The Role and Design of Wildlife Corridors with Examples from Tanzania
Many protected areas worldwide will be too small to maintain long term viable populations of many of their resident species. It may be possible in many cases to reduce the adverse "island" effects by linking adjacent protected areas with wildlife corridors. Wildlife corridors are defined in this paper as habitat thatpermits the movement of organisms between ecological isolates. Corridors should be designed for those species within a protected area that are considered to be most vulnerable to extinction. For these species knowledge about the habitat requirements, dispersal, seasonal movements, avoidance behavior, and learning behavior are important for the design of wildlife corridors. The ability of a species to successfully use a corridor is dependent in part upon the width and length of the corridor. In most cases, the determination of the minimum corridor width will be an empirical calculation. Many of the practical challenges of designing wildlife corridors are examined by presenting examples of proposed wildlife corridors in the Eastern Usambara Mountains and on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.