Family / Scientific name - Coastal Forests of Kenya and Tanzania

1 Introduction
REMP Technical Report 44: Biodiversity Summary
1.1 Aim
The aim of this report is to compile biodiversity information for Rufiji District into one volume. It
should be noted that no additional survey work was undertaken in compiling this report, and thus
full acknowledgement is given to the authors of the various studies used to compile this report. The
relevant studies are listed at the beginning each section.
This report compiles information known to date, it is not expected that species lists presented are
exhaustive, particularly for little known groups such as invertebrates.
The species lists are assembled giving where possible details of forest dependence, endemism and
conservation status, these are defined below in section 1.3.
1.2 Location
Rufiji District is located in Coast (Pwani) Region in Eastern Tanzania (see figure 1 below) and is
dominated by the Rufiji River.
Figure 1: Location of Coast Region in Tanzania (Map from Durand, 2003)
Rufiji
District
‘The lower Rufiji valley starts downstream from Stiegler’s Gorge, some 180 km from the Indian
Ocean, in the Selous Game Reserve. Below the gorge the river fans out in an inner delta with
numerous lakes and subsequently enters its lower floodplain, which gradually widens until the river
branches out and forms the Rufiji Delta. The floodplain, which covers approximately 1450 km²,
comprises a mosaic of former river channels, levees and shallow depressions supporting sparse
shrub, intensive cultivation (mainly rice), scattered tree crops (mango, banana) or tall grassland.
The floodplain also has palm (Borassus, Hyphaene and Phoenix) and Acacia woodland while
riparian forest is found on the higher riverbanks. There is also riparian/groundwater forest around
the edges of a series of lakes that are connected to the river during the annual floods. The large
floodplain lakes in the Lower Rufiji valley occupy roughly 2850 ha (or 56 %) of the surface of
standing water bodies in the valley (Mwalyosi, 1990). The higher ground North of the floodplain is
covered by a woodland/coastal forest mosaic. To the south of the Rufiji river are a series of hills
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