The Arabuko Sokoke Forest Reserve is located on the coast of

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

, 110 km north of

Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of the British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital city status. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

and is protected as a national Forest Reserve. The Arabuko Sokoke National Park, situated at the north-western edge of the Arabuko Sokoke Forest Reserve, is only a few square kilometres in size and constitutes only a small portion of the latter.

Protection

The National Park was gazetted only in the late 1980s and in fact straddles the Forest Reserve boundary, with about 50% lying outside the boundary. This outer section actually lies outside an electric elephant fence installed in 2006/7 and is now fully inhabited by local communities to the extent that there is no sign on the ground to show where the National Park begins or ends. The National Park doesn't add any particular protection to the forest which is the largest fragment of coastal forest (420 square km) left in East Africa. The Forest Reserve, on the other hand, is jointly managed by the

Kenya Forest Service The Kenya Forest Service is an agency of the Government of Kenya designated by the Forest Act of 2005 as the replacement for the old Forest Department. It is overseen by the Board of the Kenya Forest Service. The former Forest Department was suppor ...

Kenya Wildlife Service Kenya Wildlife Service is a state corporation under the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife established by an act of Parliament; Wildlife Conservation and Management Act CAP 376, of 1989, now repealed and replaced by the Wildlife Conservation and Ma ...

, National Museums of Kenya and the Kenya Forest Research Institute and is one of the better protected forests in Kenya. The forest was first protected as a Crown Forest in 1943, and was gazetted in the 1960s. The forest is threatened by the desire for land by local people. Several national and international

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...

organisations are working with the

to protect the park.

Wildlife

The Arabuko Sokoke Forest is an area of high

endemism Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

, containing endemic mammals, birds and plants. It contains three forest types, mixed forest, ''

Brachystegia ''Brachystegia'' is a genus of tree of the subfamily Detarioideae that is native to tropical Africa. Trees of the genus are commonly known as miombo, and are dominant in the miombo woodlands of central and southern tropical Africa. The Zambezi ...

'' and ''

Cynometra ''Cynometra'' is genus of tropical forest trees with a pantropical distribution. It is particularly important as a forest component in west Africa and the neotropics. '' Cynometra alexandri'' (muhimbi) is a familiar timber tree of central and ea ...

'', each of which protects different communities of plants and animals. It protects many endemic and near-endemic species. The Clarke's weaver is completely endemic to the forest, while the eponymous

Sokoke scops owl The Sokoke scops owl (''Otus ireneae'') is a highly localized species of scops owl found in lowland forests of Kenya and Tanzania. The greatest population of this species of owl is in the '' Cynometra- Manilkara'' forest, which is less than one- ...

, Sokoke pipit, and the Amani sunbird and spotted ground thrush are found only here and in a forest fragment in

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

. The park adjoins ''Mida Creek'', a

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

forest that is an important

shorebird 245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...

wintering ground, protecting species such as the

Terek sandpiper The Terek sandpiper (''Xenus cinereus'') is a small migratory Palearctic wader species and is the only member of the genus ''Xenus''. It is named after the Terek River which flows into the west of the Caspian Sea, as it was first observed arou ...

and the

crab plover The crab-plover or crab plover (''Dromas ardeola)'' is a bird related to the waders, but sufficiently distinctive to merit its own family Dromadidae. Its relationship within the Charadriiformes is unclear, some have considered it to be closely ...

. The endearing golden-rumped elephant shrew, an endemic

elephant shrew Elephant shrews, also called jumping shrews or sengis, are small insectivorous mammals native to Africa, belonging to the family Macroscelididae, in the order Macroscelidea. Their traditional common English name "elephant shrew" comes from a perc ...

the size of a rabbit, is the most noticeable of the park's endemic mammals; the Sokoke bushy-tailed mongoose and

Aders's duiker The Aders's duiker (''Cephalophus adersi''), also known as ''nunga'' in Swahili, ''kunga marara'' in Kipokomo and ''harake'' in Giriama, is a small, forest-dwelling duiker found only in Zanzibar and Kenya. It may be a subspecies of the red, H ...

(found only here and in

Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islan ...

) are more elusive. The forest also has savannah elephants,

African civet The African civet (''Civettictis civetta'') is a large viverrid native to sub-Saharan Africa, where it is considered common and widely distributed in woodlands and secondary forests. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 200 ...

s, as well as

sokoke The Sokoke (or Sokoke Forest Cat in long form, and formerly the African Shorthair) is natural breed of domestic cat, developed and standardised, beginning in the late 1970s, from the feral ''khadzonzo'' landrace of eastern, coastal Kenya. The Sok ...

baboon Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma ...

s and

vervet monkey The vervet monkey (''Chlorocebus pygerythrus''), or simply vervet, is an Old World monkey of the family Cercopithecidae native to Africa. The term "vervet" is also used to refer to all the members of the genus ''Chlorocebus''. The five distinct ...

s. The park is also recognised as an outstanding centre of

amphibia Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbor ...

n diversity.

Gallery

Flickr - Rainbirder - Weird and bizarre (The Golden-rumped Sengi).jpg, Golden-rumped elephant shrew in Arabuko Sokoke Tropical Girdled Lizard (Cordylus tropidosternum) (14101276386).jpg,

Tropical girdled lizard The East African armadillo lizard, dwarf sungazer, or tropical girdled lizard (''Cordylus tropidosternum'') is a species of arboreal or rupicolous (rock-dwelling) lizard endemic to East Africa. Habitat The preferred habitat of the East African ...

in Arabuko Sokoke Sokoke scops owl pair in Arabuko-Sokoke Forest.jpg,

pair in Arabuko Sokoke Flickr - Rainbirder - Sokoke Pipit (Anthus sokokensis) with a spider.jpg, Sokoke pipit on the forest floor

External links

Kenya Wildlife Service – Arabuko Sokoke National Park
*
ASSETS - Arabuko-Sokoke Schools and Eco-tourism Scheme
an initiative aiming at linking forest conservation with local education

{{authority control National parks of Kenya Protected areas established in 1990 Coast Province Northern Zanzibar–Inhambane coastal forest mosaic

Protection

Wildlife

Gallery

See also

External links