One morning recently, I travelled for about 30 kilometres around the edge of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest with fellow forest guide Albert Baya. When we reached a place called Chumani, I got the feeling that we should stop and study the forest there more closely.

We went into the forest which at that point is what we call “Mixed Forest” as it isn’t dominated by any one type of tree. Only about 40 metres in we found many trees that had been freshly cut for timber and removed. I counted a total of about 39 new stumps (see picture).

This is me recording details of one of the cut trees.

Another of the cut trees we found - one of these trees would have taken probably 100 years to get to this size… and only 20 mins to cut down.

After we had finished the survey and after Albert had gone (with the camera), I was near the elephant fence on the edge of the forest and I saw a Green Mamba - a long, bright green, and deadly poisonous snake - which had recently swallowed a Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew. All I could see of the elephant-shrew was the tail sticking out of the snake’s mouth! Pole sana fugu! (”Very sorry, elephant-shrew!”)

I was really upset about the cut tree situation. When I returned to the Forest Station at Gede after my survey, I reported the cut trees to the Assistant Warden, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) for the forest. About three days later he sent me back to the site with Sergeant Musa to show him the cut trees. Apparently they had also just caught a tree poacher the day before in the forest.

We urgently need to do more patrolling in the forest and to support KWS and the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) in protecting it. Since that day I have found further cut trees but have not been able to take photos as Friends of ASF doesn’t have a digital camera for me to use - the pictures above were with a borrowed one. If anyone would like to contribute to purchasing a camera, it would make a huge difference as we need photographic evidence to support the reports we do.

help us and share this