Current view: Text account
Site description (2001 baseline):
Site location and context
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.
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.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
Marenji is threatened by commercial logging, mainly for
Scorodophloeus fischeri and
Newtonia paucijuga, which has been heavy and damaging to the structure of the forest. Tree poaching (especially of
Combretum schumannii) for the carving trade, pole cutting and charcoal burning are also prevalent, especially along the eastern and south-eastern boundaries. Some level of use by local people is probably sustainable, but this should be controlled and based on a management plan that derives from a proper forest inventory. Commercial timber extraction should cease if the forest is to retain its biodiversity values.
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 23/11/2024.
