David Ngala

I am talking of our never ending sojourn that has seen us get to learn a lot about natural resources and of keen interest, the threatened species of birds. Ngala is known for being the man behind Sokoke Scops Owl in Arabuko-Sokoke forest and I have accompanied him a couple of times to camp in the forest and be on the move at the crack of dawn as we follow the hooting Owl within thick vegetation. This is just one of the endangered species and at least there has been significant information about it on the web. However, there has been another species whose information is meager that you have to travel all the way to the Kenya coast in order to see it and learn something about it. This is the Clarke’s Weaver!! First was the breeding site discovered in Dakatcha woodlands over a month ago and since then, Ngala and I have been focusing specifically on wetlands within and around Arabuko-Sokoke forest. On 25th of March, this man with incredible mastery of the forest decided to ride his motorbike right on the edge of the forest and towards the south-west edge of the forest, he discovered a wetland. It was early evening and  birds would be returning to their roost sites. He decided to park his “piki” and have a closer look at the site and there he saw the Clarke’s Weavers. Most of them were female in their post-breeding plumage and there were a host of other species including the Zanzibar Red Bishop, Fan-tailed Widowbird and Grosbeak Weavers. Later on, last week, we undertook a visit as a whole team from Mwamba field study centre to witness this discovery by the Disney hero. The wetland as I saw it, was the perfect habitat for breeding of the species-made of sedges and reeds- and with abundance of water.

After spending two hours at the site between 5pm and 7pm, we set back to Mwamba and organized for a hike in the forest to all the wetlands. We managed this easily because we could pinpoint the pools from the Google maps. On a rainy Tuesday morning we set out in the forest again, this time without Ngala, to visit all the pools and assess the potential of them being breeding/roosting  sites for the Clarke’s Weavers. Out of the ten we planned to visit, we managed to trace eight and out of the eight, three were perfect for Clarke’s Weaver habitation. We had to stop after the eighth pool because the remaining two were three kilometres apart and it was totally rainy and windy.

Ngala and I are looking forward to visiting these three potential wetlands during morning and evening hours and spend some time monitoring any Weavers come in or fly out. We are certain that even if we don’t see them this year, we will see them next year during the breeding season between March and April. It is a puzzle to us still because we haven’t seen their nests but we won’t tire in monitoring them until we see them nest in some of these wetlands.

Well, we have the roost site unravelled around the forest for the first time since starting  our ten-year search. What’s next? leave it for us and follow us on this blog and you will definitely be the first to get the information. Your support either financially or through reading and recommending this post to other conservationists gives me the spirit of motivation to keep pushing with Ngala until we bring sufficient information about this threatened bird species.

Now, it’s time to wind up with this weird and wonderful!!!

Poaching is a subject that comes on the mind of almost every conservationist but the task is differentiating between this illegal activity and the entire exercise of getting down to the poacher. David Ngala and I are like “sniffer dogs” but we sniff a rather different thing. We search, GPS mark and remove snares from Arabuko Sokoke forest as well as surveying all the illegal tree logging going on within the forest, We do this by faith and by the fact that even the biblical context calls upon us to be stewards of God’s creations. We do this regularly to help bring the true picture of the kind of illegal things that are happening as a result of ignorance by man over God’s creation. We work closely with Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenya Forest Service who then make a follow-up. The bible in the book of Jeremiah 12:4 says…”How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? The beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end”.

On 8th of March we set out early to a transect in the forest in an area that has been thought to be one of those areas bordering the tensely populated community around. We chose this area randomly as always and when we arrived at the place, we even encountered some men emerging from the forest with machetes. There was little that we could do as we have no authority whatsoever to arrest anyone. We were determined to cover about 5km into the forest using active human paths. We encountered several small trees cut for poles at the beginning and as we moved further deep, we began encountering the heavy stumps that were freshly cut. I could not believe my eyes seeing such huge trees that are home to birds, tree squirrels and even beautiful snakes having been heavily logged. As usual, we did take the GPS points and moved on to other areas. There were decreased number of animal species and less often, we could hear Greenbuls calling and at one point we came across two Crested Quineafowls. It was hot and we were very sweaty and thirsty. Unfortunately, none of us had carried a bottle of water-Ngala does it the camel style-taking a lot of water before the starting the survey,  and for me, I was just lazy to carry a bottle of water because it would become just another burden so hard to bear later on.

It is awful to realize that our forest is being heavily logged and the action being taken is not being fully implemented. Although environmental education has been incorporated, most people have been adamant to practice conservation. A Rocha Kenya is playing its role through creation of awareness through the ASSETS program which targets the surrounding community near Arabuko Sokoke forest by providing bursaries to students around it in order to ease the burden from parents who have to poach into the forest in order to raise school fees.The good news is that some of the forest trees that have been cut down in the past are now regenerating and we saw quite a number.

On our way back, we came across a huge baobab tree, perhaps a few decades old and we were tempted to measure the circumference and try to calculate its diameter. It was about 8.4m in circumference which gave us about 2.7m in diameter. Such a tree grown to a height of about 30m, that’s HUGE!!!  Indeed, the forest has massive resources.

As always, we are determined to use the little resources we have to bring this to you and create awareness through our surveys to the people around the forest and around the world. We apologize for the poor quality of the pictures as they were taken using a phone.

You can also send in your donations through the Donate option on top right. Thanks very much for your support as you have just saved the habitat for an animal in Arabuko Sokoke forest.We also give our thanks for the support we are getting from our sponsors-both corporate and individual as this will propel us to the next level and help conserve the  resources in this forest.

Earlier last week, David went to the western side of the forest around Malanga area where the forest is covered with cynometra thicket.   As he was walking along a path,he met with few community members who were talking about the electric fence project that has stopped.They were complaining that,that side is the only side remaining to be covered by the fence.It is about 5 km area where the fence is yet to be put.

This area is a threat to the community members since wildlife like the elephants could come out through this area and cause problems.Because of this,David took the initiative as a community member to write a letter to the Director of the Kenya Forest Service to ask him to allow for the completion of that remaining area.

In his letter,David told the Director how the idea and the funding of the fence came about and asked,his office to help complete the remaining area. The letter was copied to the forest management team and all the stakeholders of the forest.

Two weeks ago David received an invitation from Ngomeni Mangrove Conservation group who wanted to share ideas of mangove conservation.Ngomeni is on the south west side of Arabuko-Sokoke forest. This part of the forest is covered by the cynometra tree species.

David honored the invitation and went, first meeting with one forest guard who is in charge of controlling mangrove forest in the area. Mr Evans Jefwa,one of the forest guards, who is doing a very good job in training the community to plant trees, took David round the area and showed him the mangrove seedlings planted.

He later explained to David that there are two groups which are working to plant mangove trees.David was very excited to see these efforts and encouraged them to continue with this and also to start other projects on rearing chicken and also fish farming. This will later help them in generation of income.

Sokoke Scops Owl

Dakatcha Woodland is an important area for fauna and flora lying c.20km due north of Arabuko-Sokoke across the Sabaki River. Many conservation organizations have taken part in educating the communities about the importance of forests and how to conserve their heritage in their areas.

A private Italian business came through the Council of Malindi and persuaded the members of the Malindi Council and other stakeholders to propose the area to be taken by the business to plant Jatropha for biofuel. Formally, they proposed the area from Baricho to Adu to be a Jatropha plantation  - an area of 50,000ha, but the business was allowed to start with only 10,000 hectares for just a trial and thereafter see what they would do.

Dakatcha Woodland is on the north-western side of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest approximately 20 km directly and 80 km in a car as one must go around the river at Sabaki Bridge. The woodland has many patches of Cynometra, Brachystegia and other bushes. This is important because we get Clarke’s Weaver in the Brachystegia trees and Sokoke Scops Owls in the Cynometra trees and other vegetation.

Dakatcha Woodland is also a Government Crown Land. The area has many households and elder’s sub-divisions in it, but it has not been officially demarcated by the Ministry of Lands and Settlement. The Department of Lands have demarcated the area in the eastern part of Marafa, a few kilometres from Marafa town.

Therefore, before the land department reaches the habitats concerned, I would be very interested to go there and track the area so that the fauna and flora could at least have a place to stay and also that the area would be recognized as a forest reserve.

I am therefore inviting any interested individual or conservation organization who is willing to donate to support me to go to the Dakatcha Woodlands in order to carry out surveys as to what birds and trees can be found there.

The Arabuko-Sokoke forest is surrounded by the Giriama community which has been around this area for many years. Giriama is one of the Mijikenda tribes of the coastal area of Kenya from the Bantus as the larger group. Generally, the Giriama people use the forest as a worship place which they call it Kaya. David Ngala is himself a Giriama and while in the forest, we meet with these people who share different stories about the wildlife found in it.

The elephant shrew has a very interesting story that is perceived just from its behavior. This community has a belief that the shrew is a forgetful animal and, this is because of the way they act when one makes a movement close to them in the forest. They run very fast and suddenly stop and continue foraging. To the Giriama community the shrew runs because it has sensed dangers then they forget that there is danger and stops immediately and continues to forage.

People who are forgetful in this area are said to be like shrews and more often a saying of forgetful as a shrew is used. Since this animal is poached, it is believed that once the poacher feeds on the shrew, they will always be forgetting things.  This in a way makes some poachers avoid poaching this species but at the same time others still poach. If we think of it, this community has a belief that can help turn the poaching situation around.

Elders of Dida, Kafitsoni, Nyari and Rare villages want the burial place of their great-grandparents to be recommended as a Kaya. Dida, Kafitsoni and Nyari are on the western edge of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, whilst Rare village is approximately 2.5km from the forest boundary, between Kafitsoni and Nyari.

A Kaya is a deserted village which the locals have no intention of returning to. It is considered a sacred place and members of the families go to the place and pray to god through their ancestors. When the Sanya people migrated up from Kaya Kinondo in Kwale to the south of Mombasa, Rare was the first village they formed after they had arrived in this area. Kaya Kinondo has now become a site of interest for tourists to visit due to its fascinating history.

Legend has it that in the 15^th Century, Mwavuo, son of Ngonyo was the first man who settled at Rare from Kwale. Mwavuo had wives, children, a large group of servants and many cattle. The children grew up well and his eldest son, Ngonyo son of Mwavuo (in Giriama tradition, the grandson takes on the name of the grandfather), decided he wanted to own his own property so he asked his father to divide his estate.

So Mwavuo took his children together up to a place called Dida, where he began to divide the land. Ngonyo as his eldest son was given Dida, his sons Katete and Nyanke were given Kafitsoni and Mumba was given Nyari. The others followed up to Sokoke.

edge of forest on the way to Dida

Some years later, Ngonyo decided to move to Marafa, whereby he was appointed Chief by the British Government. The brothers of Ngonyo stayed in their inherited lands. The grandsons of Ngonyo and his brothers stayed at the same land up to today, where they are still alive – though very old now.

When ASF was proposed for degazettement, the grandsons of Ngonyo’s brothers were the first elders from around the forest to come to the Government offices at Gede Forest Station to state their opposition to the degazzettement. They really wanted the forest to remain as it was before. The elders were very happy with the first demarcation, done by the British Government in the early days. Furthermore they have understood the significant importance of the forest in its usefulness to the local community in many different ways.

The first major project for ASF was that of BirdLife International – and it met with the same problems of threats to degazette the forest. The Project Co-ordinator was very happy, therefore, to work with the Dida Elders who were the first community to fight for the conservation of the forest.

Some months later, conservation awareness was made around the forest to support Dida community with their conservation. Elders sat down together and formed a conservation group – Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Adjacent Dwellers Association (ASFADA). The group stated that they are facing many problems from the forest wildlife coming to their shambas (farms) and destroying crops. The Project Co-ordinator then helped the group to write a proposal, which succeeded in gaining funds to install the Elephant Fence know seen around the forest edges.

The Dida elders are proud of their achievements in stopping degazettement of the forest through focussing on the same things that their grandfather Ngonyo prioritised – and which therefore led to him being appointed a Chief in Marafa in the early days.

Given the history of their people and the stories handed down from their great grandparents, the people of Dida and Rare are very keen to make their area known as a place of interest and to have their burial ground recognised as a Kaya.