GVI Kenya

Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Shimoni Forest | Date: Nov 16 2009 | By: gvikenya

Today saw our forest teams heading back into the forest after a nice weekend off, and heading down to transect 2 and 4.  However the optimism of the start of a new week was dampened somewhat by the devastating progress being made by the private developers who have their hands on the coastal plots that run along the southern  and eastern edge of Shimoni east forest. 

It was almost 9 months ago now when we first saw the plots being fenced off and cleared, and the appearance of several large roads that connected all of the plots.  Since then all of the plots are getting destroyed slowly but surely, and one of the sites that was mere foundations a few months ago is almost a fully fledged hotel that can be seen by our marine teams out on the boat when they head north up to Funzi Bay. 

One of the most shocking things our team noticed today though, was the progress that has been made on the roads.  The original ones have become larger, wider and more cleared, and more such roads have sprung up forming large intersections and leading to new locations.  If this continues at this rate then fairly soon the whole area near the coast will be flattened.  And our surveys have shown that this area is widely used by colobus monkeys, yellow baboons, suni’s, Harvey’s duikers, Zanj elephant shrews and countless other species. 

 A section of the new road.  In the distance you can see the smoke from the burning of cut vegetation

It is so sad that the people doing this cannot see what irreversible damage they are doing.  I cannot believe that one can use ignorance as an excuse, as my 4 year old nephew could guess that what they are doing is ruthlessly destructive.  We are going to attempt to get in contact with the owners of these plots as soon as possible.  We are not going to lecture them or demand that they stop – it is their land after all.  We will try and meet with them with our close partners Friends of Shimoni Forest, who can ask on behalf of the community that they at least try and do things more eco-friendly and try to minimise their impact. 

There are simple measures they can take to reduce their impact, such as leaving some of the large trees standing so as to allow a consistent canopy or “corridors” of canopy over the plots.  This will allow primate species to get across from one side of the plot to the other without having to go onto the ground.

We’ll let you know how it goes!

Tags: , cleared, coastal plots, colobus monkey, community, consistent canopy, corridors, eastern edge, eco-friendly, excuse, fenced off, foundations, Friends of Shimoni Forest, funzi bay, harvey's duiker, hotel, ignorance, irreversible damage, large intersections, large roads, large trees, lecture, Marine team, minimise impact, nephew, new locations, north, other species, owners, primate species, private developers, ruthlessly destructive, Shimoni east forest, southern edge, Suni, transect, yellow baboon, zanj elephant shrew

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Category: Butterflies, Coastal Forest, Colobus, Environmental Education, Shimoni Forest, Wildlife clubs | Date: Nov 14 2009 | By: gvikenya

Yesterday was Friday.  And that meant one thing – environmental education!  For the last few months or so, we’ve been swapping our boots and clipboards for chalk boards, songs and games and heading into the Base Academy (a small primary school in the village) to teach the children about environmental issues and some basic science.

We feel it is really important to give the children this sort of knowledge and awareness about the environment around them because firstly, what they learn in school about such issues is minimal and basic, and it doesn’t cover the things that affect their everyday lives.

This is why we have been focusing our lessons on areas that the children can relate to such as coastal forests, the importance of forests and the animals that live there, effects of deforestation, pollution etc.  A couple of weeks ago, we decided to re-brand our weekly lesson, and form a wildlife club for the kids.  This means they are now part of the Shimoni Base Academy Wildlife Club!  We felt this would encourage a sense of ownership and pride in the children who come, and would really make them feel a part of something. 

 The children coming back from the forest

We think it has worked really well, as we now have a regular group of about 30 children that are there every Friday, who all wear their Wildlife Club badges with pride, and sing the Club song through the village!  And since forming the Club, we have been putting an emphasis on actually taking the children into the forest every week.  The idea behind this is to get them out there, seeing the plants and animals for themselves, and getting them out of the classroom and excited about nature, the forest and the wildlife. 

So far its been a huge success; the kids absolutely love being taken out into the forest, and they have really enjoyed the topics we’ve covered so far.  We’ve been going over basic plant biology (as this was in their syllabus and their exams were coming up so we thought that would help), where we actually showed them the different plant species and the different parts.  Then we gave a lesson on butterflies, followed by sweep netting in the forest – they absolutely loved that (and were rather good at it…I’m considering using them for our surveys!), where we also showed them how to get the butterflies out of the nets without hurting them. 

And then yesterday we tried to touch on the subject of colobus behaviour.  We managed to get across the basic idea of why we study their behaviour, how colobus behaviour is adversely affected by things such as disturbance, and then what possible impacts this could have.  It went surprisingly well, and they grasped the concept really well.  It was a very simplified version of course, with the basic premise being if the colobus are undisturbed they will spend more time feeding, resting, sleeping and socialising, whereas if the forest around them is being disturbed, they may spend more time alert or travelling.

They are a great bunch of kids to work with, all so eager to learn and take part.  Hopefully we will be helping these children to grow up into environmentally aware adults, who understand about their surroundings, and take pride in the beautiful areas they live in.  

Tags: , adverse effects, alert, basic science, boots, butterlfies, chalk boards, clipboards, coastal forests, colobus behaviour, deforestation, disturbance, Environmental Education, environmental issues, exams, feeding, knowledge and awareness, nature, ownership, plant biology, plants and animals, pollution, possible impacts, pride, resting, shimoni, Shimoni Base Academy, simplified version, sleeping, socialising, songs and games, surveys, sweep netting, syllubus, travelling, wildlife club

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Category: Colobus, Primate Research, yellow baboon | Date: Nov 03 2009 | By: gvikenya

Greetings all

Just a quickie tonight I’m afraid as things are all go here and time is a precious commodity at the moment!

Us GVI folk here in Shimoni have had a busy weekend – we’ve moved into a new house!  This is good news for several reasons…

Firstly, we are now slap bang in the middle of the community, whereas before we were somewhat isolated in the grounds of a hotel.  We feel this is going to have big impacts on the way we are viewed by the community, and hopefully this will help with the many community projects we are currently working on.  It will also help us feel more part of Shimoni, help us to get to know people better, and will strengthen our existing relationships.  

Secondly, we are right on the edge of the forest!  From our back yard, we can look out into the canopy, and just today, Adam (our community officer) was taking out the compost only to be confronted by a very large, male yellow baboon!  We are now considering moving our compost pile slightly further away from the house…
We have also seen colobus monkeys hanging out in the trees – we could do behavioural surveys from our back garden!

It’s a very exciting move, and despite the inevitable teething problems associated with moving house, things are looking up.  Today we got a new water pump fitted, so we can now shower!  Happy days.

I will be back tomorrow with some more exciting blog action from the south coast of Kenya!

Best wishes

Tags: behavioural survey, canopy, colobus monkey, community projects, compost, Kenyan coast, shimoni, south coast, yellow baboon

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Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest | Date: Oct 22 2009 | By: gvikenya

Well my arms are aching and my hands are blistered, yet I feel the need to let everyone know about why…

We have been doing primate and biodiversity research on Shimoni east forest for almost 4 years now, and are getting some robust data.  Yet just across the road on the other side of Shimoni village lies the uncharted, and mysterious realm of Shimoni west, ever beckoning us to it.  We have been planning to expand our research into Shimoni west for a while now, and have finally begun the adventure. 

The girls ready for the day

The western forest is almost twice the size of its counterpart, and teaming with flora and fauna that are crying out for recognition.  There is definitely a viable population of our beloved colobus monkey, as highlighted by the censuses conducted in 2001 by Julie Anderson and in 2007 by GVI.  That is the only time GVI have officially done research in West, and Anderson’s census is the only other event. 

We have on occasion, ventured into Shimoni west on fact finding missions and with the intention of making preliminary assessments into the possibility of starting research in there, and one thing we have noticed is the high level of disturbance ranging from charcoal pits, pit saws and snares.  This only increased our sense of urgency.

 Katie getting stuck in

So as of last week, we have officially begun our preparations.  By preparations, we mean donning work gloves, sharpening our pangas (machetes) and practicing our angry faces and heading into West to begin the long and tiresome process of cutting transects.  Transects are an essential part of research (specifically for distance sampling – the method of survey we use for the primates), which involves cutting paths in a grid system that allow us to pass relatively easily through the research area.  We do try and minimize the damage we cause, so there is always plenty of crawling and climbing! 

Matt’s panga face

We’ve started cutting our north / south spine, which will run approximately 1 – 1.2 km through the centre of the forest, off which our research transects (that run east-west) can cross.  We have done two days so far, and have gone approximately 600 metres!  That may not sound like much, but trust me on this – it’s not bad!  This endeavor will take many months to complete (as we still have to carry on our surveys in East), but we’ll keep you updated on our progress. 

Once more into the breach dear friends!

Tags: , adventure, angolan black and white colobus, biodiversity research, census, Charcoal Pit, climbing, colobus monkey, crawling, distance sampling, disturbance, fauna, flora, grid system, Julie Anderson, machete, panga, pitsaws, preparations, Primate Research, research area, Shimoni east forest, Shimoni village, Shimoni west forest, snare, snese of urgency, transects, western forest, work gloves

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Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest | Date: Oct 16 2009 | By: gvikenya

Have you ever asked yourself what you would do with your day if you were a colobus monkey?  Perhaps not, but down here in Shimoni east forest, we are rather curious…

GVI has been conducting primate behaviour surveys on the colobus monkeys for about two and a half years now.  It has been a constant effort, but unfortunately we have never dedicated as much time and energy into it as we would have liked.  This is due to the fact that our forest research programme has many parts to it, with an array of different surveys that all require our attention. 

We have been privileged recently though, by the presence of a masters student from Manchester Metropolitan University who has come out to do his thesis on colobus behaviour in Shimoni forest!

Gareth has been with us for over ten weeks now, and still has approximately five weeks to go.  He has been stomping through the forest during every waking hour in search of our beloved colobus, with the hope of quietly observing and recording their behaviours. 

The main outputs one wants from behavioural surveys are time budgets.  These are simple breakdowns of what the colobus actually spend their time doing (normally as a percentage of total time).  So for example you could observe that during the early hours of the morning, an adult male may spend 60% of his time feeding, whereas during mid day, this may be replaced by resting (say for perhaps 85% of the time).  Whilst one is recording states (which are longer durations e.g. feeding and resting), one is also recording events, which are of a shorter duration, or “instant” events such as urination, or scratching.

You may be asking yourself why we would be interested in these details of a monkeys life.  Well, apart from being amazing to watch (they are scarily human-like!), these observations can tell us much about the wellbeing of the population, the impact of environmental pressures, the effects of human presence / absence, and the impact that human disturbance is having on different populations. 

For example if you were to observe a troop that reside deep in the forest well away from human presence, and then compare those results to a troop that is near recent destruction, you may observe some serious differences.  The troop deep in the forest may spend more time feeding in the morning and evening, and resting during the middle of the day – what they should be doing.  The troop closer to human disturbance may spend more time alert, or travelling.  This reduces the time they can spend on activities such as feeding, or socially important behaviours like grooming.  You do not need to be a genius to guess that this will be likely to have implications for the health of the individuals and the troop as a whole.

 Observing colobus in their natural habitat

So we are very happy to have Gareth here with us, and are extremely excited to see his results.  They may well reveal some distressing facts, which I have no doubt we will be able to link to the increasing destruction of the forest.  But the first step is collecting this data, and analysing the results.  Once we have firm conclusions, the next question will be “why?” and the next step – how do we stop it.   

Tags: , adult male, alert, angolan black and white colobus, behavioural survey, distressing facts, energy, events, feeding, firm conclusions, human disturbance, human presence, instant event, Manchester Metropolitan University, observations, percentage total time, population, primate behaviour, resting, results, scratching, Shimoni east forest, social activity, states, surveys, time, time budgets, urination

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Category: Cetacean research, Coastal Forest, Colobus, Humpback whales, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest, Southern Banded Snake Eagle | Date: Oct 09 2009 | By: gvikenya

Well hello everyone!

First of all, apologies for the lack of blog action over the last few weeks or so.  We have had a month long break in research, and all of us here at GVI have had a well deserved holiday!  We’re back now, for another 3 month research period that will bring us up to December. 

We’ve kicked off with an amazing first week for both the marine and terrestrial research programs, with plenty of exciting sightings.  I’ll begin today with a bit about the terrestrial action, and then will fill you all in tomorrow about our humpback whale sighting on marine!

Wednesday saw the first exciting sighting for one of the groups in the forest.  We were on transect 6 (our northern most transect) doing a primate community survey.  We had stopped to observe two troops of colobus monkeys that were having a verbal disagreement.  The two dominant males were producing a barrage of croaking roars, aimed at each other.  Male colobus monkeys have an enlarged larynx which allows them to produce this sound – a territorial vocalisation.  It is an awesome sound to hear, and we were standing in the middle of these two going all out!

As we were watching the colobus, a huge shadow passed over us as gazing upwards we were presented with a spectacular view of a southern-banded snake eagle! It had obviously been disturbed by the noise, and flew so low over our head we got a perfect look at it, allowing for a 100% identification.  We are all trained on the identification of the rare, threatened or endangered bird species in Shimoni forest, specifically for opportunities such as this.

(Stevenson, Fanshawe 2004)

The southern banded-snake eagle is a threatened species, and we have only sighted it a few times over the last year.  It is a stunning eagle, and we were all gibbering with excitement for hours afterwards! 

(Stevenson, Fanshawe 2004)

We have a bunch more exciting sightings from the rest of the week, but these shall have to wait until we’ve told you about the whale tomorrow!  We are very glad to be back, and look forward to getting into our blog again, to keep you all up to date with the progress, sightings and happenings on the beautiful south coast of Kenya.

Until tomorrow!

(Stevenson, Fanshawe 2004)

Tags: angolan black and white colobus, coast, dominant male, endangered, Forest, humpback whale, Kenya, larynx, marine research, primate community, rare, research period, Southern Banded Snake Eagle, terrestrial research, terretorial, threatened, transect, troop, verbal disagreement, vocalisation

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Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Primate census, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 24 2009 | By: gvikenya

About two weeks ago I wrote a few blogs about the colobus census we conducted in Shimoni east forest, for a masters dissertation.  Marta, who has been with us for almost 10 weeks, is doing a masters degree in environmental modeling, monitoring and reconstruction.  The aim of her dissertation is to assess the effects of forest fragmentation on the distribution of the rare subspecies of Angolan black and white colobus.

The main bulk of her practical work was the census, which we successfully conducted a few weeks ago.  To go hand in hand with that, and to provide the information she will need to utilise GIS mapping systems, we needed to get the GPS coordinates of the entire circumference of the forest.  It turned out to be a far more challenging task than we imagined…

Myself and Marta spent two days traversing the perimeter of the forest on foot, with out hand-held GPS recording coordinates every 10 seconds.  We started at the southern most point, and walked (vaguely) north-east, following the edge that borders Shimoni village, and ended at the very top of the forest, beyond the village of Anziwani.  It was enormously challenging!  The main reasons were because the edge of the forest is marked by very thick, very dense new growth, shrubs, thorns and thickets!  We were very glad to have a sharp panga (machete) with us.  The other main reason was because we are just coming out of the main rainy season, everything was green, thick and overgrown, and actually distinguishing between the technical forest edge, and the new growth and sporadic pockets of trees, was nearly impossible.

One of the easier sections… There was actually a path! 

It was an adventure though, and we both got back at the end of each day with scratches and bruises galore and very tired legs, but content in the knowledge that once her dissertation is complete, it will be an invaluable source and tool, in the fight to highlight the damage being done to this beautiful coastal forest, and home to these charismatic primates. 

Tags: anziwani, Colobus, dissertation, forest edge, masters, modelling, monitoring, reconstruction, shimoni, Shimoni Forest, university

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Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Kaya, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 19 2009 | By: gvikenya

Hello there,

My question for the day: how do you find Shimoni Forest? Well, a good place to start is the Lonely Planet…

A year ago when we were in the early stages of planning community-based eco-tourism with guided walks in Shimoni Forest to see the beautiful Angolan black and white colobus monkeys in their natural habitat as an alternative, sustainable use of forest resources, we had a surprise visitor… a travel writer from the Lonely Planet.

We plied him with as much information as we could about the planned guided walks in Shimoni forest and also community-based cultural tourism in Mkwiro, where we have our marine research base and work closely with a community that has many challenges in accessing the tourism revenue that Kisite Marine Park brings to the area. It is fair to say that at the time, everything was very much a ‘work in progress’ and we have continued to support the development of these initiatives over the last year.

But I am ecstatic to report that the Lonely Planet put their faith in our optimism, and have put both Shimoni Forest and Mkwiro village on the map - or at least in the pages of their latest edition of the Kenya Lonely Planet. This is about the best free marketing we could have hoped for.

In actual fact, the first we knew of Shimoni and Mkwiro’s recent rise to backpacker prominence was when an excited Faridi, our friend in Mkwiro, received a phone call for a Mkwiro homestay booking. Within days Athumani, treasurer of Friends of Shimoni Forest, had an enquiry about a guided walk in Shimoni Forest. It took a few more days before we found out where the leads had come from, and it gives us a huge amount of encouragement. So now the challenge is on to get the communities up to speed and delivering a professional, enjoyable and worthwhile eco-tourism experience, but it is a challenge we are relishing!

As you have been reading we have been out cutting the tourist trails but to ensure we are offering an eco-tourism experience that is both professional and educational, we really need to find financial support for Friends of Shimoni Forest; to access some of the sacred kaya sites over the coral rag we will need to construct a raised boardwalk to keep visitors safely on their feet, we hope to compile signs and information boards and an information centre with restaurant to enable visitors to spend the day exploring the rich forest wildlife on their ‘Shimoni safari’!

We see this as an invaluable opportunity to raise awareness about the conservation of Shimoni’s coastal forest and the wider eco-region and to engage the local community in generating sustainable revenue from their forest resources and wildlife rather than exploiting them through extraction of timber and charcoal. Our coastal forests are a Global Biodiversity Hotspot and it seems only fitting that we tap in to the global community to support their conservation. So we are asking all of you that would like to help contribute to community-based conservation in Shimoni and safeguard the future of the colobus in their natural habitat to consider donating towards this cause.

The support of the Lonely Planet has really instilled the confidence in us all here in Shimoni to make this happen and we hope that it will instill confidence in you to donate the much needed funds.

Here’s to a brighter future in Shimoni,

Corti

Tags: angolan black and white colobus, Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Friends of Shimoni Forest, lonely planet, Shimoni Forest

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Category: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Primate census, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 07 2009 | By: gvikenya

Well hello again folks!

Apologies for not getting this blog up yesterday, we had issues with our elecricity…by which we mean we had none! But we’re back on line this morning so I can fill you all in.

So yesterday saw the conclusion to our colobus census in Shimoni forest! It has taken three days of long, hard transect traversing. We’ve tackled thorn bushes, impenetrable thickets and swarms of safari ants, but have come out at the end with some awesome data. Everyone is tired and covered in scratches, but we all had an absolute blast and got to see some fantastic sightings.

 A colobus on the move

It was quite sad for a portion of yesterday however, as the destruction that has happened and is still going on up on the northern edge of the forest is awful. There are huge sections that can hardly be called forest anymore. And both teams observed charcoal pits in various stages of completion. My team actually stumbled across two men that were in the process of digging one, but they bolted as soon as they heard us coming.

On a better note, both teams had great sightings of primates. Between us, we saw 5 colobus troops and 6 sykes troops, plus the usual collection of beautiful birds, sunis, eagles and the back end of a very large snake! So in total over the three days, we have seen 19 groups of colobus and 24 groups of sykes!

We have also come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t really be calling what we’e done a census. Because a census is when you do a total sweep of the area in one day, so the number of primates you see is, in theory, all the primates in the area. But because we’ve had to do it over three days (due to man power), we will still be using distance sampling techniques to get population density estimates.

Some of the victorious team members

Unfortunately due to the power situation, we have not had a chance to run the data through the distance sampling program so don’t have any results for you yet, but as soon as we do I shall let you all know!

Tags: , Charcoal Burning, charcoal pits, colobus census, colobus monkey, Primate Research, Suni, sykes monkey

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Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Primate census, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 05 2009 | By: gvikenya

Hello again,

Today was a continuation of the colobus survey we started yesterday in Shimoni forest. Yesterday we tackled transects 1, 2 and 3, plus two routes that fell between the main transects. Yesterday saw some tricky traveling, especially on the routes between the transects as they are not cut or marked. We were navigating through very dense bush and thicket using nothing but a compass (our GPS’s don’t work in the forest!), and keeping five groups at the same pace by literally counting paces. We worked out each one of the nominated pacers counted 21,000 of their paces!

 Having a quick rest…

So today we embarked on the top half of the forest; surveying transects 4 and 5, including the unmarked transects between 3, 4, 5 and 6. We thought we would be able to do transect 6 and one above it today as well, but unfortunately due to numbers we are going to have to finish it off tomorrow.

 Walking the transect (past an amazing tree!)

Today saw more sightings than yesterday, with nine groups of colobus! There were also nine groups of sykes recorded, unfortunately no baboons today though. The causal observations kept coming throughout the day, with a plethora of creatures great and small. There were multiple suni sightings (very small antelope), four zanj elephant shrews, red-capped robin chats, sunbirds and black kites. Having so many eyes in the forest at once is awesome!

 One of the many sykes monkeys

So I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow for any results, but as soon as we’ve processed the data we’ll get straight back to you.

Until tomorrow…

Tags: , census, Colobus, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest, Suni, sykes, transect, znaj elephant shrew

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