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Wildlife corridors are features connecting two or more otherwise isolated patches of
habitat and are among the areas of land affected by human activities. Corridors are much
affected because in most cases they are not legally protected. This study assessed the
impacts of human activities on the conservation of Igando-Igawa wildlife corridor in
Mbarali and Njombe Districts. Specifically, the study determined socio-economic and
cultural activities, the level of human disturbances to habitat as well as identifying wildlife
using the corridor. A cross-sectional sampling design was employed where five villages
were purposively selected for questionnaire based interviews (QBI) and focus group
discussions. A total of 120 respondents were randomly selected for QBI. Disturbances
were assessed by field survey in which five transects with 43 plots were located
systematically in the entire corridor. SPSS package was employed for analysing socio-
economic and cultural data. The excel computer programme was used to analyse resource
utilisation pressure gradient. Results revealed various human activities in the corridor,
namely; cultivation, pastoralism, firewood collection, poles/withies harvesting, charcoal
making, hunting and logging/lumbering. Wildfires, rituals and collection of medicinal
plants were other activities affecting the corridor. The use of vegetation resources before
conservation begun in 2005/06 was significantly high (p = 0.001, t = 3.07). Tree resources
were intensively extracted whereby 61.9 % were harvested. However there was a
significant reduction in harvesting tree resources (p = 0.0001, t = 7.11) after conservation
activities begun in 2005/2006. During the study, the corridor was harbouring at least 27
species of mammals, 20 of birds and eight families of herps. The corridor’s ecological
status had shown significant improvement in terms of wildlife and vegetations.
Nevertheless, the study recommends special programmes to alleviate local community
poverty around the corridor. Further studies on socio-economic and ecological issues are
also suggested. |
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