Kambai Forest Reserve: A biodiversity survey. - Coastal Forests of ...

Kambai Forest Reserve
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1987). The Usambaras harbour many species which have been geographically separated
from their closest relatives for long periods. They also serve as a refuge for formerly
widespread flora and fauna that have become extinct over much of their former area
(Iversen, 1991). The conservation and preservation of this unique area of biodiversity should
be given high priority.
2.0 AIMS OF THE SURVEY
The specific aims of the survey as outlined in the Terms of Reference between Frontier
Tanzania Forest Research Programme and the East Usambara Catchment Forest Project
are:
• to conduct biological baseline surveys in selected gazetted forests and in forests which
are proposed for gazettement;
• to provide information on the biological value and importance of these forests in order to
assist in the development of management plans and practices for these forests;
• to develop a system for monitoring aspects of forest biodiversity, both on a general as
well as a forest-specific level.
Furthermore, the aims of the survey methods applied are:
• to sample the vegetation and tree species composition of six forests of the East
Usambaras using systematic sampling techniques along systematically located vegetation
transects, which sample approximately 0.5% in area of each forest reserve;
• to assess levels of disturbance by systematically sampling the incidence of tree cutting,
animal trapping and other illegal activities along the vegetation transects;
• to use standard and repeatable methods to record biodiversity values of the forest in
terms of small mammal species, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrate species;
• to collect opportunistic data on all other groups of vertebrate and invertebrates. Species
lists resulting from this will be compared against standard appraisals of species rarity and
other values in order to assess the overall biodiversity values of each forest.
• to undertake a socio-economic appraisal of the impact of resource-use activities by
human communities in the vicinity of each forest and produce a brief assessment of how
these activities affect the integrity of the forests.
Consequently, this survey will provide standardised and repeatable methods to assess the
biodiversity values of the forests to enable their importance to be determined and permit
biodiversity value to be monitored through time.
East Usambara Catchment Forest Project Technical Paper 35