Ministry of Information First World War Official Collection Q15395

The Rondo Plateau, also known as the Muera Plateau, is a high and extensive massif in the Lindi Region and northern

Mtwara Region Mtwara Region (''Mkoa wa Mtwara'' in Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The regional capital is the municipality of Mtwara. Mtwara Region is home to one of the most infuluencial people in Tanzania, the Makonde. Mtwara is ...

of southeastern of

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 ...

. A portion of the plateau is protected by the Rondo Forest Reserve. It is one of a group of dissected plateaus lying between the Mbwemburu and Lukuledi rivers. It is approximately 60 km inland from

Lindi Lindi is a historic southern Tanzanian coastal small city and regional capital of the Lindi Region located at the far end of Lindi Bay, on the Indian Ocean in southeastern Tanzania. The town is south of Dar es Salaam and north of Mtwara, t ...

, and is situated 15 km north of the Masasi road. It was revealed as an important biodiversity site in studies conducted since the 1980s.

Climate

The plateaus rise behind a narrow coastal plain. They receive considerable

orographic precipitation Orography is the study of the topographic relief of mountains, and can more broadly include hills, and any part of a region's elevated terrain. Orography (also known as ''oreography'', ''orology'' or ''oreology'') falls within the broader discip ...

, making the plateaus cooler and wetter than the surrounding lowlands. The average annual rainfall is 1088 mm (1951-1979), recorded at the Rondo Forest station. The highest rainfall occurs between November and January, and March to May.Perkin, Andrew; Charles Leonard and Nike Doggart (2008). "Landscape Profile: Rondo/Noto". Tanzania Forest Conservation Group, July 2008

/ref>

Flora

It is an important stand of primary coastal forest in Tanzania, but also contains elements of montane forest, as it reaches 900 metres in altitude. The higher slopes are covered in extensive semi-deciduous hardwood forest, constituting over 18 square km of closed canopy forest. The plateau vegetation is diverse, with areas of scrub forest, dry evergreen forest, riverine forest,

miombo The Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located primarily in Central Africa. It includes four woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) characterized b ...

(''Brachystegia'') woodland, and thicket. Some 100 species of plant are endemic to the area. The plateau was once covered by extensive forests of Mvule or African teak (''Milicia excelsa''), but the forests were heavily logged from the 1950s onwards. Logging stopped in the 1980s, and since then the forests have regrown, and some areas were planted with ''Milicia excelsa''. ''Milicia excelsa'' is still one of the dominant species in the 25 m high canopy within the Rondo Forest Reserve. Other dominant canopy species are ''

Albizia gummifera ''Albizia gummifera'' is a species of legume in the family Fabaceae, native to sub-saharan Africa and Madagascar, and naturalized in Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the large ...

'', ''

Dombeya ''Dombeya'' is a flowering plant genus. Traditionally included in the family Sterculiaceae, it is included in the expanded Malvaceae in the APG and most subsequent systematics. These plants are known by a number of vernacular names which sometim ...

'' sp., ''

Ricinodendron heudelotii ''Ricinodendron'' is a plant genus in the family Euphorbiaceae first described as a genus in 1864. It includes only one known species, ''Ricinodendron heudelotii'', native to tropical Africa from Senegal + Liberia east to Sudan and Tanzania and ...

,'' and ''

Dialium holtzii ''Dialium holtzii'' is a species of plant in the family Fabaceae. It is found in Kenya, Mozambique, and Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Afri ...

''. The forest reserve also has areas of

forest plantation A tree plantation, forest plantation, plantation forest, timber plantation or tree farm is a forest planted for high volume production of wood, usually by planting one type of tree as a monoculture forest. The term ''tree farm'' also is used to ...

, mostly ''Pinus'' sp. with small trial plots of ''Milicia excelsa'',

Teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters ( pan ...

(''Tectona grandis'') and ''

Maesopsis eminii ''Maesopsis eminii'', the umbrella tree, is a species of tree in the family Rhamnaceae found in India and Africa. It is the only species in the genus ''Maesopsis''. It is often grown as a plantation tree, and as a shade tree in coffee plantation ...

.''

Fauna

The plateau is home to various species of monkey and small mammals. The

Rondo dwarf galago The Rondo dwarf galago (''Paragalago rondoensis'') or Rondo bushbaby is a species of primate in the family Galagidae. The dwarf galagos are the smallest members of the genus Galagoides.Wild, Gabby, and Justine Gwegime. "Rondo Dwarf Galago." EDGE ...

was discovered here in the 1990s by Simon Bearder.

Conservation

Though a forest reserve since colonial times, much wood was harvested in the 1950s, when some 20 square km of forest was cleared to establish exotic plantations, chiefly pine.

Rondo Nature Forest Reserve

The Rondo Nature Forest Reserve covers an area 11,742.26 ha, with a boundary of 51.6 km."About Rondo Nature Forest Reserve". Tanzania Forest Services (TFS) Agency. Accessed 24 June 2018

/ref> Other forest reserves in the plateau region are Chitoa (770 ha), Litipo (1000 ha), Makangala (1271 ha), Ndimba (2687 ha), and Ruawa (2949 ha). The Noto Plateau is home to 12,000 ha of dry evergreen forest which has no protected status.

References

{{commons cat, Rondo Plateau Geography of Lindi Region Mountains of Tanzania Plateaus of Africa Southern Zanzibar–Inhambane coastal forest mosaic