus.

Minziro Forest is the only location in Tanzania where many species of West African associations are found.  The area is a mixture of closed forests and seasonal and perennial swamps and wetlands.

THE DRY MOUNTAINS FORESTS

(UGANDA, TANZANIA & KENYA)

Mountain such as Moroto in Uganda, Loima in Kenya, Monduli in Tanzania rise to some 3,000 m from a semi-arid pastoralist bushland.  The mountains have an evergreen forest cover, which further attracts rainfall.  The forests not only have intrinsic biodiversity values themselves (e.g. the higher altitude, Juniperus forest species communities) but also act as dry season refuges for species from a much wider area.  Springs and see pages from the mountains support local communities wildlife (and pastoralists) for a large hinterland!

THE FORESTS OF TAITA AND PARE MOUNTAINS  

(KENYA & TANZANIA)

These are the northern parts of the Eastern Arc Mountain Forests, better known as Africa’s most important forest biodiversity site for forest areas further south such as the Usambaras.  But the tiny and fragmented patches of remaining forest on both Kenya’s Taita and Tanzania’s South Pare Mountains have their share of endemic taxa; birds, herpetofauna, invertebrates and plants.

These three sets of sites are not only of GLOBAL and NATIONAL significance, but they also reflect cross border issues and values, implying a strong REGIONAL linkage.  That is the crux of this project.