Marina Cords' Research - Kakamega Forest

The Kakamega Forest lies 150 km west of the Rift Valley in Kenya at an altitude of 1600 m. It is the easternmost extension of the great Congo Basin forests which once stretched across the middle of Africa, but which have been fragmented in the last century by human activity. The forest officially covers an area of 178 square kilometers. Within its boundaries there is a considerable variety of habitats, including almost ‘pristine’ rainforest, swamp and riverine forest, colonizing forest, disturbed forest, forestry plantations, natural glades, and recent clearings made for pit-sawing and charcoal burning. Closed canopy indigenous forest covers about Field and Forest

25% of the officially gazetted area. The forest is a high biodiversity area, including over 300 species of birds, and over 350 species of plants. About 10 to 20 percent of the animal species in the forest are not found elsewhere in Kenya. Primates in the forest include blue monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis), redtailed monkeys (C. ascanius), de Brazza’s monkeys (C. neglectus), black and white colobus monkeys (Colobus guereza), olive baboons (Papio hamadryas anubis), and pottos (Periodicticus potto). Now and then we see a vervet (Cercopithecus aethiops).

The Kakamega Forest is an island of relatively ‘natural’ habitat in a sea of human-dominated landscape. Over 200,000 people, mainly farmers on small family farms, live on its edges. High rainfall supports intensive agriculture, just as it supports the forest habitat. The forest has been a resource for local people for generations, as a source of fuelwood, building poles, household items (like vines-ropes) and food (honey, bushmeat). Many of these traditional uses are now outlawed, but they continue, at least partly because people have no easy alternatives, because law enforcement is haphazard and incomplete, and because many people do not understand how their actions and choices can influence the future of their community and families.