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Are coffee agroforestry systems suitable for circa situm conservation of indigenous trees? A case study from Central Kenya

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Abstract

Coffee agroforestry systems (CAFS) are often considered to be species-rich, potentially contributing to the conservation of indigenous trees. To investigate the conservation capacity of a Kenyan CAFS, all tree species on 62 smallholder coffee farms (covering 39 ha in total) in the Aberdare Mountains of Central Kenya were recorded. In total, 6,642 trees of 59 species were enumerated, with a mean density of 256 trees per ha and a mean species richness of 11.2 species per farm. Indigenous species represented 63 % of the richness but only 31 % of the abundance. For individual farms, as expected, farm size had a positive correlation with tree species richness, but more interestingly there was a negative correlation with tree density. Cluster analysis based on densities of the 18 most important species (defined by an importance value index) revealed two groups of farms: one cluster represented small farms (mean size = 0.4 ha) with high tree species diversity and individual density, particularly of indigenous trees; the other cluster represented large (mean size = 1 ha) and less diverse farms with low tree densities, particularly regarding indigenous species. Tree individuals were unevenly distributed within farms, being more frequent in living fences (38 % of all individuals), the garden zone (20 %) and in coffee plots (18 %). The relative occurrence of indigenous species was also uneven, being greater in living fences and the garden zone. Most adult trees (83 %) were planted, but only 46 % of seedlings were, revealing the active removal of volunteer seedlings by farmers as trees mature. Surveyed coffee farms harboured 20 % of the 135 tree species of the potential natural vegetation for the region, but only 3.6 % of the on-farm tree individuals belonged to the most valuable types of dominant and forest vegetation. Thus, although a source of significant tree cover and heterogeneity at landscape level, the value of these CAFS as circa situm reservoirs of forest tree species is questionable.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the coffee farmers and the staff of the MURANGA Cooperative Union, Muranga, for their kind cooperation, without which it would not have been possible to conduct this research. The help provided by the field assistants Stephen Muchoki and Preston Mbugua is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank three anonymous reviewers and our colleague Ian K. Dawson for helpful comments and editing of a draft of the paper. This study was part of the project ‘Connecting, enhancing and sustaining environmental services and market values of coffee agroforestry in Central America, East Africa and India’ (CAFNET) financed by European Commission Program on Environment in Developing Countries (EuropeAid/121998/C/G).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIRAD UR, 106 Bioagresseurs/icipe, PO Box 30772, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya

    F. Pinard

  2. CIRAD/ICRAF, PO Box 30677, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya

    E. Joetzjer

  3. World Agroforestry Centre ICRAF, PO Box 30677, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya

    R. Kindt & K. Kehlenbeck

Authors
  1. F. Pinard
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  2. E. Joetzjer
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  3. R. Kindt
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  4. K. Kehlenbeck
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to F. Pinard.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Fig. 8.

Fig. 8
figure 8

Sketch of a typical farm in our survey, with different zones including coffee plots. The pie charts show a mean tree individuals and b tree species per zone and the proportions of indigenous and exotic trees (red and green colourings, respectively). The sizes of the pie charts reflect the proportion of total tree individuals or species in the respective zone. (Color figure online)

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Appendix 2

See Table 9.

Table 9 Tree species identified on 62 farms surveyed in Muranga district on the eastern slopes of the Aberdare Mountains in Kenya’s Central Province
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Pinard, F., Joetzjer, E., Kindt, R. et al. Are coffee agroforestry systems suitable for circa situm conservation of indigenous trees? A case study from Central Kenya. Biodivers Conserv 23, 467–495 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-013-0615-0

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