Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya ...

GEF-UNDP or GTZ support, as did the West Usambaras which had 10 years of GTZ funding.Should funding stop completely, then much of the progress with forest conservation achieved inthese sites over the last 10 years could be jeopardized.Fourthly, other important sites in Figure 6 have not had any external funding for decades. Mostimportant amongst these is the Nguru Mountains, which has never had an externally fundedproject intervention and is also relatively poorly known biologically. Within the coastal forests,those of Muheza District have no external support and yet contain important biological values,especially close to the East Usambara Mountains.Lastly, some sites do not appear in Figure 6 because there is inadequate knowledge of theirbiodiversity values. These include the Nguu and Rubeho Mountains in Tanzania (which aredifficult to access) and Boni and Dodori Forests in Kenya (where there are security problems).They will receive no external conservation support in 2003 and have never received conservationsupport in the past. Such sites should rank highly as priorities for investment, both in terms ofbiological study and conservation action.CEPF NICHE FOR INVESTMENTThe CEPF niche for investment was determined through analysis of the species and siteoutcomes, threats and current investments and through a participatory workshop involving 48local, national and international experts on the hotspot. Although the workshop did not prioritizesites for investment, certain sites have been selected for immediate attention under two of thefive strategic directions recommended in this profile. This has been done to avoid diluting theimpacts of crucial investments by spreading them across too large an area.The species outcomes define the CEPF niche in terms of global imperatives for biodiversityconservation. The primary focus of the niche for this hotspot is the 333 species, which are mostthreatened with extinction according to The 2002 IUCN Red Lists (Appendix 1). The ultimatetest of the success of global conservation investments in the hotspot is the number of thesethreatened species that survive in the long term. It follows that: (1) only those projects thatcontribute to the survival of these species should be funded by CEPF and (2) that monitoring thesurvival of these species is, in itself, an important component of the CEPF investment niche. Itmust also be recognized that the number of globally threatened species is dynamic and willgreatly increase as the IUCN Red List is updated and becomes more comprehensive. The speciesoutcomes will, therefore, need to be updated from time to time.The site outcomes define the CEPF niche in terms of geographical locations. The 333 globallythreatened species identified in Appendix 1 are found in the top 152 sites listed in Appendix 2.An additional nine sites are included in Appendix 2 (making the overall total of 160 sites)because they are IBAs with restricted-range bird species and globally significant congregationsof birds. Projects funded by CEPF must be expected to have positive impacts on biodiversityconservation in at least one of these 160 sites. If these impacts are to be measured, site-levelmonitoring must also be an important part of the niche.As noted earlier, conservation corridor outcomes were not identified in this hotspot because ofthe small size of the hotspot and the degree of natural fragmentation that exists, without which52