Pemba Flying Fox and Ngezi Forest, How Pemba Island Brought a Giant Bat Back From Near Extinction

In 1989 you could count the Pemba flying fox on Pemba Island by the handful. The big fruit bat, with a wingspan of well over a metre and a fox-like face, lives nowhere else on earth, and by the early 1990s it was close to gone. People hunted it for food, and most of the island's forest had been cleared for cloves, rice and firewood. Scientists listed it as critically endangered.

By 2008 there were at least 18,000 to 22,000 of them, and possibly as many as 35,600, according to a survey for Fauna & Flora International published in the journal Oryx. The IUCN moved the species down to vulnerable. It is one of the clearest conservation recoveries in East Africa, and it was done mostly by villagers.

How it was done

The first count, in 1995, found 4,600 to 5,500 bats. Fauna & Flora International and Zanzibar's forestry department then worked with villages near the main roosts. Local people set up Pemba flying fox clubs that watched the roosts, ran patrols, limited tree cutting and persuaded neighbours to stop hunting. Two new forest reserves were created. The roost at Kidike, near Chake Chake, was protected for more than a decade and became the best-known place to watch a colony leave at dusk (the island guide).

Image: pxef.com

Hunting fell. By 2008 the survey found 70 roost sites, 44 of them in use, against 19 occupied sites in 1995. The largest single colony, about 5,000 bats, had settled at the port town of Wete, with no one guarding it at all.

Ngezi

The bats' best-known refuge is Ngezi Forest, a reserve of about 2,900 hectares in the island's north-west and one of the last pieces of Pemba's original forest. It holds tall evergreen forest, mangroves and heath, and endemic species beyond the bat, including the Pemba scops owl. On one evening count the 2008 survey saw more than 1,400 flying foxes leave it. Guides take visitors along a short nature trail, and the reserve is one of the main reasons nature-minded visitors make the trip from Zanzibar.

Why it still matters

The threats haven't gone away. The survey found colonies smaller near villages, roost disturbance still common, and farmers using snares and catapults to keep bats off their fruit trees. Pemba's population keeps growing, and the land under pressure is the same land the island's clove farmers depend on (the clove economy).

Zanzibar's government is building a bigger airport on Pemba to bring tourists straight to the island (the airports). If they come for the forests and the reefs, the bat clubs have a business case. If the money goes elsewhere, the old pressures return.