Zanzibar the sheltered harbor located on the site of present-day Zanzibar City. The clove, originating from the Moluccan Islands (today in Indonesia), was introduced in Zanzibar by the Omani sultans in the first half of the 19th century. Zanzibar, mainly Pemba Island, was once the world's leading clove producer, but annual clove sales have plummeted by 80 percent since the 1970s. Zanzibar's clove industry has been crippled by a fast-moving global market, international competition, and a hangover from Tanzania's failed experiment with socialism in the 1960s and 1970s, when the government controlled clove prices and exports. Zanzibar now ranks a distant
Wildlife of Zanzibar The 54 terrestrial mammals found in Zanzibar include 23 species of bats ("popo" in Swahili). Other species are: bush tailed mongoose (local name "chongwe"), which is found in the coral rag forests of the south-eastern coast of Unguja and in the deep soil region on the western part of Pemba Island; the small blue duiker; suni (mammalian) or dwarf antelope (just tall); African and small Indian civet; as well as green and hawks-billed turtles. The Zanzibar red colobus has been known to consume charcoal, possibly a learned behaviour, after eating the leaves of the Indian almond tree and "Mangifera indica"