Partial fulfillment for award of the degree of Master of Environmental Science

Table of Contents

Introduction
Literature Review
Research Design and Methodology

In Africa indigenous Forests and trees were once and remain in some areas key cultural institutions associated with rites and ceremonies that fostered a sense of community among dispersed homesteads. However, due to increasing number and size of settlements, there has been increased need for food, fuel, building timber, fencing materials, fodder for livestock, and raw materials for the manufacture of ornaments for both domestic and sale as well as for a variety of socio-cultural and economic uses.
The Upper Imenti forest is located about 3 kilometers North of Meru town at latitude 0° 07N and longitude 37° 36’E and at altitude of about 1920m above sea level (Kenya, 1977). More than 50% of the forest reserve lies within the Meru Municipality. This coupled with the presence of Meru-Nanyuki road and the close proximity to Meru town has attracted settlements around the area, indigenous forest cover for instance, has been and continous to be threatened by town expansion, sand harvesting, settlements, plantation forests and over-exploitation thereby leading to loss of some key plant species.
The question this study seeks to address and which constitutes the statement of the problem is to find out the current status, management and trend of indigenous forest cover changes over the last four decades. The study aims to investigate whether or not the social, cultural and economic exploitation of the indigenous plants is sustainable.
Most African communities depend on free and open access to a great variety of biological resources for food, fuel, medicines, housing materials, and economic security, hence, nature conservation is not an abstract or theoretical issue for them, it is critical to litè at the grassroots level. Many threats facing indigenous forests in Kenya today are due to inadequate understanding of optimal harvesting methods or other management issues, hence, greater awareness and promotion amongst users and policy makers.
Data for this study will be provided by different user groups ( Men, Women, Children, Traditional medicine doctors, Agencies such as the Meteorological Department, Survey of Kenya, Kenya wildlife services, National Museums of Kenya and Government ministries wilL be contacted for rainfall, soils, people, plant and animal data. Data collection will use questionnaires, Direct observation, , Random Forest walks, Daily Routine Charts, Focused Group Interviews and Construct elicitation cards. Field work surveys and collections of various unknown tree species will be conducted.
Analysis will involve descriptive statistics and matrix for discrete data for continuous numeric ranking of social, cultural and economic data. Relative percentage changes in indigenous forest cover will be calculated for period between 1956 and 1996. Statistical sothvare SPSS will be used for analysis.
This study aims to provide suggestions to enable sustainable utilization and conservation of idigenous plants within Upper imenti forest by users and other decision makers responsible for management of natural resource in the area.