Projects We Support

The Kasigau Woody Plants and Uses Book  recorded 75% of the local plants in Tsavo with field notes, cultural and medicinal uses.  Working with 5 communities to gather information about local flaura, Kim Medley developed this book as a local resource for education.

WildiZe provided a grant for the printing the of the  field study guide for communities and volunteers.  The book was published in both English and Swahili.

Additional funding was provided by the National Geographic Society.

Mt. Kasigau is the most northeastern mountain in the Eastern Arc and Coastal Forest Biodiversity Hot Spot and a priority for conservation. These ancient crystalline mountains have a high species richness and compared with other hot spot locations have a high concentration of endemic species and among the highest degree of habitat fragmentation and loss (Newmark 2002). Moreover, the Taita Wildlife Corridor between Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks is now a focus for wildlife conservation. Perhaps because of the mountain's isolation and the very rigorous climb to its summit (from 600 m to 1641 m in about 2 km), little is published about Mt. Kasigau and the Kasigau Taita living at its base.

Over a two-year period, Ms. Medley worked with residents in the villages of Makwasinyi and Jora on a floristic and ethnobotanical inventory of trees, shrubs, and woody vines that occur along an ecological gradient that includes Commiphora-Acacia bushland in the lowlands, farm fields and home sites at the base of the mountain, and semi-deciduous-to-evergreen woodland, and evergreen-to-cloud mist forest above 1000 m on the mountain.

The study employed a participatory research approach that focused on shared learning, built positive relationships between the researchers and the researched, and validated local knowledge. The collaborative purpose was to learn about ("kazi kwa kujifunza") the plants and vegetation patterns in relation with the mountain and gain an ecological and cultural view of patterns of diversity.

FAST FACTS:

In many places in the world, traditional medicines are the primary sources of health care and have been in use since time immemorial. Their conservation is vital to people that do not have ready access to adequate medical resources. Although the local  communities are the immediate concern for the medicinal plants,  in the long run,  the scientific world may benefit. A logical extension of the work is to document  the most popularly used medicinals.

Over the two years, the projecy compiled a list of 341 woody plants and 198 woody plants with
recorded uses as food/fodder (99 plants), construction (72), technology (85), remedy (79), fuel (70), and other services (74).