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Paine ( 1996). Priorities for biodiversity conservation 
in the tropics . WCMC Biodiversity Bulletin No /. 
WCMC. Cambridge. 
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Government Printer. Entebbe. 
Langdale- Brown. I . H A Osmaston and J. G Wilson. 
(1964) The vegetation of Uganda and us hearing 
on land-use Government Printer. Entebbe 
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Pomeroy. D.E. and H Tushabe (1996). Biodiversity 
of Karamoja : A report to the Ministry of Tourism. 
Wildlife and Antiquities MUIENR. Kampala. 
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WCMC 1998 Darwin Initiative Handbooks on 
Biodiversity Information Management Reynolds 
J H. (Ed.). Commonwealth Secretariat. London 
Tushabe. H . D.E. Pomeroy, and J Reynolds (in 
press) Predicting bird species occurrences for 
conservation planning in Uganda Proceedings of 
the Pan African Ornithological Congress I X Accra. 
Ghana. 
UNESCO 1983 The vegetation of Africa UNESCO. 
Paris. 
KAKAMEGA FOREST: AN INTEGRATED 
CONSERVATION PROJECT 
Kakamega forest is a pan of what is today known as 
the Guinco-Congolian rainforest, scattered across 
Uganda. Zaire and Kenya It is the only surviving rain 
forest in Kenya (Kokwaro. 1988) As such, the foresi 
harbours central African flora and is distinct from the 
other forests of Kenya (WCMC. 1988) For the people 
of Kenya, the Kakamega forest is a precious remnant 
of the once vast trans-African rainforest ecosystem. It 
has very imponant biodiversity value with a remarkable 
diversity of plants, birds and insects not tound anywhere 
else in the country. 
BACKGROUND 
Kakamega forest has been gazetted a forest reserve 
since 1933 The total remaining area of this foresi was 
24.000 ha (Kokwaro. 1988). but repons today show 
only 15.480 ha of which 13.888 ha is under natural 
forest and 1.591 ha is occupied by plantation (Foresi 
Department, unpublished data) Between 10-20% ol 
the total number of the animal species in Kakamega 
are found nowhere else in Kenya The forest is also 
invaluable for the people living around it who depend 
on it for food, herbal medicines, tuel, building materials 
and general income A recent valuation of the off-take 
of these multiple products from the forest gave a 
conservative figure of USS 1.7 million a year 
(KIFCON. 1994) The forest also serves as a very vital 
water catchment area for the rivers flowing into Lake 
Victoria The conservation of the Kakamega forest and 
us biodiversity is therefore of great importance to the 
local community and the world. 
As human population increases, parts or the forest 
are being cleared or burnt As a result, biological 
diversity has been decreased, there has been increased 
"desertification" and increased hardship for the local 
inhabitants The exploitation of resources has taken 
place in such a haphazard, excessive, wasteful and 
uncomroll.iblc w ay that mu only is the foresi resource 
steadily diminishing, but us capacity to recover is also 
being destroyed The disintegration of the forest has 
also resulted in the breakup of the main forest block 
into smaller separate islands. An indicator of how 
rapidly the forest is disintegrating is the outcome of a 
1991 survey (KIFCON. 1992), which compared 
standing Umber volumes then with those from similar 
surveys 26 years before It showed that in the short 
period, the forest had lost 50% of its volume Die study 
l u rtlicr estimated that it would take about 60 years of 
complete protection and without any other interventions 
to restore it to its 1965 condition. 
The forest is surrounded by a hungry and growing 
population In a survey of 15.00(1 ol these households 
around the torest. 84% were found to use (he forest to 
provide at least one basic commodity and each 
household was found to earn 9.020 Kenya shillings (USS 
120) per annum from forest use (Etncrfon. 1 994) The 
population per square kilometre in the area is 268 as 
compared to II in the coastal forests (Wass. 1994) 
The Kakamega area is not only the most densely 
populated but still maintains the highest population 
growth rates in Kenya The pressure is therefore very 
high, noi only for forest products, hm tor conversion 
of forest land to agriculture Fuel wixxl harvesting is 
very high and has been estimated to be about I0(».(NX) 
cubic meters a year (KIFCON. 1992). much of it going 
into charcoal production. Calculations have shown the 
maximum oll-take ol fuel wood that the forest can 
sustain is about 20% ol that ligurc The demands made 
on the forest are now more than n is able to supply 
There is a real danger that Kakamega forest could 
disappear in the next decade unless new approaches to 
these problems are developed 
Because Kenya has unsound economic, 
cnvironmemal 'natural resource policies, and ineffective 
environmental laws that govern resource use, over 
exploitation of forest resources has been the order of 
the day country-wide The current forest management 
set-up at Kakamega foresi is inadequate to properly 
manage these forest resources sustainably Conservation 
ol the forest by using forest guards to patrol the forest 
and imposing penalties to offenders has been successful 
in the section of the torest managed by the Kenya 
