Conservation of biodiversity in the East African tropical forest

Abstract

Kakamega forest is one of the remnants of the equatorial guineo rainforest in the Eastern fringes of Africa. It was perhaps cut-off from the Congo region in the early volcanic era when the Great Rift Valley was formed. The forest is known for its diversity of biotic species, and it is home to some of the rare plants in the East African region. It has some of the rare species of, birds, snakes, insects and primates. However, despite the richness in biodiversity the forest has suffered a lot of anthropogenic destruction due to uncontrolled harvest of forest resources. To mitigate on this destruction an effort is currently being made to control the utilization of the forest products. This is only possible through education to the local communities on the better alternative uses of forest resources. The University Botanic Garden, Maseno’s mission on conservation for efficient utilization program is aimed at creating cultural awareness and working close to the local communities in Western Kenya in an effort to conserve the Biodiversity of the forest. The ex situ approach to the biodiversity conservation in the Eastern African tropical region has began to bear fruits and feedback loop is very encouraging. It is this ex situ approach to conservation as compared to the fundamental and natural in situ methods that is being investigated in this project. Our preliminary results indicate that although the rate of growth is initially slow in the ex situ approach, the species growth tends to increase once they are established. We have also received favorable response from the local communities through provision of some rare wildings of some plants of herbal medicinal value for conservation in the University Botanic Garden. Therefore the contribution of this approach to biodiversity assessment and conservation cannot be over emphasized. Keywords: Conservation, equatorial forest, biodiversity, ex situ approach