The Arabuko Sokoke Forest Reserve is located on the coast of Kenya, 110 km north of Mombasa and is protected as a national Forest Reserve. The Arabuko Sokoke National Park, situated at the north-western edge of the Arabuko Sokoke Forest Reserve, is only a few square kilometres in size and constitutes only a small portion of the latter.

The Forest is an area of high endemism, containing endemic mammals, birds and plants. It contains three forest types, mixed forest, Brachystegia and Cynometra, each of which protects different communities of plants and animals. It protects many endemic and near-endemic species. The Clarke’s weaver is completely endemic to the forest, while the eponymous Sokoke scops owl, Sokoke pipit, and the Amani 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 Terek sandpiper and the crab plover.

The endearing golden-rumped 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 Aders’s duiker (found only here and in Zanzibar) are more elusive. The forest also has savannah elephants, African civets, as well as sokokes, baboons and vervet monkeys. The park is also recognised as an outstanding centre of amphibian diversity.