An Evaluation of 15 Years of Community-Based Monitoring in Forest Stewardship Council Certified Forest Areas in Southern Tanzania: Insights from Mammal and Indicator Bird Species

Certified community-managed forests are rare in East Africa, and the use of community-based biomonitoring to track biodiversity change in such forests is rarer still. We analyse 15 years of community-collected data on mammals and indicator bird species from 10 village land forest reserves in southern coastal Tanzania, managed under a Forest Stewardship Council certification scheme facilitated by Mpingo Conservation and Development Initiative. Using standardised encounter rates from regular patrol data, we assess biodiversity trends, compare detection between harvest and no-take zones, and examine the relationship between encounter rates and proximity to protected areas. Globally threatened mammals and indicator bird species were recorded consistently throughout the monitoring period, with limited evidence of change in biodiversity importance over the period of logging activity. Encounter rates did not differ significantly between harvest and no-take zones and showed no clear relationship with distance to protected areas, suggesting these community-managed forests function as important habitats. Our findings demonstrate that community-elected committees of forest users can generate highly valuable biodiversity data over sustained periods within a formal certification framework, and recommendations are made for improvements to data collection and management to strengthen the programme going forward.