Times in Tanzania: New Dabaga Forest Reserve

Ana enjoying the forest

This weekend we continued our exploration of the forest reserves of the southern highlands. Through a network of naturalist friends we were told it was necessary to obtain permits for all forest reserves. The price had dropped from $30+ per person to a more reasonable $10 per person and the office was somewhat easy to locate. We decided to visit a forest reserve near to the office so we wouldn't have to back track since the office is located about an hour southeast of Iringa city.

After checking the map we decided to visit New Dabaga Forest Reserve, a pretty looking patch of green on the satellite images. The drive was another hour or so southeast of the permit office and we arrived to a relatively large village of Dabaga. We were instructed to meet the equivalent of the mayor or head of town council (Tanzania has a very organized local government system) and he was quite friendly. He encouraged us to take a guide but we said that we had a GPS and we wanted to try to find some paths ourselves. He asked how he would know that we were safe and we told him we'd text him when we got out of the forest. I also told them that if we didn't find any good trails and wanted some help, we'd contact him tomorrow. He agreed and happily sent us on our way.

We tracked back to a road that we passed on our way in. It was the only somewhat obvious looking road that we saw. A few people coming from their farm activities passed us and we asked them if there was a road to the forest. They said we were on the right track and after about 10 minutes of climbing we came to the end of the road which was strangely a cemetery. The cemetery wasn't very large and we could see a small stand of planted pine and then the forest behind. Unfortunately there was also thick scrub in between so we parked our car and proceeded by foot. We eventually found a clearing and access to the boundary with a few small paths into the forest.

We were delighted to find a network of trails, though this may also be a sign of heavy human disturbance. While the bird life was great, the few animals we saw (monkeys) were very skittish and immediately fled at our presence. There were some disturbed sections with an open canopy but also a few sections with classic montane forest in good health. One of the days we tried to hike down to a valley but found it a bit too steep though the forest seemed to be even thicker towards the valleys.

One of the best parts of the forest is that the entrance is already at a high elevation and the trails mostly cross relatively flat ground. We've found that the majority of the other Eastern Arc forests have steep terrain, perhaps a reason they weren't previously logged and cut. It was pretty nice to have easy access to a relatively flat trail and due to the open understory in the nicer parts of the forest, if one was so inclined and had a GPS they could climb up and down the rolling landscape.