UDZUNGWA MOUNTAINS: A matchless living gene bank

FRIDAY January 3, 2025 

By Patty Magubira

The Tranquility News Reporter, Tanzania

Straddling Morogoro and Iringa regions, Tanzania, is Udzungwa Mountains National Park, a slice of paradise worth of a visit.

A hike across Udzungwa’s network of forest trails transcending workouts makes the park one of the few remaining nature-based gyms.

Dubbed the centre of endemism, the park is a nature-based chemist as well, with a deep repository for a diverse species of plants, animals, and birds.

The endemism centre covering about 10,000 square kilometres is home to a number of rare, endemic, and endangered species of plants, animals, and birds.

A spiny-flanked chameleon – trioceros laterispnis, for instance, is found only in Udzungwa and so is Kihansi spray toad – nectophrynoides asperginis – a threatened species highlighted in the International Union for Conservation and Nature’s (IUCN) list.

A tree species known as polyceratcarpus askhambryan-iringae among scientists is endemic to Mwanihana Forest within the Udzungwa Mountains with an altitude ranging from 2,000 metres to 2,576 metres above sea level.

“Wadsungwa, a sub-tribe of Hehe that resided on the mountains long ago, used to season, roll and puff leaves of stupor inducing tree species – cicatria Tanganyikensis,” says Robert Nyoni, one of the guides specifically trained for the forest trails and other hotspots of the park mostly confined to walking safaris.

Members of the fishing community used cock wood – ricinodendron heudelotii – for making boats, competing with their beekeeping counterparts who longed for the same tree to make beehives.

Boozers woke up to wild ginger – antiaris toxicaria – to treat bouts of hangover, while healers applied roots or barks of harisonia abysinica, a tropical shrub with no English name yet, to treat gonorrhea, and prescribed long-leaved dragon –  pracaena manii – for erectile dysfunction.

The indigenous knowledge of warding off diseases and keeping bodies physically fit are but few insights obtained in Udzungwa, a national park that boasts having the highest waterfalls in Tanzania.

At about 170 metres, it takes five hours for an average tourist to ramble and climb to the Sanje Waterfalls’ peak as he samples the godsend.

“Once upon a time, an Indian tourist exclaimed Sanjeee in his mother tongue when he spotted the waterfalls for the first time, and the gem has since been named after his emotional shout,” explains Mr Nyoni.

Udzungwa, which is part of a series of separate mountain blocks running from the coast of Kenya to Tanzania in a crescent shape, was upgraded to national park in 1992.

Nevertheless, its name is as old as Sanje, dating back to colonial era, when those in power failed to pronounce the name of the host ethnic group – wadsungwa.

Protecting plants, animals, and birds endemic to the pocket of the Eastern Arc Mountains informed the decision to promote previous forest reserves.

Besides herbs, a tourist on his way to the waterfalls’ peak can spot primates, including two out of 11 species endemic to the park, namely sanje mangabey – cercocebus sanje, and Iringa red coloubus monkey – procolubus gordonorum.

It is easier to confuse the rather shy sanje mangabey with poachers from a distant place, as noises they make sound like those heard when trespassers cut down trees using axes.

Likely to spot on your way up to the peak also are huge trees which wadsungwa used as la mgambo in Kiswahili – call to meetings, owing to their ability to transport sound waves afar.

To wadsungwa, a single knock on the tree base ushered an ordinary meeting, a second one gathered merrymakers, and the last one signaled war or calamity.

A tourist is free to knock a tree or two as he ascends and descends from the waterfalls’ peak to experience sound waves wafting across the park’s pristine forests.

Also sighted along the forest trails are amphibians, reptiles, birds and butterflies, to mention but a few.

Almost halfway to the Sanje Waterfalls’ peak, a tourist, who is not in hurry or is not determined to explore allures of the summit, can take a break by swimming in a pond laden with safe, clean, and cool water to tone down fatigue.

While at the waterfalls’ peak, one morphs into a bird, viewing all what Kilombero Valley has in store for communities surrounding the park, investors, and tourists.

“The floodplain abounds with opportunities, including fishing, paddy and sugarcane farming, horticulture, beekeeping, and ecotourism,” Ms Concepta Sima, the Head of the Accounts Department and Acting Chief of the park, says.

Seven key catchment areas of Udzungwa Mountains flow water into the valley as well as into power generating dams of Kidatu, Kihansi and Nyerere.

“Other must-see sights are Bokela Mountain east of the park and Chavemba and Nyumbanitu west of the park,” says Hillary Buberwa from the park’s Tourism docket, adding:

“These are sacred places communities still use for worshipping when famine, drought or diseases strike them.”

Ruins of abandoned villages are still vissible at Mbatwa and Mdene within the park, and so are salt caves at Mwanalueve and Magombolema hideouts that accommodated nearly 200 locals during colonial wars.

Conserving Udzungwa Mountains National Park in the advent of climate change is, however, no bed of roses, the park’s Ecologists, Ms Christine Kigwe, says.

An aromatic shrub – Lantana Camara – and teak – tectona grandis – are among chronic invasive species chocking indigenous bushes and siphoning loads of water from the catchment areas.

“People, who used to settle in the park, had introduced the shrub native to American tropics to fence their homesteads,” says Ms Kigwe, explaining that the park is uprooting the invasive species and setting their seeds on fire during dry seasons.

“We discourage application of chemicals for fear of contaminating water used for agriculture and drinking downstream,” she addsΩ