Location and general description

Abstract

This is the northernmost ecoregion of the eastern and southern African coastal forest belt, and is found in Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania. The northern margin is an isolated forest outlier along the Jubba Valley in central coastal Somalia (Madgwick 1988). The ecoregion then resumes in southern Somalia, extends into northern Kenya, inland along the Tana River, and then follows the narrow coastal strip in central and southern Kenya to the border with Tanzania. In northern Tanzania the ecoregion extends around the base of the East Usambara Mountains where the habitat intergrades with that of the Eastern Arc Mountains. It then continues along the coast of northern Tanzania to Dar es Salaam where outliers of the ecoregion extend inland at the base of the Uluguru, Nguru and Udzungwa Eastern Arc Mountains. It again narrows around the Rufiji River, continuing along the coast until it meets the border of the next ecoregion around the Tanzanian town of Lindi. The ecoregion includes the large offshore islands of Pemba, Zanzibar and Mafia and other smaller islets in the Indian Ocean close to the coast.