Cyber Ethiopia

In the previous parts we took the spice tour and went around the Stone Town. Now the tour of the rest of the Island continues. Jozani Forest Apart from the other ruins and palaces of the island, from Nungwi in the far north to Kizimkazi in the far south, there are also natural wonderlands to visit in Zanzibar. Much of the island is edged by mangrove trees, but only one area has been preserved in its natural condition. The Jozani Forest area includes a mangrove forest, and an inland forest which has been preserved since 1848. 'Jozani' means 'pond', which is the centre of a forest reserve which was once the host of a sawmill. The importance of preserving the forest was

recognized by the government, which declared a 590-hectare reserve and stopped the logging. By the 1980's the reserve had been expanded to 2512 hectares. There is an amazing variety of trees, shrubs and herbs in the forest. With the help of Shaban, our guide, we had a large number of traditional remedies for your ills identified. Plants to treat everything from scabies, ear infections, and dysentery to heavy periods and fertility were shown to us. The appropriately named 'screw pine' helps with the latter issue, so that it is said that a man can't fit his trousers on for three days after using the plant! The boardwalk through the mangrove forest The forest is also rich in wildlife, though not as much as formerly. Our guide told us that leopards formerly roamed the woods, but now had been killed off except for a few said to be kept privately for witchcraft. Under the proper control of a sorcerer, the leopard can be turned into a demon which can despatch your enemies quite efficiently. There are also reputedly a variety of quite hazardous snakes, although I was thankful that I didn't run into any on my walk. Our guide helpfully told us stories of the highly poisonous boomslang, green mamba and forest cobra, and that he'd seen a monkey being eaten by a python. Red Colobus Monkeys The main attraction of the forest is the Red Colobus monkey, one of the rarest species of monkeys in the world. There are an estimated 2000 of them on Zanzibar, under the protection of the Parks service with lots of support from European donors. Rules have been instituted to slow traffic so fewer monkeys get run over, and to protect them from poachers. Under this programme, the monkeys have increased from 500 only a short time ago. It was surprisingly easy to see the monkeys. A short walk from the interpretation centre, into the trees brought us face to face with a troop of about 20 red colobus. They have long red hair, with grey faces and patches on some, and mostly grey hair on others. Like their cousin colobus monkey they have only 4 fingers and no thumb, we were in face told that 'colobus' means 'no thumb'. They are much smaller than the more common black and white colobus found in Ethiopia and East Africa. The monkeys cavorted around in the trees and ran along the ground with no fear of the human observers. Rules in the park restrict visitors to staying 3 meters away from the monkeys, more for human protection than monkey. The male colobus are pretty frisky, and sport visible injuries from fighting amongst each other. One fight broke out during the short time we spent with the monkeys. The troop was mixed, with plenty of youngsters amongst the adults. Red Colobus monkey One colobus couple were taking the survival of their species very seriously indeed, and performed 'jigjig' in the words of our guide three times in only a few moments. Shaban told us that we were very fortunate, as we voyeuristically observed from 3 meters away, he had only seen 'jigjig' six times in his many years of guiding the park. Given the vegetation, it is easy to assume that the Red Colobus lives mainly from the fruits of the many trees in the forest. There are two unusual characteristics of the colobus diet, however. They don't like sweet things, so many fruits are disdained by the picky monkey. As well, the redo colobus dines on charcoal to assist with digestion. Nowadays the park staff helpfully provide the charcoal for the diet, but traditionally if the monkeys couldn't find natural charcoal they could fall back on the vernonia plant which provides the same digestion service. Mangrove Swamp Having had all this excitement in only 10 minutes of watching the monkeys, we proceeded to the other parts of the park, including a nice walk through the untouched forest with its huge diversity of plants. As well as the inland forest, there is also a wonderful walk on a well constructed boardwalk opened in 1997 through a patch of the coastal mangrove forest. Mangrove forests are rapidly diminishing in the world, so it is nice to visit a well preserved patch. Mangroves are immensely interesting trees. They are large and broad leaved, but their most interesting characteristic is the intricate above ground root systems which stretch out and sustain the trees. This is the secret to the salinity resistance of the mangrove, unique amongst trees. Mangroves can’t grow from seed in the saltwater tidal areas where they are found, they grow as an outgrowth from the mother tree which must reach a certain level of maturity before they can root. The uniqueness of the mangrove goes far beyond the way it reproduces. As a result of its ability to grow in tidal areas, the mangrove swamps create a critical environment which is credited with having created and maintained the islands of Zanzibar, as well as many others. In the words of Shaban, 'the mangrove feeds the coral and the coral feeds the fish'. This creates an eco system which not only maintains a wide variety of wildlife, but also protects the coastline from erosion. Where the mangrove swamps are destroyed, largely by the actions of man, coastlines begin to be washed away by tidal action. Some of the life which the mangrove encourages can be easily seen from the boardwalk. There are thousands of black crabs with red claws crawling in and out of their little holes. The crabs provide the food for bush pigs and civet cats, and the trees are also frequented by lizards, bats, and colobus monkeys. The tidal stream which flows underneath parts of the boardwalk, allows glimpses of prawns and the odd shaped trumpet fish. Large mallet fish also lurk in the depths. Shaban told us that 'angry' mallet are good for the fisherman, they're known to jump right in their boats. I wasn't able to discover what makes mallet fish angry. For specialists, there are three types of mangroves in the swamp, with appropriately long and unpronounceable Latin names, and a variety of uses. I was content to enjoy the overhanging branches of all types of mangrove along the impressive kilometer or so of boardwalk, which has several interesting stop and rest or observation points.