The Arabuko-Sokoke Forest is located on the coast of Kenya, 110 km north of Mombassa and is protected as a national Forest Reserve. The Arabuko-Sokoke National Park is only a small segment of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve, a few square kilometers in size and is located on the north-western edge of the forest. The National Park was gazetted only in the late 1980s and in fact straddles the Forest Reserve boundary with about 50% lying outside the boundary.

This outer section actually lies outside an electric elephant fence which was installed in 2006/7 and is now fully inhabited by local communities to the extent that there is no sign on the ground to show where the National Park begins or ends. The National Park miserably doesn’t add any particular safety to the forest which is the largest fragment of coastal forest (420 square km) left in East Africa, and is an area of high endemism, containing endemic mammals, birds and plants. The Reserve, however, is jointly managed by Kenya Forest Service, Kenya Wildlife Service,

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The Arabuko-Sokoke Forest protects many endemic species. The Clarke’s Weaver is completely endemic to the forest, while the emonymous Sokoke Scops Owl, Sokoke Pipit, and the Armani Sunbird and Spotted Ground Thrush are found only here and in a forest fragment in Tanzania. The park adjoins Mida Creek, a mangrove forest that is an important shorebird wintering ground, protecting species such as the Trek Sandpiper and the Crab Plover.

The charming Golden-rumpled Elephant Shrew, an endemic elephant shrew the size of a rabbit, is the most noticeable of the park’s endemic mammals; the Sokoke Bushy-tailed Mongoose and Adder’s Duiker (found only here and in Zanzibar) are more elusive. The forest also has Forest Elephants, African Civets, as well as baboons and Velvet Monkeys. The park is also recognized as an outstanding centre of amphibian diversity