In Taita Hills, south-eastern Kenya, remnants of indigenous mountain rainforests play a crucial role as water towers and socio-cultural sites. They are pressurized due to poverty, shortage of cultivable land and the fading of traditional knowledge. This study examines the traditional ecological knowledge of Taitas and the ways it may be applied within transforming natural resource management regimes. The author has analyzed some justifications for and hindrances to ethnodevelopment and participatory forest management in light of recently renewed Kenyan forest policies. Mixed methods were applied by combining an ethnographic approach with participatory GIS. The author has learned about traditionally protected forests and their ecological and cultural status through a "seek out the expert" method and with remote sensing data and tools. The role of traditionally protected forests in community-based forest management is, however, paradoxal, since communal approaches suggests equal participation of people, whereas management of these sites has traditionally been the duty of solely accredited experts in the village.
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