East African coastal forest botany - Biogeography and Ecology of the Rain Forests of Eastern Africa - page 63

Arab town-builders of c. AD 900, and involved the
ancient Egypian and Phoenician economies. The
Swahili and Mijikenda were still acively trading
in a variety of forest products in the 19th century
(see Prins, 1952, 1972; Cashmere, 1961; Parkin,
1972; Salim, 1973; Spear, 1978). Gede forest,
which stands over the 16th century ruins of an
Arab sea-front town, is a striking symbol of the
changing fortunes of coastal populations and of
coastal forests (Gerhardt & Steiner, 1986).
Hartnoll & Fuggles-Couchman (1937) commen-
ted on the influence of shifing culivaion on veg-
etation in the Pugu Hills, and Hunt et al. (1981)
have summarised the wide-ranging influences of
the Mijikenda on the kaya forests. Indeed, there
can be very few areas of coastal forest that have
not been influenced by human activity at some
ime.
Some coastal forest plants, like the baobab
.dansonia digitata) and Sy nadenium pereskiifolium,
are planted in sacred places and on graves within
forests and survive into closed-canopy forest (see
also Vabmah & Vaid, 1978). Because of the long
history of human influence, the origins of some
plants in some forests are open to speculaion. It
is probable that Mkilua fragrans has had its natural
range extended by humans, for it was previously
traded by the coastal tribes for its strong perfume,
like lemon-scented soap. The flamboyant shrub
Hibiscus schizopetalus may be restricted naturally to
the rocky streams of forests near the ancient trade
centre of Mombasa and possibly Lindi, in which
case it has colonised the ropics from its coastal
forest base with human help (see Kirk & Oliver,
187 6; Wild (in Brenan et al. 1960-83), 1965;
Waalkes, 1966; Kachecheba, 1972). However, it
is more likely that H. schizpetalus is a long-stand-
ing garden escape into, not out of, the coastal
forests, because it has no less tenuous a foothold
there than elsewhere. Th unbergia kirkii seems a
better example of a coastal forest shrub species
taken elsewhere as an onamental. Most readers
will be familiar with the most widely dispersed
plant of the coastal forests - the African violet
(Saintpaulia ionantha).

Many patches of forest north of the Pangani
River enclosed kaya or kaya -like clearings once.
These include the Shimba Hills and areas within
the Usambara foothills, but especially nowadays
in the Rabai-Chonyi hills (see Spear, 1978; Hunt
et al., 1981; Robertson, 1987). Kaya is the
Mijikenda word for their radiional home settle-
ment, a distinctive arrangement of grass huts in a
stockaded forest clearing with two opposing gate-
ways. Kaya forests are the home of ancesral
spirits and some are sill used as burial groves. In
1981 only two of the Rabai-Chonyi kaya forests
(Kambe and Rabai) were inhabited, although
others are sill managed respectfully by the
Mijikenda and they remain the focal points of
clans within the Mijikenda. Without their utilisa-
tion or sancity it is likely that few such forests
would have survived. Not all sacred forests are
kaya forests, however. The Mijikenda are not
known to have spread south of the Pangani River
in Tanzania where some forests, like Genda-
Genda South and Gongolamboto burial grove,
have local sanctity.
In recent imes some forests, especially the
larger ones like the Arabuko-Sokoke, Msum-
bugwe and Pugu Hills forests, have been gazetted
as Forest Reserves and systemaically exploited
for timber, charcoal or fuelwood. Although
management has not placed a great priority on
maintenance of the diversity of wildlife, there is
sill at least some forest standing in these areas.
On the other hand, the Shimba Hills reserve and
Gede Forest are nowadays managed partly to
encourage wildlife and tourism.
Increasing demand for land and wood and
growing disrespect for traditional values are
paralleled by increasing erosion of the forest edge,
even in sacred forests. Aerial photographs taken
over the last 30 years invariably show that forests
have declined in area (Hunt et al., 1981).
Moomaw (1960) estimated that less than 10% of
potenially suitable areas were forested with the
Sterculia-Chlorophora1 forest type. Large areas of
forest must have been burnt and lost throughout
history to clear land for huning and agriculture.

Chlorophora xcelsa is now Miliia xcelsa. Moomaw's forest type will, however, be referred to as
Sterculia-Chlorophora forest here to distinuish it from any more speciic Sterulia-Milicia
associaion.

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