Nilo Forest Reserve
A 6,025-hectare nature forest reserve in the East Usambara Mountains, with almost no current research presence. Friends of Nilo Forest offers students a place to work here for three to six months, starting now.
Field placement at Nilo Forest
Three to six months at the reserve boundary, own project, data for your thesis. Start possible now, rolling intake.
A protected forest with an open research gap
The Nilo Nature Forest Reserve lies in the East Usambara Mountains in north-eastern Tanzania. It is the second largest forest block of the East Usambaras after Amani and part of the Eastern Arc Mountains, a chain of isolated mountain forests known for their high number of endemic species.
The reserve was gazetted on 7 December 2007 under Tanzania's highest level of forest protection and is managed by the Tanzania Forest Service. Records list around 800 plant species, including Saintpaulia, the wild relative of the African violet, and around 100 bird species. The Usambara three-horned chameleon and the Angolan black-and-white colobus live here. Rain falls in every month of the year, and the forest is the water catchment for more than 30,000 people in 17 villages.
The forest is under pressure from illegal logging, poaching and encroachment. Unlike Amani, Nilo has almost no current research or monitoring presence. That gap is what Friends of Nilo Forest works on, and it is what makes the reserve a useful field site for a student project.
Build the first monitoring
There is no existing programme at Nilo. The placement is to design and run the first systematic monitoring of the reserve boundary, with a local field partner, and to leave a protocol the next person can take over. Data stay with you for your thesis.
Field placementA field site without a queue
Accommodation, full board, internet and a field partner directly at the reserve boundary. Supervision stays with the home institution. Open questions in ecology, botany, herpetology, hydrology and conservation practice.
For institutes and researchWho is behind this
Two named founders, a Swiss postal address, a telephone number, staff on site, a simple house with its own room, and clear conditions. Everything you may want to check before a son or daughter travels is listed in one place.
Who we are and what you can checkFauna, flora, geology, threats
Four short pages on what is known about the reserve and, more importantly for a placement, what is not.
Fauna
Three-horned chameleon, Angolan colobus, and the East Usambara endemics whose presence in Nilo is still to be confirmed.
Flora
Around 800 plant species, the wild African violet, camphorwood, and an undocumented elevational zonation.
Geology
Precambrian basement, block-faulting and a stable climate: why the Eastern Arc holds so many endemics.
Threats
Illegal logging, poaching and encroachment, and why nobody currently measures them at Nilo.