Important Bird Areas in Kenya

By L. Bennun, P. Njoroge. 2000

219 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Bennun, L. & Njoroge, P. 2000. Important Bird Areas in Kenya. Ostrich 71 (1 & 2): 164–167. The process of defining Important Bird Areas in Kenya has been underway since January 1995, with financial support from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Literature review has proceeded in parallel with field surveys, which are still ongoing. Some 65 globally Important Bird Areas have so far been identified, and this total is likely to increase. Sites were intitially selected using the criteria of threatened species (37 sites) and congregatory species (15 sites). Additional sites were then identified for biome-restricted and restricted-range species, using information from the Bird Atlas of Kenya; these sites must form part of a regional set. Threatened species sites are concentrated in forests (on the coastal strip, in the central highlands and in western Kenya) and papyrus swamps. Congregatory-species sites are concentrated along the Rift Valley and the coast. The remaining sites are concentrated in semi-arid areas to the immediate north and east of the central plateau, and in highland forest on each side of the Rift Valley. No IBAs have yet been identified in the flat, arid north-eastern sector of the country. A large number of sites require additional protection and/or improved management. Particular priorities include several papyrus IBAs around Lake Victoria, among them Lake Kanyaboli and Yala and Sare Swamps, grassland pockets in Mungatsi and Nambale, Western Province; the Kakamega, South Nandi and North Nandi Forests; the increasingly fragmented coastal forests, including Arabuko-Sokoke Forest; and the Taita Hills. Information on the IBA process and its results is being distributed to decision-makers through a high-level IBA Advisory council, with encouraging intitial results.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change

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Citations in the corpus

High Bird Species Diversity in Structurally Heterogeneous Farmland in Western Kenya (2012, methodology): “In addition, we inferred the conservation status of each species from the IUCN (Birdlife International 2011) and regional (Bennun & Njoroge 1999) red lists.”
Conservation value of forest plantations for bird communities in western Kenya (2008, background): “The overall number of detected bird specieswaswith 61 species relatively low compared to the 367 bird species that have been recorded for Kakamega Forest (Bennun and Njoroge, 1999).”
Biodiversity, species interactions and ecological networks in a fragmented world (2012, background): “For instance, in Western Kenyan rainforest, some bird species (11% out of 194 forestdependent species; Bennun and Njoroge, 1999) also used the heterogeneous farmland close to the forest as feeding habitat, gaining access to additional food resources outside their core habitat (Laube et al., 2008).”
Dragonfly communities in coastal habitats of Kenya: indication of biotope quality and the need of conservation measures (2003, background): “About 44% of the total area is forested (9000 ha), while 8000 ha are forest/shrub formations, and 3400 ha are covered by grassland (Bennun and Njoroge 1999, and references therein).”
Interactions between hawkmoths and flowering plants in East Africa: polyphagy and evolutionary specialization in an ecological context (2013, background): “East Africa’s vast seasonal drylands, which include the broader Somali–Maasai regional centre of endemism (Bennun & Njoroge, 1999), have a large number of plant species characterized by white or cream flowers with long narrow corolla tubes, and evening anthesis and scent-production, trait…”