Forest Regeneration in Tanzania

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The East Usambara Mountains are part of the Eastern Arc Mountains which are globally renowned for high levels of animal and plant diversity as well as high rates of endemism. Rare and unique animals and plants include chameleons, snakes, orchids, epiphytes of various sorts, butterflies, beetles, land snails, freshwater crabs, and African violets.

The East Usambara forests, specifically the area around Amani, are perhaps the best studied of Eastern Arc forests in terms of natural history and ecological research on animals and plants.

Plants have a remarkably high diversity in the East Usambaras with numerous species shared with other African mountains. This is one of the primary reasons that this focal site was chosen to launch most of the applied base-line research on forest regeneration. The infrastructure afforded by Amani Nature Reserve and other local stakeholders also lends itself toward a suitable environment for conducting this applied research.

Another reason for selecting this study area is the vast scale of habitat fragmentation in this system, which started in the late 1800s when large areas of forest were cleared for agricultural activities initiated by the German colonialists. Since then, more than 50% of the original forest cover has been lost largely to extensive agricultural schemes. In the highlands, tea plantations are the main habitat type that surrounds indigenous forest patches of varying sizes.

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