Mount Kenya National Park/Natural Forest

This is a widespread problem in the wider Mt Kenya ecosystem and so far the efforts have been unable to significantly improve the situation (Report on the Mount Kenya National Park & Natural Forest Stakeholders Meeting, September 2013).  However, some successes have been achieved in removing the invasive Lantana camara in the Lower Imenti Forest Reserve to pave way for the replating of indigenous trees.

Wild fires are a major problem and may be started accidentally or deliberately. As much as 10% of the natural forest (mostly outside the World Heritage Site) was lost to fire in 2012 alone (IUCN Consultation, 2020). In 2019, wild fires burnt over 20,000 hectares of the moorlands inside the site. Moorlands fires most often affect the upper ericaceous forest belt and in some cases, the upper hagenia forest belt. The ericaceous forest is tolerant to some fire activity but require longer recovery time than grasslands. When fires are too frequent, grasses may invade resulting in conversion from forests to grasslands (Henry, 2019).
Most fires are triggered by human activities, in particular charcoal burners, honey collectors and livestock grazers (Nyongesa, 2018). Deliberate fires are sometimes set by neighbouring communities in the hope of being allowed to cultivate the area affected once it has been destroyed by fire (IBA Factsheet, 2012). In other cases, fires are set in the higher altitude bamboo belt to clear the land for the illegal cultivation of marijuana (Martin, 2019). More financial and human resources are required to implement the Fire Management Plan that was developed. 
In the meanwhile, the Mount Kenya Trust together with Rhino Ark have trained and equipped a team of 60 officers in combating wild fires.  However, there are still a number of critical areas to be addressed, particularly clearing and maintaining fire breaks, training and equipping members of the Community Forest Associations as first respondents in the lower forest belt, improving coordination and securing access to an emergency funds to be able to mobilize resources without delays.

Subsistence hunting is carried out in the forested lower slopes, and to a lesser extent at higher elevations where its impact is limited due to the extremely rugged terrain and difficulty of capturing prey species (Mission Report, 2008). The few remaining critically endangered mountain bongo antelopes are at high risk to subsistence hunting (KWS, 2019). The African elephant remain also at high risk due to ivory poaching.

With some 25-30,000 visitors annually, tourism numbers are still low compared with Mount Kilimanjaro. Nevertheless some areas are affected by unsustainable firewood collection; litter and waste management.
In August 2020, KWS introduced a new system aiming at ensuring that waste generated by visitors are brought back down the mountain.  Upon entry in the park, visitors must record on a form all the goods (including packaging) they bring inside the park.  Upon exit, the form is checked to confirm that no waste is left inside the park.

Minor forest produce, notably bamboo, natural fibres, mushrooms, honey and the like, make an important contribution to local livelihoods, but there are few data on which to base sustainability decisions and harvesting quotas (Mission Report, 2008, GMP, 2010)

The site is ‘buffered’ from adjacent settlements by a 5-10 km wide belt of protected natural forest and plantations, but the land beyond this (below about 2,000 m) is becoming more intensively settled and cultivated, eliminating previous landscape connectivity with nearby natural habitats, especially to the west (Aberdares), north-west (Laikipia plateau), north (Ngare-Ndare Forest Reserve, Lewa Conservancy) and north-east (Imenti Forest Reserve, Meru National Park) (Mission Report, 2008). Thus historical migration routes of keystone species, such as elephants, have been lost. 
To address such an issue, several interventions have been implemented. A wildlife corridor has been established between Mt. Kenya Forest/National Reserve and Ngare Ndare Forest Reserve. The corridor led to the extension of the Mount Kenya National Park / Natural Forest World Heritage Site to include Ngare Ndare Forest Reserve and Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.  Today, not only elephants but many other wildlife are frequently recorded including bushbuck, duicker, jackal, leopard, zebras, porcupine, reedbuck, serval cat, spotted hyena, warthog, wild dog. (Mount Kenya Trust, 2020).  In addition, two one-way automatic elephant gates have been built along the Imenti Forest Electric Fence to allow elephants to move from the north into the Mt. Kenya forest ecosystem. Furthermore, work has been initiated to re-establish a wildlife corridor between Mt. Kenya and the Aberdares, through Thego Forest, Sangare Conservancy and Nyeri Forest.

Increasing temperatures, reduced rainfall and reduced cloudiness (Prinz, 2016) as a result of climate change are contributing to the melting the park’s glaciers, which are expected to disappear altogether with the next few decades. These three factors are also increasing the vulnerability of the moorlands and the forest belt to fire. In contrast to common belief, climate change may not necessarily cause an upward shift of plants and animals.  As observed on Kilimanjaro which has much similarities with Mt. Kenya, increased fire frequency has led to a downward shift of the upper forest line by several hundred metres (Hemp, 2009). There may also be an increased incidence of landslides and flooding due to increasing extreme rainfall events. While data is deficient to assess these potential developments, the Mount Kenya World Heritage Site Climate Change Adaptation Programme was developed in June 2013, which recommends a number of activities to help reduce the potential impacts of climate change.

Illegal logging of indigenous trees was a major threat to the ecological integrity of Mt. Kenya forest ecosystem, in particular in the 1990s.
Following the aerial survey undertaken in 1999 (KWS, 1999) and the designation of the forest as a National Reserve, illegal logging decreased signficantly (Vanleeuwe, 2002) with an recorded reduction of illegal logging activities of 73% to 96% depending upon the tree species between 1999 and 2002.
However, over the past few years, there has been a noticeable resurgence of illegal activities as observed during two elephant censuses and forest health surveys conducted in 2006 and 2020.  Illegal logging increased by 3.5 fold, charcoal production by 74% and livestock grazing by 75% between 2006 and 2020. Snare traps did not increase in number but became more spread. Charcoal production also increased by 74%. Four small marijuana fields were destroyed in 2020 as opposed to two in 2016.  The highest concentrations of these illegal activities were found around the commercial forest plantations, located outside the site. But logging was also found deep inside the forest on the south-eastern slopes, inside the site. (Vanleeuwe, 2016; Vanleeuwe, 2020).