The Maasai Mau forest forms the southern part of the Mau Forest Complex, Kenya largest closed-canopy forest area. It is a trust land indigenous forest managed by the County Council of Narok covering some 46,000 hectares. Despite its high catchment value and its potential to become a twin conservation area with the Maasai Mara National Reserve, The Maasai Mau forest is one of the most threatened forest blocks in the Mau Complex, in particular due to irregular allocations of forest land. The report looks at the changes in the forest cover over the past 30 years, presents detailed account on the extent, type and location of recent destructive activities and analyses the irregular processes that enable the illegal allocations of over 14,000 hectares of that forest for settlement.

In 1999, Kenya Wildlife Service, with support from UNEP, undertook a systematic aerial survey of the forests of Mt. Kenya. The findings of the survey revealed extensive forest destruction across the mountain ecosystem. As a strategic response, Mt. Kenya forests were afforded the enhanced protection status of a National Reserve in July 2000 and placed under the management of Kenya Wildlife Service. This report reviews the changes in the state of conservation of Mt. Kenya since 2000. The objectives of this report in monitoring the changes in Mt. Kenya forests are: - To assess changes in the state of conservation of Mt. Kenya forests since 1999||- To assess the effectiveness of the new management practices put in place on Mt. - To identify emerging or prevalent threats to conservation of the forests||and, - To recommend interventions in support of the conservation of forests.

The main goal of the aerial survey was to provide factual information on the type, magnitude and location of the main threats to the forests of the Aberdare Range. It will help stakeholders to determine the effectiveness and weaknesses of current management practices and to adopt new policy and management decisions for the long-term conservation of the forests.

Developing capacity in coastal and marine issues of the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region is a very important activity, given the present growing and projected pressures on the coastal and marine resources.The region s experience in both knowledge-based, technical and equipment capacity building has been progressively growing. Many large milestones have been reached in this current effort to assess the capacity of the WIO region both in the form of increasing the knowledge base on core competencies of a good coastal manager as well as identifying the capacity-building efforts going on in the region. Management of coastal and marine issues is critical to ensure a sustainable future in a region where tens of millions of people depend on coastal resources for their livelihoods. Thus, there is an important need of increasing not only the number of competent and well trained coastal management practitioners, especially with respect to project and program management and its various aspects, but to also facilitate the creation of enabling environments in which these managers can work.