Kakamega Forest is world famous for the diversity of bird and insect life, and its uniqueness makes its conservation a top priority. Kakamega rain Forest is Kenya's only remaining patch of the Guineo-Congolian rainforest, a rainforest that once spanned west and central Africa with its easternmost edge in western Kenya. In Kenya and west Africa today, this rainforest exists as relatively small islands of habitat surrounded by savannah and human settlement. Like many of these forest islands, Kakamega forest has been shrinking rapidly as human population growth and resource extraction have increased tremendously in the last century. Although Kakamega Forest is somewhat protected as a government reserve, the Luhya people who live in areas surrounding the forest still rely heavily on the forest for basic needs such as fuel wood, charcoal, timber, poles, and other building materials. Currently, this region is the most dense rural population in the world. The pressures on the limited resources of Kakamega Forest will only increase, and so efforts to manage the forest's resources sustain ably will be crucial to the survival of this vulnerable ecosystem.