Data Zone
Country/territory: Kenya
IBA criteria met: A1, A2, A3 (1999)
For more information about IBA criteria, please click here
Area: 1,520 ha
| IBA conservation status | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year of assessment (most recent) | State (condition) | Pressure (threat) | Response (action) |
| 2023 | unfavourable | high | medium |
| For more information about IBA monitoring, please click here | |||
Site description (2001 baseline)
Marenji is a relatively large fragment of coastal forest (covering c.1,480 ha), gazetted as a Forest Reserve in 1967 and located near the Mombasa–Lungalunga road, c.1 km from Mrima trading centre. The forest is undifferentiated, on Magarini sands, with a mixture of grassland and scrubby woodland in the valleys. Farmland and grassland surround it. Rainfall is around 1,100 mm/year. Some of the major tree species include Scorodophloeus fischeri, Newtonia paucijuga, Combretum schumannii, Nesogordonia holtzii, Bombax rhodognapholon, Afzelia quanzensis, Cordyla africana, Julbernardia magnistipulata, Albizia glaberrima var. glabrescens, Milicia excelsa, Diospyros mespiliformis, Manilkara discolor and M. sansibarensis.
Key biodiversity
See Box and Tables 2 and 3 for key species. This forest holds healthy, and probably viable populations of East African coastal forest species, including the globally threatened and restricted-range Anthus sokokensis, the Near Threatened Anthreptes reichenowi and Tauraco fischeri. Regionally threatened species include Erythrocercus holochlorus.
Non-bird biodiversity: There is no information on other fauna. The threatened small mammal Rhynchocyon petersi (EN) probably occurs, as probably does the increasingly uncommon primate Colobus angolensis palliatus. Of 240 plant taxa, at least 12 plant species occurring in Marenji are considered globally or nationally rare.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Marenji Forest (Kenya). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/marenji-forest-iba-kenya on 22/11/2024.