Lack of benefit sharing undermines support for nature conservation in an Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot

Successful forest conservation in the tropics depends on various biophysical, socioeconomic, cultural, and political factors. Researchers, environmental practitioners, and local people recognize the need to resolve longstanding systemic weaknesses in environmental governance institutions, to make mainstream environmental policy and action, and to find locally informed and adaptive conservation measures. This also applies to the preservation of cloud-forest fragments of the Taita Hills in southern Kenya, a section of the Afromontane biodiversity hotspot. These forest remnants host many endemic and endangered plant and animal species, and suffer under deforestation and forest degradation. We conducted structured surveys with 300 smallholder farmers living around three forest fragments in the Taita Hills. Our results indicate a lack of knowledge about biodiversity and ecosystem functions among local people. We found an inverse relationship between the level of formal education and practical environmental knowledge, and a bias toward the protection of plant species, because of their provisional ecosystem services, as opposed to the protection of wild animals, because they are mainly associated with human-wildlife conflicts and large-scale tourism. Unresolved human-wildlife conflicts and missing benefit sharing from tourism has created an anti-conservation attitude. Our study underlines that nature conservation is only feasible if the local people benefit from it in the medium and long terms, and if the added value of conservation for high humanlivelihood quality is clearly communicated.


INTRODUCTION
Conservation of tropical forests in Africa faces a myriad of challenges (Hansen et al. 2020), such as climate change (Hemp 2009), weak governance structures (Agrawal 2007), communication gaps between institutions and people , and competing interests, such as demands for forest products for the local and global markets (Agrawal et al. 2008). Forests and woodland are neglected in conservation in comparison with African savannahs and bushlands, which are of high relevance for tourism (Riggio et al. 2019). The African continent loses 3.9 million hectares of natural forest each year (FAO 2020). This contributes to increasing habitat fragmentation of the remaining forest habitats (Fahrig 2003, Hansen et al. 2020 and to altered habitat quality (Hemp 2009), with negative effects on biodiversity persistence (Brooks et al. 1998, Burgess et al. 2007), reduced ecosystem functions, and subsequently decreasing humanlivelihood quality (Agrawal 2007, Büscher andWhande 2007).
There have been efforts toward forest conservation and restoration by different actors with varying degrees of success (Atela et al. 2015, Abiyu et al. 2016, Douh et al. 2018. Effective implementation of forest conservation in both gazetted and community forests largely depends on the attitudes and good will of the local people (Andersson et al. 2007, Ribot et al. 2010, Nzau et al. 2020. People who regard themselves as conservation beneficiaries are more likely to adopt positive conservation behavior, such as sustainable extraction of firewood, as opposed to people who feel disadvantaged by nature conservation measures (Holmes andAdamowicz 2003, Vodouhê et al. 2010). However, positive perceptions and attitudes do not necessarily lead to positive conservation behavior (Waylen et al. 2009).
Attitudes toward conservation also depend on the level of formal education and practical environmental knowledge (Sternberg et al. 2001, Reyes-García et al. 2009, Mawere 2015, gender dynamics (Vodouhê et al. 2010), benefit-sharing arrangements (Mutanga et al. 2015), disadvantages for humans caused by human-wildlife conflicts (Githiru 2007, Kamau and Sluyter 2018, Ceauşu et al. 2019, Killion et al. 2020, degree of poverty, and land available for subsistence farming (Nzau et al. 2020). Additionally, communication barriers and power imbalances between local people and environmental management authorities undermine concerted efforts for nature conservation (Weichselgartner and Kasperson 2009).

Questionnaire design
The initial version of the structured questionnaire was designed in English and subsequently translated into Kiswahili. The questions were asked by J. M. N. or another Kenyan, who both natively speak Swahili. All answers were re-translated again from Swahili into English, all by J. M. N. The questionnaire was divided into six thematic sections, with 43 questions in total; 17 questions were open-ended. The first section of the questionnaire captured basic social and demographic data of participants. The second section explored the existence and applicability of local ecological knowledge on forest conservation. The third section included questions on land use and land tenure. The fourth section contained questions on awareness of and perceptions toward biodiversity and conservation. The fifth section was on willingness to apply sustainable practices in land management. The sixth section inquired into everyday habits and behavior. The second and sixth sections were largely adapted from Shepheard-Walwyn (2014). The complete structured questionnaire is provided as Appendix 1.

Data analyses
For the present analyses we considered 40 out of the 58 single questions received. We used gender, age, education, and source of information as predictors of environmental awareness in our statistical analyses (Table 1). We combined the answers concerning knowledge about occurrences of animals and plants (survey questions 22 and 23) and of perceived soil erosion, fertility, and non-indigenous plant species (question 29), and derived a simple but effective index of environmental awareness, based on the knowledge of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and people's agreement in protecting species and ecosystems: We further assessed the reasons why participants supported the protection of plants and animals (survey question 24). We grouped the answers given into six values: provisional ecosystem services, traditional value, future generations, aesthetics, tourism, and nature conservation. We analyzed the available sources of information for environmental laws, rules, and regulations that were available to local people (question 25), and how the local people rated the usefulness of the environmental information they got from these sources (question 26). We used nested ANOVA and contingency table analysis as implemented in Statistica 12.0 to infer differences of participants with respect to gender, age, education, and source of information.
Finally, we performed two strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analyses (SWOT; e.g., Scolozzi et al. 2014, Bull et al. 2015 to discuss possible conservation strategies in light of the current ecological and economic situations. For this task we searched the literature to obtain the latest information on the conservation status and ecological functioning of the study region, as well as on current and envisioned changes in land use. From these sources we compiled the most important issues mentioned with regard to the current states of biodiversity, usage, and forest conservation.

Attitudes of the local people toward nature conservation
Overall > 60% of participants recorded high levels of environmental awareness, which did not significantly differ between men and women: p(F 1299 ) > 0.5 (A, Fig. 2; Table 2). However, women scored lower in all age classes (B, Fig. 2) with lower educational levels when compared to men (C, Fig. 2). Awareness was weakly related to age class: p(F 1,299 ) = 0.04 (Table  2). However, awareness was different between participants of different educational levels: p(F 1,299 ) < 0.01 (Table 2). Interestingly, men of intermediate education scored highest in environmental awareness, whereas with women no clear pattern emerged (C, Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.
Environmental awareness (Eqn. 1) with respect to (a) gender, (b) age class, and (c) education groups (N: no school education, P: primary school, S: secondary school, H: higher education). Errors denote parametric 95% confidence limits. Dark grey bars denote men, light grey bars women. Irrespective of education, most participants were unable to mention any endemic (A, Fig. 3) or endangered (C, Fig. 3) plant or animal species. Participants with no or only primary education  Fig. 3. Proportions of participants in four educational groups (N: no school education, P: primary school, S: secondary school, H: higher education) with respect to numbers of (a) endemic and (b) endangered species. Colors: grey: 0 species mentioned, red: 1 species, yellow: 2 species, green: 3 or more species. Error bars denote bootstrapped 95% confidence limits.
mentioned more endemic and endangered plants than participants of secondary or higher education: p(F 1,298 ) = 0.01 (Fig. 3). However, only a moderate difference appeared with respect to animals: p(F 1,298 ) = 0.06 (Fig. 3). In total, our data support significant gender differences for the awareness to protect plants, with higher awareness in women than men, whereas no such differences came up with respect to animal protection (Table  3, Fig. 4).
The recurring reasons to protect plants and animals were related to provisional ecosystem services, tourism, and nature conservation. Mentioning of these reasons did not significantly differ between age classes: p(F 3,296 ) > 0.05 (B, Fig. 4). Tourism was the dominating reason with respect to animals, whereas provisional ecosystem services were most often mentioned with respect to plants (B, Fig. 4), irrespective of the level of education (C, Fig. 4). In contrast, the level of education influenced the way local populations assessed plant and animal protection (C, Fig.  4). Participants with lower education significantly pointed more often to tourism with respect to plant protection than participants with at least a secondary education: p(F 3,296 ) < 0.01 (C, Fig. 4). Error bars denote bootstrapped 95% confidence limits.

Fig. 5.
Average scores of a 5-point scale regarding the usefulness of information on environmental conservation (-2: not useful, +2: very useful) with respect to information source and (a) gender, (b) age class, and (c) education. Error bars denote parametric 95% confidence limits.

Use of different channels of environmental communication
Participants clearly differentiated between sources of information on environmental conservation with no significant gender differences (A, Fig. 5). Mass media and official information as well as communications from local chiefs were well received (A, Fig. 5), whereas internet and NGO information was not rated as useful (A, Fig. 5). Older people particularly rated information from the internet as not useful (B, Fig. 5). Interestingly, this age group, being least educated (Table 1; C, Fig. 5), was most sceptical of all external information sources (B, Fig. 5). Usefulness of massmedia information increased whereas the usefulness of internet information decreased with increasing level of education, respectively (Fig. 5).

Possible conservation strategies
Our first SWOT analysis on the forest status highlighted the following strengths: that forest patches provide valuable habitats for endangered plant and animal species, seed banks, various ecosystem functions, and act as important water catchment. As weaknesses we identified insecure land tenure; biodiversity homogenization through the planting of exotic trees; small and isolated forest patches; and lack of implementation of land-use and forest management. Potential opportunities might be green tourism, mobilizing international funding, ethical biodiversity harvesting, ecosystem services provisioning, and the leasing of land for conservation purposes. Threats were demand of land for conservation; ongoing planting of exotic trees; ongoing deforestation of forest patches; demand for firewood and timber; fires; farming along rivers and in swamps; and biodiversity loss (Table 4).
In our second SWOT analysis, we focused on forest conservation, and identified the following strengths: high willingness to conserve and restore forest; high level of environmental awareness; existence of a community forest association; economic benefits through conservation; and international investment in biodiversity hotspots. We identified the following weaknesses: intrust toward forest conservation; weak coordination of activities; distrust toward NGOs; loss of environmental knowledge; and lack of financial resources in conservation. Potential opportunities were bottom-up pressure, mobiliziation of funding, and international visibility. Main threats were agricultural intensification, historical injustices, corruption, lack of land management, and the financial crisis (B , Table 4).

DISCUSSION
Environmental awareness of people: the interplay among education, age, and sex We found a high level of environmental awareness among the local people in the Taita Hills when compared with other studies conducted in other regions of Kenya based on identical approaches, such as along riparian forests in the semiarid region of southeast Kenya, and around Arabuko Sokoke coastal forest in the south of Kenya (Nzau et al. 2020). We found a negative relationship between formal education and the knowledge of endemic and endangered animal and plant species. Participants with no or only primary education significantly mentioned more endemic and endangered plant species than participants possessing at least secondary school education and higher education. Various explanations for this trend are crucial and not mutually exclusive. First, people with no formal education have a higher likelihood of relying directly on nature, especially for provisioning ecosystem services such as food, medicine, firewood, and building materials (Wangai et al. 2016), as well as for cultural values (Berkes 2012), than people with at least secondary or higher education, who are likely to have waged income (Manda and Sen 2004) and possess alternate spiritual values (Owuor 2007 (Mittermeier et al. 2011); Indigenous tree nursery and bee keeping (Himberg et al. 2009); Insecure land tenure due to the land inheritance culture (Maeda et al. 2010); Non-native species and diversity homogenisation (Omoro et al. 2010); Too small forest remnants causing instable populations and vulnerable food web structures (Apfelbeck et al. 2019); Lack of land use and forest management plans (Teucher et al. 2020); Lack of proper biodiversity monitoring schemes; Opportunities Threats Increasing green tourism (Jarvis et al. 2010); International funding for hot spot conservation (Emerton et al. 2006); Potential funding for ethical genetic harvesting (Engels et al. 2011) ; Future ecosystem service contracting (Githiru and Njambuya 2019); Leasing land to advance fragment connectivity (Githiru and Njambuya 2019); Legal cases on land ownership (Wagura 2018); Monodominance by planted non-native tree species (Pellikka et al. 2009); Ongoing illegal deforestation and selective logging (Teucher et al. 2020); Increasing demand for firewood (Loader et al. 2009); Increasing frequency of drought (Boitt et al. 2015); Chronic forest fires (Himberg et al. 2009); Poor enforcement of riparian protection rules ); Breakdown of food web structures (Ulrich et al. 2016);

Strengths
Weakness High willingness of the local people to restore the forest fragments as water towers ; High local environmental awareness (out study); Active Community Forest Associations (CFAs; Wekesa et al. 2021); International interest in tropical biodiversity conservation (Emerton et al. 2006); Economic benefits on conserving natural forests (Himberg et al. 2009) ; Distrust or apathy towards forest conservation due to lack of short-term economic benefits (Holmes 2003); Weak coordination among conservation organisations (our study); Distrust of local people against NGOs (Kendal and Ford 2017); Loss of practical environmental knowledge (Rogo and Oguge 2000); Insufficient conservation financing (our study);

Opportunities
Threats Bottom-up pressure for forest conservation to restore water tower  Ongoing agricultural intensification on riparian areas (Teucher et al. 2020); Historical injustices and marginalisation in resource management and benefitsharing ; Corruption and lack of transparency (our study); Uncontrolled urbanisation and land use change (Mkaya 2013); Financial crises (Kavousi et al. 2020); secondary education and at least four years to complete higher education in the current school curriculum in Kenya, according to the Ministry of Education (https://www.education.go.ke/). In consequence, people with higher formal education are likely to possess more theoretical environmental knowledge acquired from the classroom than practical environmental knowledge connected to their immediate ecosystem (Sternberg et al. 2001, Reyes-García et al. 2009). Third, the sharp decline of biodiversity in the remaining forest fragments (Teucher et al. 2020) could contribute to an increased disconnect between people and nature (Andersson et al. 2007). The loss of practical environmental knowledge by the Taita people limits their confidence to negotiate for equitable resource management, making them subservient to bureaucratic knowledge systems, which in turn enhances structural power imbalances (Hohenthal 2018). These findings on the trade-offs between formal education and local environmental knowledge underscore the global call for integration of local environmental knowledge in formal school curricula (Müller and Tippins 2010, McCarter and Gavin 2011, Kim and Dionne 2014, Abah et al. 2015, Mawere 2015, but also the need for real world-related and action-oriented forms of environmental education (UNESCO 2017, Rieckmann 2018.
We found that men of intermediate education scored highest in environmental awareness. The school-labor dynamics in Kenya offer important clues to this finding, whereby persons with at least primary education and no further tertiary training are less likely to be absorbed into the labor market (Manda 2004) translating to minimalized probability for out-migration (Ginsburg 2016). Men with average formal education therefore possess both theoretical (i.e., learned in the school setting) and practical environmental knowledge acquired in daily livelihood interactions with the local ecosystems (Sternberg et al. 2001, Owuor 2007, Reyes-García et al. 2010). On the other hand, women with intermediate education are likely to out-migrate for casual labor in the domestic sector (Suda 2002) or marriage (Ginsburg 2016), especially given the limited prospects of inheriting ancestral land (Luke andMunshi 2006, Djurfeldt 2020). The association between formal schooling and local environmental knowledge is complex (UNESCO 2009), and often shows contrasting coherences (Reyes-García et al. 2010). Growing concerns across the African continent show that the inception of academic education systems undermined the pathways for local knowledge transmission (Sternberg et al. 2001, World Bank 2003, Owuor 2007.

Attitudes toward wildlife: lacking compensation and benefit sharing
Most respondents expressed little interest in protecting wildlife, favoring the protection of plants over wild animals. Women showed the least support for protecting wild animals. This bias may be understood in the context of the ecosystem benefits provided by plants, whereas wildlife are perceived to be of less tangible benefits to the local people. For instance, diet preferences Ecology and Society 27(4): 3 https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol27/iss4/art3/ had significantly shifted from bushmeat to present-day domesticated meat sources (Icheria 2019). The inclination to protect plant species over wild animals may further be understood in the context of two factors. First, the long-standing and unresolved human-wildlife conflicts in this region (Hohenthal et al. 2018, Kamau and Sluyter 2018, Rülke et al. 2020, Siljander et al. 2020 led to an aversion to wild animals. This is made clear by women's indication that the constant scaring away of monkeys is a burden, and some fires set in the remaining forest fragments were for the purpose of chasing away or eliminating monkeys (Appendix 2). Second, the absence of equitable compensation for damage caused by wildlife, and lacking benefit-sharing arrangements from wildlife conservation and tourism worsen this negative attitude toward wild animals (Atela et al. 2015, Chomba et al. 2016Appendix 2).
Sharing in the gains from conserving protected habitats is a basic requirement for effective conservation. Numerous studies have shown that the integration of the local population into local tourism is essential to establish a long-term marketing and conservation strategy. The Taita Hills clearly show the attitudes toward the last forest fragments that develop when local people do not benefit from tourism. Approximately 62% of the Taita-Taveta County, home of the Taita people, is covered by Tsavo National Park, and another 24% of the land by private ranches and large-scale sisal plantations. Only 11% of the land remained for smallholder farming (Njogu and Dietz 2006). These land-use dynamics and the arising resource use and management contentions (Njogu 2004, Hohenthal 2018 contribute to an inverse relationship between wildlife conservation and humanlivelihood needs (Githiru 2007. Our findings echo the association of wildlife conservation to tourism (Rülke et al. 2020) and unmask reluctance toward forest conservation action that is conceived in the fear of losing the remaining arable land to wildlife conservation (Atela et al. 2015).

Communication gaps: the role of elders and participation
We found a twofold communication anomaly in the Taita Hills. First, the local people find that information from governmental and non-governmental agencies is not useful, with older people being sceptical of all external information sources. This might be because older people are less educated, and in general show less positive attitudes toward nature conservation (Table 1). However, older people are extremely critical to the acceptance of conservation, and the general attitude toward the remaining forest habitats. Older people play a pivotal role in the social system in Kenyan communities. Extensive research acknowledges the role of elders in Africa as custodians of local ecological knowledge who are thereby likely to possess practical environmental knowledge (Shizha 2006, Owuor 2007, Berkes 2012. Second, the inclusion of local people in forest governance and decision making is ambiguous and asymmetrical. This is in line with findings from other studies conducted in the Taita Hills (Hohenthal 2018, Rülke et al. 2020, Teucher et al. 2020. The loss of practical environmental knowledge combined with resourceappropriation injustices and the reluctance of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to address human-wildlife conflicts in the Taita Hills set a backdrop for mistrust and structural power imbalances between the local people and environmental management authorities (Githiru 2007, Hohenthal 2018. As a result, environmental communication does not proceed very efficiently (Holmes andAdamowicz 2003, Weichselgartner andKasperson 2009). This situation becomes particularly clear when taking a closer look at and analyzing the role of Community Forest Associations (CFA) in the Taita Hills. The Forests Act (Government of Kenya 2005) and the Forest Conservation and Management Act (Government of Kenya 2016) provide a formal legal framework for local communities to participate in resource management through CFAs (Teucher et al. 2020). Representative members of CFAs are ideally chosen by the local communities through a democratic process to mediate resource use and benefit sharing. However, we found that CFAs in the Taita Hills lack the skills and financial resources to equitably participate in forest management (interviews 2, 7, and 8, Appendix 2). This lack of capacity reduces the engagement of local people in conservation dialogue to only distant approvers (Kendal and Ford 2017), whose value is to rubberstamp decisions from various governmental and non-governmental organizations. This creates an illusion of active inclusion of local communities (Nzau et al. 2020).

Taita Hills: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
In our SWOT analyses (Table 4) we identified various strengths. The remaining forest fragments still host many endemic and endangered plant and animal species (Githiru and Lens 2007) and are important for carbon sequestration (Njeru 2016, Njeru et al. 2017. The cloud forests act as water catchments (Kivivouri et al. 2013, Mkaya 2013 and provide indigenous seed banks and medicinal plants, among other ecosystem services (Seifert et al. 2022). On the other hand, insecure land tenure (Maeda et al. 2010) and rapidly declining plot sizes per capita (Nzau et al. 2018) contribute to mismanagement of natural resources across the Taita Hills. The expansion of exotic trees throughout the forest and across farms (Omoro et al. 2010) causes biodiversity homogenization, which has a negative impact on habitat quality and ecosystem functions (Pellikka et al. 2009). Most forest remnants are too small to guarantee long-term persistence of biodiversity (Ulrich et al. 2016, Apfelbeck et al. 2019. Land-use and forest management plans largely do not exist or are only poorly implemented (Teucher et al. 2020). There are still significant threats to be considered such as the potential for legal cases on land ownership especially with the recent ambitions by conservation actors to pursue fragment connectivity (Wagura 2018). The monodominance of planted non-native tree species, continuing illegal deforestation and selective logging (Aerts et al. 2011), and increased demand for firewood resulting in cutting trees and the collection of deadwood (Loader et al. 2009) could pose unintended consequences on already compromised ecosystem health (Pellikka et al. 2009), and which have been connected to drying up of water sources (Kivivuori 2013, Hohenthal 2018. Moreover, increased drought frequencies (Boitt et al. 2015), chronic forest fires, and the general poor enforcement of riparian protection rules exacerbate the declining quality of the Taita Hills. This has a negative impact on biodiversity (Ulrich et al. 2016) and ecosystem functions (Seifert et al. 2022) in the long run. Regardless of these weaknesses and threats, there exist various potential opportunities for positive development in the future, for example, supporting and expanding green tourism in the region (Jarvis et al. 2010), mobilizing international funding for the preservation of global biodiversity hotspots (Emerton et al. 2006), as well as ethical biodiversity harvesting (Engels et al. 2011) and ecosystem service contracting (Chomba et al. 2017, Githiru and Njambuya 2019).
Ecology and Society 27(4): 3 https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol27/iss4/art3/ In our second SWOT analysis we focused on the process of change in conservation action for the Taita Hills cloud forests (B, Table  4). There exists high awareness and willingness among the local people to conserve and restore the cloud forests of the Taita Hills as an important water tower (Kivivuori 2013. The National Forest Act provides a legal background for Community Forest Associations (CFAs; Government of Kenya 2005, Teucher et al. 2020, through which the local people can organize to sustainably take opportunity of the economic benefits, including tree planting, beekeeping, and butterfly farming. These organizations, if properly executed, can tap into the international interest in the conservation of tropical forest biodiversity hotspots (Emerton et al. 2006), in order to upscale benefits and human-environment positive outcomes. However, conservationists ought to be attentive to the following weaknesses: the pervasive mistrust or apathy toward forest conservation because of lack of short-term economic benefits (Holmes and Adamowicz 2003), weak coordination among conservation organizations, as well as distrust toward non-governmental developmental agencies by the local people (Kendal and Ford 2017). This high level of mistrust might also arise from the history of the people in the Taita Hills. The people living in the Taita Hills have much experience in negotiating natural resource rights and in accommodating the historically chronicled waves of newcomers into the area (Prins 1952). This situation led to increased pressure on available land, to uncertainties in the property rights of land, and to a high level of mistrust, among other things toward conservation activities.
The loss of practical environmental knowledge among the local people and insufficient conservation financing further increase the fragility of environmental conservation in the Taita Hills cloud forests. Notwithstanding these complexities, there are potential opportunities for positive change such as increasing bottom-up pressure for forest conservation driven by increasing water scarcity, which can be strengthened through the mobilization for international and private funding for nature conservation, and increasing international visibility of local conservation achievements through environmental communication. There are, however, threats to be considered, such as the ongoing agricultural intensifications on riparian areas that cause degradation and impair important migratory routes for the fauna occurring around the Taita Hills forest fragments. The historical injustices and marginalization in resource management and benefit-sharing accompanied by corruption and lack of transparency in resource management, uncontrolled urbanization (Mkaya 2013), rapid land use change (Teucher et al. 2020), and general financial crises (Kavousi et al. 2020) further complicate the urgent restoration of the Taita Hills cloud forest.

CONCLUSIONS
Our study shows that the systematic reluctance to address perceived historical injustices in benefit-sharing and unequal resource management governance recreates a subtle, yet powerful, anti-conservation narrative, reinforces distrust for environmental management agencies, and forges a polarizing environment for meaningful conservation action. As long as local organizations have a very low capacity to act, their relevance tends to be low, and so does their acceptance by the local population. The current situation makes any efficient protection of the last cloud-forest patches of Taita Hills highly difficult.
Responses to this article can be read online at: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/issues/responses. php/13325

Acknowledgments:
We are grateful to Lozi Maraga, Anna Nies, Althea Dyer-Preibusch, Slas Neguse, Timothy Musa, and Tobias Bendzko for field assistance. We thank Mike Teucher for providing Figure 1. We thank the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for providing a PhD fellowship to J. M. N., and for funding data collection in the framework of the DAAD Quality Network Biodiversity Kenya. We thank two anonymous referees for constructive comments on a first version of this article.

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The interview will take about 30-45 min 296 Can you please tell me briefly what your job is? ____________________________________  is intact must be managed in such a way that is spelt in a management plan so in our project 400 we are also have been supporting forest management plans. The participatory forest 401 management plans for 2 forests that is the Chawia forest and Vuria and we have a draft not 402 draft parsee but we the output these are now the management plans where we did we funded 403 we funded these. This is, within here we have thematic areas so this one will be guiding the 404 partnership between the community and these are the county forests and then from here what CFA is all about, their roles as CFA members in conservation, responsibilities and 422 rewards if any. We have done that we've had like local consulting and training we've also 423 promoted the exchange visits, we took sometimes back we took them to Arabuko Sokoke you 424 know Arabuko Sokoke has some history good history in community and conservation we went 425 there for like one week with representatives we have five forest fragments so we took 5, 5 from 426 the 5 forest fragments I think we were almost 30 to Arabuko Sokoke for 1 week that was early 427 this year I think it was early this year. We also took other representatives for an exchange visit, 428 to a training on Community Forest Association by KEFRI in Kitui it was also like 5 days that .that is like they were 10 they were not so many 447 and alongside that we have been doing capacity building on beekeeping we took some 448 representatives from those groups to a 2 weeks training in Baraka Agricultural Training College 449 in Molo 2 weeks training it was funded by our organization and these guys who were trained 450 were to come back and train others they were supposed to be coming back and so that they 451 come teach others I hope they've done okay they have done we have been doing bits of 452 monitoring. Other than that one we have also been encouraging I don't know how to call it 453 encouraging local exchange visits or sharing knowledge from one group to the other like the 454 issues with beekeeping has been with the beetles so like the other group that is in Chawia they 455 were telling us that, okay they are also partnering with other, what do we call it, with other 456 organizations for example the ICIPE so they have been trained and they came up with a method 457 of controlling the beetle like the beehives there is are landing part on the beehives, where the 458 bees land so they were cutting the landing area so that when the beetles come when they get 459 knocked on to the beehive they fall so when there is that landing they don't fall they fall down 460 and start crawling and get into the hives so they were trying to cut these landing sites to ensure 461 that when they knock themselves from the beehive instead of getting a landing place they fall 462 down so we have been using the same group to train some of our groups to help they do the an expert in beekeeping but they are telling us that bees require clean environment so there is 473 a likelihood that these community groups some of the groups they don't give us, sometimes 474 maybe they lie to us when we ask we usually enquire on a monthly basis how many beehives 475 have colonized how many bees have absconded and we usually ask about how frequently do 476 they go and monitor their beehives they might tell you we have been doing it we have done it 477 and we are doing it like every two weeks but in real sense even after three months. Yea so those 478 could be some contributory factors, the fact that the hives are not clean so they are suppose to 479 be cleaned regularly or you do the inspection, cleaning regularly then the fact that most bees 480 are absconding could be because the hives are not clean or because of the infestation by the 481 beetle or it is too cold because there is a way of aligning or orienting the hives they were taught 482 and probably there those they are also talking about attack by honey birds but I think that is not 483 a major 484 We have also seen that they don't have a processing plant anymore, its broken 485 Yeah they don't have a processing plant. Its broken in fact they gave us a sample the one that 486 is broken I sent it to our head office in Nairobi. Our head office is based in xxx. And they tried 487 to do a replacement but they could not get the exact one so our organization is thinking of 488 buying the whole system so I think I should be calling to ask them where they've reached. That 489 group is soon getting one but it has stayed like almost 1 year. Yea September but we've been here since 2013 and I have been working with the CFAs. We 505 have challenges and it is common to all community groups it is common even to all people 506 who are working together challenges are there. Okay, to some extent they are doing some good 507 work but we are also getting challenges from other groups because you find that these CFAs 508 some of them were formed, the concept of CFA came to Taita very late. Those people who 509 were giving information about the need to have Community Forest Associations didn't deliver 510 it very well. So some members thought that you form a CFA and then you take over the 511 management of the CFA you start cutting, instead of conserving you start cutting the trees and 512 you sell the timber and any other, so that was the notion. So some thought that it would be 513 easier to start milking benefits from the forest because there was a planned harvesting of mature 514 eucalyptus from the Taita hills. So whoever was giving them information, just to entice them 515 so that they can get into community groups, or get into CFA was that form the CFA then after 516 forming the CFA the when the felling plan takes effect you will be benefitting so that is the 517 i notion. That concept was poorly delivered to the community. That is what we are struggling 518 with. In fact there is a better CFA we are seeing that is fairly picking up but still there are some 519 few problems from the Vuria because it is a CFA that as Nature Kenya we've built its capacity. 520 Yea they have even done election, we've overseen their election it was successful. And at the 521 end of the election it was more intact because we as an organization you know we are playing 522 a neutral ground. We ensured that, because the forest is surrounded by 6 villages or sub 523 locations, we ensured that within that the executive committee each sub location is represented 524 and we ensured that fairest way because each and every sub location produced like 4 delegates.

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The initial plan was that they were supposed to have 7 delegates and when they came there was 526 a sub location represented by 4. So we wanted to have a fair play, such that if you win you are 527 winning because you've maybe presented your policies and people are happy with them. So 528 the other challenge is, it's not that they are politicized what we have is that when the concept 529 came it was poorly delivered the after the delivery, you know these things come with projects, Yes, we've also realized that our CFAs trying to create awareness they deliver wrong 537 information to the rest of the community. I have a case example there is a Community Forest 538 Association close to Ngerenyi University, it is called Sundifu. Susu, is a small indigenous forest 539 closer to the polytechnic and then we have Fururu closer to university and then we have the 540 other one closer to the hill is basically a eucalyptus closer to a primary school known as 541 Vichwala. So they are doing awareness and trying to recruiting more members into their group 542 so recently they gave me you know they give me the progress of their activities so they were 543 telling me that this group is complaining they have overgrown seedlings they are waiting for 544 us to go and buy then I asked them, excuse me where did we agree with you people to go while 545 recruiting the groups you tell them that we will be buying the seedlings and yet we don't have 546 that in our program

547
That's what we have been told. They are waiting for you to buy 548 Yes, those are some of the challenges facing the livelihoods that have been initiated and that is 549 now a challenge that is hard to eradicate. A challenge that after doing everything then some sit 550 and tell you now we have done it, so what next. You've given you've capacity built a group in 551 a given livelihood you've even supported the initiation of a livelihood then after the fruits have 552 started coming then they wait for you to come and either buy or help them go sell. You support 553 community group with cabbages for example so that they have something that can take a 554 shorter time to start earning as they wait for example the bee honey production or as they wait 555 for fish farming 556 And do you make this clear maybe in the initial, that you will not be the end buyer 557 You know where the problem is, at the moment we have our own project. Initially the project 558 that got me here initially I was working with Kenya Wildlife Service Research in XXX. So 559 when I came here in XXX then we were affiliated with other groups. There is a group we are 560 sharing office with. So it was a project and our role was specific, implementing a specific part 561 of the project and the bigger portion of the project was being implemented by the other group.

562
Initially there was another one that was funded by CDTF to the tune of 30 million. So we were 563 also partners so when we come we are building on what is existing so in doing this we have 564 realized there are some mistakes that occurred at the initial stages because you find that some 565 of the projects, first one the CDTF project had a provision for buying seedlings from the 566 community. That was one. Another one which now gave me job from xxx funded by Darwin 567 i Initiative had that provision for procuring, purchasing the seedlings from the community. Now 568 those other 2 projects their time elapsed so we have ours which is a program, first phase has 569 gone, we are in the second phase there is no provision for buying the seedlings unless a 570 community group does a proposal to us that requests some funds to buy some seedlings 571 rehabilitate a portion then they can be given some cash like we did. There is a group on the 572 other side, a Community Forest Association from Vuria was given some 20 thousand based on 573 what they wanted to buy seedlings from their user group and plant there is another group that 574 was given 45, I think they wanted to plant 1500. Yea so unless they do that usually we are 575 trying to, you know working with the community is very difficult we are trying to capacity 576 build, one and then to expand their thinking like opportunities which area available in the 577 devolved system of governance like for example I was just speaking to the group we are 578 working with that there is need for them to do a proposal we can help them to do a very 579 simplified proposal to CDF such that maybe to procure seedlings then they identify where they 580 want to plant the seedlings then if they get the money they take this money and buy their own 581 seedlings they take the seedlings they go and plant and they remain with the money, that is how 582 it is.. that is how our organization does but we don't have allocation for procuring seedlings 583 we are only encouraging them we are only opening their minds on available opportunities to 584 benefit including creating linkages to the county government through ministry of environment 585 we have done that, we have even brought our groups together with the ministry of environment 586 so that they could share, telling the ministry they are able to do this and that. We also work 587 with Kenya Forest Service if we hear that they need seedlings we can direct them or if a donor 588 comes who needs some specific seedlings we direct them but we don't have that opportunity 589 to go and procure, to go and buy the seedlings 590 Tera has told me he wants to buy 4 thousand 591 Yea Tera did it, Tera did it last time and they got from the groups working with. You know our 592 groups are widespread. You didn't reach Ngangao forest and then Vuria? through the linkages we are encouraging them to create working linkages. We are also 599 encouraging them to be on lookout for emerging, forming more partner groups like the Tera 600 has been training some of our groups I was also forgetting the need to talk with them so that 601 we agree with them on now they will be having a project, starting in September, it was suppose 602 to start in September but I think it is almost rolling out that goes out for 4 years. I will seek 603 audience with them to know which are there areas of focus, the coverage the areas not the 604 thematic but the areas and then in any case if they will be working some of the groups we are 605 working with is the agreement they can do what they want to do, and and where they will not 606 do we pick from there not duplicating for example maybe they are encouraging A,B,C,D or 607 they want to train on this and we are also planning to train on this, so we can allow them to 608 train on the other one and then we pick form where they will reach, that is what we are thinking.

609
And I'm also surprised that that from literature we have been reading that Taita has 610 participatory I don't know from since when, that's the whole idea that we came here to study 611 participatory management, but when we came here we were told the stakeholders are just But not on these fragments 619 That is the truth, the concept came late and when it came, you know the problem with these 620 projects come with the concept and the project elapses after 3 years so you push it you reach at 621 a point the project has elapsed and you don't have any other project. So you leave it that point.

622
So those are some of the things which are and whatever you are told I think it is the truth and 623 that is why as Nature Kenya as an organization we are thinking of, we want it to work and this 624 is an example, we had formulated this, we wanted this to go to county government they sign it it didn't reach Nairobi it disappeared somewhere because we sent some person who is at the 641 headquarter to confirm whether that letter reached, it didn't reach so we didn't have again, we 642 have been relying on, we wanted KFS to help those 2 CFAs to start up the process of writing 643 the agreement and again we wanted to ask, we've not asked but we wanted to ask KFS is it Umm okay before answering that question I said that our project has been on participatory 651 forest management we also talked about the aspect of livelihoods the aspect of advocacy I think 652 the aspect of advocacy and capacity building so we've also been having an element of a school 653 outreach program to integrate the awareness with the aspect of environment, public awareness. 654 We also been having the element of involving the young ones in environmental conservation, 655 so you are asking the impact? 1 is on these plans we have developed these plans and it has cost 656 us a lot of money bringing the experts together, community groups together You know again I said that when you are working with community it is very difficult to work 672 with them because, you know you cannot force someone to bind into your idea of conservation 673 but then generally this is how we work even if you walk around those areas of our operation 674 you will hear some people say that that organization only benefit few people. There was a time 675 we heard like that. Only benefit a few people why we don't work with everybody we work 676 with people in groups and these groups at different areas we have the sub groups, the groups 677 like maybe can be forest user groups, self help groups, we work with self help groups so these 678 self help groups were brought together through an umbrella body known as …[33:58 not clear] 679 so ours our site support is called Dawida biodiversity group in short it is DABIGO this group 680 has between 10 to 13 CBOs (Community Based Organisation) within itself spread from 681 Ngangao to Vuria to Chawia, Susu, Fururu to Iyale so we work with these groups so we work 682 with these groups to help achieve our goal of conservation bearing in mind working with small 683 group they will also impact on the rest of the community but now if you start talking again on 684 the same same if you talk with Tera here the Helsinki guys here not talking with them but if 685 you ask those who are within their area of operation they will even tell you they don't know 686 what those guys are doing yea that's what you will get it because somebody selects what he 687 or she wants to hear but generally awareness has being done generally it has been done the area 688 of coverage is big. We are working with 15 schools secondary are few either 1 or 2 but majority 689 are primary we work with Mazola primary it is closer to Chawia these Jikos, the boilers of 690 secondary we bought them and it was to reduce pressure on firewood, cut down the firewood 691 consumption by almost 50% we supported another school known as Vichwala. Have you been 692 to Vichwala, yes Vichwala there is a Jiko, our jiko is there we supported a school here called 693 Kungu, Kungwi is on your way up, on your way up you will get Kungwi we have our signpost 694 is there we supported that school loser to the forest so when somebody tells you aim of 695 supporting this because of these 2 birds they stay in the forest and their numbers are dwindling, 696 they are undergoing local extinction they are disappearing in the forest which they were found, 697 so among things which are contributing to their disappearance, habitat disturbance, that could 698 be cutting down trees for firewood and any other, walking aimlessly in the forest so we have 699 tried to reduce but we have also talked. You know these birds you don't, even they are not to at least those areas where these species are found they reduce, they cut not cutting but 714 replacing the eucalyptus with indigenous you know these birds are found in indigenous forests 715 so that is what we have been doing and the impact of that is that KFS agreed and there is a 716 project that is ongoing, and we have affiliated ourselves with museums of Kenya. Iyale forest 717 i there is an area that got burnt so were allowed through our collaborators we convinced them 718 that these birds require that indigenous, so we wanted to remove the burnt exotic trees and 719 leaving the area just open that way to allow natural re-growth 720 And the fern will not take advantage 721 So that will be a challenge, that could be a challenge but again it is fine these birds nests on You know KFS is government and a government will not come and tell you that and give you 751 an idea of how to eat into their profit, they will not come and tell you and who is a community 752 in the first place?

753
The citizens of the government 754 So how will you have a benefit sharing mechanism with the citizen, who is this citizen It's just 755 like saying the government the government the president, no, because you will hear the 756 president saying government will deal with that, government, government. A minister will say 757 that the government is targeting the minister then you ask who is the government, is not known.

758
So it is the same. When we talk about the citizens whatever the only thing that can happen is 759 what we are doing now having a management plan and then from there you have the agreement 760 that is signed and then people start working so on the agreement revenue like for example if 761 the felling plan will take effect then you agree as a CFA, a CFA can even register being a saw 762 miller then they are given a percentage that if they are doing the felling then this percentage 763 the CFA will be given this percentage if you fell, you fell and then you rehabilitate you see, so And they also talk about the logging ban because even if they plant indigenous trees they will 773 never be allowed to cut them so they say its better we plan the exotic trees because we can have 774 a permit to cut them so perhaps the logging ban is counterproductive in that sense 775 Maybe 776 And what are the causes of chronic fires in some of the fragments 777 Okay from the hearsay some believe that during the drought when you want the rain to come 778 quickly you burn, maybe it is biologically proven it works but it is not sustainable so they are 779 burning, the smoke itself you know smoke is moisture from the burning vegetables, it goes into government and I would also develop the revenue benefit sharing mechanism such that outside 795 the conservation work that the community will be doing, if they is something good from it then, 796 I would ensure there is a good percentage going back to the community you know I have been 797 telling the community members that these forests do not even belong to Kenya Forest Service,

798
Kenya Forest Service they do conservation and management on behalf of like here in Taita on 799 behalf of people of Taita, the forests were there before KFS was formed, forest were there and 800 they will only support that conservation, you know when you talk about that they will tell you 801 this forest ni ya serikali, nyani pia inatoka hapa [belongs to the government and monkeys live 802 there] come and destroy our crops so the best conservation initiative is that which strikes a 803 balance between, that ensures the wellbeing improves the wellbeing of people improves and 804 conservation, biodiversity improves so for you to ensure that you have achieved this, you have 805 done bits of conservation you need to look at the social welfare of the people and also the 806 welfare of the biodiversity 807 What is your idea of controlling human wildlife conflict especially with monkeys and baboons? 808 The greatest contributor towards human wildlife conflict are the humans themselves because 809 you are a human being you have gone and cultivated closer to the forest the monkeys will see 810 your farmland as the easy way out to go and feed same like Taita county as a whole the issues 811 to do with elephant human conflict it is on the rise, why because we have gone and stayed 812 within their corridors, migratory corridors so when these elephants come, maybe more from 813 the other side to get water its traditional water the area there then it gets the area is locked will 814 this animal spare you, it will just move so we are pushing, the human beings we are pushing 815 too much or too hard on the wildlife and so because of that push, they are hitting back. We are Yea this one we are worried whether it will survive because the number is dwindling. Hopes.

840
Okay, despite the challenges, hopes only come because of the effort that has been put so based 841 on the efforts that are in place we just hope that things will turn around well. For example we'll 842 secure the habitat for this. We are leasing land the side of Vuria we have 6 hectares already 843 leased for 25 years for the conservation on a private land so these birds were found to be there 844 their nesting ground were being destroyed by fire somebody could just burn to open forest for 845 farming, so we as an organization planning to create a reserve forest reserve for these birds 846 secured so for these birds to some extent hopes are there we are also pushing hard for the county 847 government recently we formulated forest policy and when the right time comes for 848 formulating the regulation, policy goes with regulation we will also push for, ensuring that the 849 fragile areas are mapped and maybe stringent measures are put in place to ensure that if for 850 example your shamba there is a strip passing through your shamba then we will ensure that we 851 put some close that say …or to reinforce the existing laws like on protection, you see so a lot 852 of research is going on the hills and we just hope are also pushing county government to take 853 a lead such that these research work that are being done like you people after finishing we need 854 to have the report and the stakeholders and the community are made aware of the status of their 855 environment what is on-going so if that one is done then a lot of awareness will be created.

856
People will see the trend, yea when we talk about this bird is disappearing they will be seeing To start with, I would like to ask you some general questions: 870 When you think about Taita Hills Cloud forests, which images come into your mind? 871 (Spontaneously: Please name both positive and negative aspects.) 872 -We want to conserve it and we want to rehabilitate it, because it was destroyed. It is no longer 873 indigenous.

874
-But in reality, we have to restore the forests as previous. There is a need to remove the 875 eucalyptus for indigenous trees. That is the major point of us.

876
-We have our constitution and our objectives here: 877 "The SuNdiFu CFA shall ensure, that is the aim, that since much of the forest and the wetland

885
-Due to encroachments, firebreaks, illegal logging, there are so many destructions.

886
-From Its original way, it was a cultural, before then.

888
Describe the extent to which the situation has changed during the last 20 years? 889 890 -There is an infinite number of changes, especially the forest cover has been encroached a lot.

891
Movement, flow of water, as it was previously covered, it is not longer existing.

893
Could you please clarify who is responsible for the different forest fragments especially 894 Fururu, Susu and Chawia? (National government, County government or local communities) 895 -Now for us, they are gazetted. So, we are barely under casual ways. The three forest fragments 896 are government gazetted. Chawia is still under County government.

897
Speaking about the interaction of locals with the area of the Taita Hills cloud forests: 898 What is produced around the Taita Hills Cloud forests? (Please name all the different kind of 899 products that come into your mind, you may name legal and also illegal activities): 900 -They do bee keeping 901 -Now, as you know, the forest was completely under governmental control, years ago. They 902 were used to protect it, they used to conserve it, but when it was gazetted, the people got very 903 disappointed, because then the attitude changed. The government came into the forest, the 904 people were no longer allow to take dry and dead wood out of the forest, so they burned it.

905
They wonted anymore to step into that forest and the people thought, now it is lost. It is now 906 lost from them. So they had a bad attitude actually. They said: "Now we don't care about it.", 907 "Let the government now protect it.", "Let the government now improve it.". And they didn't 908 improve it. Instead they started corruption, they started logging. And due to that it was 909 destroyed. So, if you ask me about the people, they don't get anything from the forest, they 910 lost. So that's why they are bitter. That's why fire has started in the forest.

911
In fact they hated it to be associated with the forest, because they didn't get firewood, they 912 didn't get anything they wanted, they didn't get grass, it was burned, nobody was going in.

913
There were no, like firebreaks, to protect the forest. But I putted it there an I am telling them 914 they need to use the rocks.

915
But they know the forest is a source of water catchment. I think they understand, that the forest 916 is good for them. -We are supposed to benefit, but we don't extract medicinal herbs from the forest. And after 920 all, in the forest, when they were indigenous, I know, our people were used to the medicine 921 from the forest. But now, after gazettement, they don't get that medicine from there.

922
-Butterflies 923 -There are some birds, which can only be found here in this forest, not anywhere else in the 924 world. There is the white eyed, it is a Taita bird.

926
What kind of ownership on land exists in this area? How secure is the land?

927
How do you deal with squatters/illegal settlers occupying the land? What is your opinion on 928 this? 929 -It is private land, because the land is demarcated, and we all have titles.

930
-Authority for the land is the ministry of land.

931
-Land control body 932 -Previous we had this problem. There was a lot of illegal settlements but now, everything is 933 titled.

934
We heard that there are environmental laws and rules; that regulate the use of forest forest department, to get permitted to harvest on your land and to log trees. This is the 946 procedure.

947
-The community, they have to go the village councilor. This councilor is the first person who 948 educes the permit, that this man really owns the trees. We go to that chief. Than from there we 949 go to the warden administrator. Then we go to sub county forest administration. Actually

950
we are talking about the district, because there are changes, we don't have a provisional 951 government, we don't have district officers. What we do have now, is county commissioners. has been given to the community now. Why? Because the government now has seen, once thy 969 had gazette that forest […], but now this one turns different. What were they doing? They were 970 logging, selling the logs and getting money for themselves […].

971
-But now, things have changed. From now, when we started to manage the forest together 972 (KFS, the county forest officers and the association). So when they get 600KSh from 973 researchers for the fees, those funds should be actually shared.

974
If there is any communication, can you please describe how it works?

975
-For example, we share the share the forest management plan content with the community and 976 inform them about all the changes. We are sensitizing the book.

977
-The forest act 2005 has given them authority to participate in the forest management.