Kilimanjaro snow recovering beautifully but failed governance and criminal culture yield increasing illegal timber harvesting from slopes

5/24/12, "Snow adorns the crown of Kilimanjaro," Apolinari Tairo, eTurbonews.com

"Constituting the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro is slowly building up its snow cover, allaying the fears of prominent scientists who had predicted witnessing the eminence lose its famous white hat. The drifts are slowly thickening on the top point of this summit, giving new hopes to Mount Kilimanjaro environmental watchdogs and tourists that the peak may not lose its beautiful snowy cap, as scientific experts have long been warning....

Environmentalists had warned that this highest peak in Africa could lose its ice cover and glaciers between 2018 and 2020 unless global campaigns to save the mountain’s ecology were taken and a stop put to rampant tree-felling and unchecked agricultural activity on its slopes.

The writer of this article observed during this week’s flight closer to the mountain, recovering snow piled up, covering the whole mountain peak.

Despite several warnings by scientists over disappearing snow, new hopes are rising to see this highest peak in Africa regain its face through stringent environmental protection campaigns.

Kilimanjaro Area Governor Mr. Leonidas Gama said environmental degradation has to be checked by all possible means lest Kilimanjaro residents live to regret it, adding that after inspecting the natural plants and plantation forests on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro aboard a hired helicopter, he found people harvesting timber, and livestock grazing in different areas, with total impunity.

“The situation has become alarming and has to be arrested now, to restore the former glories of the mountain, the highest peak in Africa, one of the World Heritage sites and an absolute destination choice of foreign visitors to our country,” Gama said.

He said residents should be sensitized to the need to lend their hands to reforestation practices, so as to ensure that the region becomes once again a choice place to live in, with all its natural resources intact. He expressed the need to deploy security organizations to curb the ever-worsening scourge of timber-harvesting from natural and reserved forest areas."...via Tom Nelson

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