Deforestation threatens Kilimanjaro ice cap
By Katrina Manson
KILIMANJARO, Tanzania
Tue Dec 8, 2009 8:02am EST KILIMANJARO, Tanzania (Reuters) – At the foot of Africa’s snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, images of the mountain adorn the sides of rusting zinc shacks and beer bottle labels, but the fate of the real version hangs in the balance. As politicians and lobbyists try to thrash out a new climate deal in Copenhagen, experts in Tanzania say local land practices must increasingly take their share of the blame for the rapid shrinkage of the ice on Kilimanjaro’s peak. According to one recent U.S. scientific study, the cap on Africa’s highest mountain may disappear by 2033. “The forest itself is the key element in this. It completely affects the amount of rain running off the mountain,” said Jo Anderson, director of Ecological Initiatives, an environmental consultancy based in northern Tanzania. “Less vegetation; less rain. We’re seeing local human impacts directly.” With less rainfall on the lower slopes, there is also less snow on the summit. Anderson said forests that have disappeared in the past 30 to 40 years on Kilimanjaro’s lower slopes — cut down by villagers for charcoal and open farmland — were just as much to blame as rising temperatures worldwide. Batilda Burian, Tanzania’s environment minister, told Reuters that the east African country was losing 91,500 hectares (226,100 acres) a year, of its 33 million hectare total. “It is a huge problem and most of it is happening because people don’t have energy supplies so they are cutting down the trees to make charcoal,” she said. …
