Realities of documenting wildlife corridors in tropical countries

Connectivity is regarded as vital in conservation planning but the whereabouts of remaining wildlife corridors and dispersal areas in most tropical countries are poorly documented. With local experts, we compiled an annotated list of the most important wildlife corridors remaining on mainland Tanzania, information on the status of each corridor, wildlife using these corridors, and threats to them. We discovered that the concept of a wildlife corridor differs greatly between different people working in the same country, so we divided these into five working categories. The most common categories were those identified by known movements of animals between two protected areas, or simply proposed connections between important habitats. In Tanzania, the majority of documented corridors now seem to be in a critical condition, that is, they may have less than 5 years remaining before they disappear, judging by current rates of land use change. Five corridors are in extreme condition and could disappear within 2 years unless immediate action is taken. These pressing problems – and our experience in Tanzania – indicate that surveys of remaining wildlife corridors may need urgent documentation in other countries too and that collators should maintain loose definitions of corridors, accept data of variable quality and give information to authorities as soon as possible in order to maximize the chances of saving these conservation assets.