Community harvesting of trees used as dens and for food by the tree hyrax &lt;i&gt;(Dendrohyrax arboreus)&lt;/i&gt; in the Pirie forest, South Africa

Elizabeth J Opperman,Michael I Cherry,Nokwanda P Makunga

doi:10.4102/koedoe.v60i1.1481

Community harvesting of trees used as dens and for food by the tree hyrax <i>(Dendrohyrax arboreus)</i> in the Pirie forest, South Africa

Elizabeth J Opperman, Michael I Cherry + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4102/koedoe.v60i1.1481

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Abstract

Forests in South Africa are harvested by local communities for multiple purposes and this affects the animals that inhabit them. The tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax arboreus) has a restricted distribution and utilises various tree species as dens and a source of food. In this article, we determined, through a series of interviews in the communities surrounding the Pirie forest, which plant species are harvested by local people and whether these overlap with those used by the tree hyrax. In addition, we determined the extent to which tree hyraxes are hunted by these communities. Of the trees used by the hyrax as dens in the Pirie forest, Afrocarpus falcatus, Schotia latifolia, Andrachne ovalis, Teclea natalensis and Apodytes dimidiata are important resources for local communities. But as these are harvested at relatively low levels, it is unlikely that current harvesting has a large impact on the tree hyrax. Opportunistic hunting occurs, but the hyrax is not targeted by hunters. Very limited commercial harvesting of A. falcatus has been taking place in the Pirie forest since 1975, but its impact on the hyrax population, although undetermined, is also unlikely to be high. We recommend that the Pirie forest tree hyrax population should be monitored by forest management in order to ascertain the impact of both commercial and community harvesting over the past quarter-century.Conservation implications: Tree hyrax populations in the Pirie forest should be actively monitored by management on an annual basis.

Highlights

The world’s forests have experienced high levels of destruction and degradation
This study focused on community harvesting of trees in the vicinity of the Pirie forest (Figure 1), which forms part of the Amatole mistbelt forests in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, and the possible threat it poses to the forest’s tree hyrax populations
Of the six tree species used by the hyrax for both dens and forage, the participants reported harvesting of five: TABLE 1: The demographics of the participants interviewed at the Pirie forest, South Africa

Summary

Introduction

The world’s forests have experienced high levels of destruction (owing to deforestation) and degradation (owing to unsustainable harvesting). In South Africa, indigenous forests cover only 0.56% of the land surface (Low & Rebelo 1996), but these forests have a long history of exploitation. In particular, increased between 1890 and 1940 but has since declined owing to increased use of alien vegetation for timber used in construction (Brown 2003; Cunningham & Davis 1997; Lawes, Midgley & Chapman 2004). As South Africa has very little forest cover, forest-specialised species are restricted to relatively few forests, which in many cases are subject to extensive human exploitation (Castley & Kerley 1996). Cooper, Wannenburgh and Cherry (2017) have found that half of South Africa’s forest-dependent bird species have declined over the past quarter century, in the Eastern Cape forests, despite the fact that the forests have not decreased in area

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