The management of common-pool resources is a key problem in global environmental governance: forests, freshwater resources, pastures, and land are often managed by communities and organisations (bureaucracies, NGOs) at different organisational scales that are competing for the right to manage the resource in question, and often find ambiguous negotiated institutional solutions to co-management problems. Often these solutions are the result of complex bargaining processes rather than of institutional design. In the context of the ongoing debate over the kinds of rules that are appropriate for the sustainable management of common-pool resources (CPRs), this paper examines the local rules and their enforcement emerging from comanagement between government agencies and local project communities in Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve (ASFR), Kenya's largest remaining coastal forest. Arabuko-Sokoke has been a national forest reserve for many decades, but only during the past two decades have communities been involved in conservation and resource extraction under piloting participatory forest-management schemes. A state-owned and controlled resource is made into a co-managed common-pool resource—or so the theory of community-based natural resource management goes. Our contribution is informed by Ostrom's (1990, 2008) design principles, but we critically scrutinize the manifold problems involved in transfers of access and management rights from state to local community, and the planned (re-)emergence of common-pool resource management. We compare communities involved in a governmental programme fostering communal management and communities not involved in such programmes (The study addresses a number of critical questions related to the transfer of centralised governmental rights in the management of natural resources, and the co-management of forests between government agencies and local communities. The ASFR co-management programme was initiated nearly two decades ago with the aim of conserving the forest and at the same time improving the livelihoods of the communities dependent on it. The findings show that despite a number of challenges, local rules and enforcement have started to emerge in co-managed parts of ASFR, though in an imperfect, volatile and ambiguous manner.

The Koobi Fora region east of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya ranges in elevation from ca. 360 to 560 m, has a mean annual temperature of ca. 32°C, and rainfall of ca. 130 mm per year. The area, much of which lies within Sibiloi National Park, supports a diverse flora. Here we provide a list of 367 plant species (361 angiosperms) collected from an area of about 2600 km² between 2012 and 2014, compare the region's angiosperm flora with the only other documented floras nearby, discuss the principal vegetation types in the study area, and highlight occurrences of some less common plants and plants of restricted distribution. Some 137 plant species (131 angiosperms) are newly documented in this region, none of which have been recorded in the Marsabit region to the east-southeast or in the lower Omo Valley to the northwest. Comparison of the flora of this region with reported floras of the Omo Valley and the Marsabit region show that only 98 species are common to all three areas, and that each area has unique taxa that make up about one-third of its angiosperm flora. Thus each region has a distinct flora, despite having a similar physiognomic appearance. Most of the area is covered by grassland or dwarf shrubland, with about 16% shrubland, and <0.5% riparian forest and riparian woodland combined.

A checklist of millipedes (Diplopoda) known to occur in Tanzania is given. Based on all available literature and abundant hitherto unpublished material, 296 species of millipedes are recorded, including seven species never before recorded from the country, viz., Helicochetus digititarsus Kraus, 1957, Helicochetus gregorii (Pocock, 1896), Geotypodon intermedius (Carl, 1909), Plethocrossus nairobinus Attems, 1914, Lophostreptus bicolor Carl, 1909, Oreiadessa diana Hoffman, 1990, and Chondromorpha xanthotricha (Attems, 1898). Eight species erroneously recorded from Tanzania are excluded from the list. A few records from Kenya and Uganda are also given, including the first record of Otostreptus gilvitarsus (Attems, 1914) from Kenya. A historical account of millipede collecting in Tanzania is included.

We present an account of the 909 globally threatened taxa (793 species, 74 subspecies, 42 varieties) of animals and plants in the Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests of Kenya and Tanzania and the sites in which they occur based upon a review of the 2015 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Results for animals are summarised by Class (Amphibia, Aves, Gastropoda, Insecta, Malacostraca, Mammalia, Reptilia) and presented for plants as a whole (Classes Bryopsida, Cycadopsida, Jungermanniopsida, Liliopsida, Lycopodiopsida, Magnoliopsida, Pinopsida, Polypodiopsida). We analyse the status of previously known and newly identified sites in which globally threatened biodiversity occurs and summarise the current state of research on the globally threatened and ecologically critical biodiversity of the EACF. We then provide recommendations for future research, environmental regulations, and management regimes based upon comprehensive and reliable data to ensure the continued survival of the EACF's biodiversity within the context of sustainable resource utilisation.