The linkages between land usage, land degradation and biodiversity across East Africa

This paper is a regional synthesis highlighting the linkages between land usage, land degradation and biodiversity across East Africa identified from research done over a 30 year period. The effects of different land uses in East Africa on biodiversity and land degradation are compared by analysis of trends from sites representing the major ecological production units in the region.Principle findings include:farming, grazing and settlements have expanded at the expense of native vegetation over the last 20 years across East Africaindigenous plant and animal biodiversity and plant cover have been lostas plant biodiversity falls, soil erosion increaseswith farming and settlement expansion less water is available for people, livestock and wildlifeland is fragmented into small parcels in high lands while dry rangelands are just beginning to be fragmentedfarmers cope with land degradation by increasing crop diversitymoderate farming in less forested areas is found to increase tree cover thus increasing the diversity of bird speciesuse of livestock manures and crop vegetative residues by farmers maintains more fertile and more productive farmsland use change causes habitat fragmentation thereby reducing habitat for wildlifea remarkable decline in soil nutrients is observed monocultural cropping systems result in more loss on species numbers than mixed cropping systems