The African Conservation Fund

Recognizing the gravity of climate change, the African Conservation Centre in Nairobi, in partnership with the African Conservation Fund in the U.S., is collaborating with the Missouri Botanical Garden, University of York, the University of California San Diego and national institutions in Kenya and Tanzania to assess the threat of global warming to wildlife and people in the  Kenya-Tanzania borderlands.  Photo: The team at a planning session in Amboseli earlier this year.

An area the size of Florida traversing the East African Great Rift Valley from Serengeti to Kilimanjaro and Tsavo has the largest concentration of wildlife on earth. Best known for its teeming herds of wildebeest, the Tanzania-Kenya borderlands also harbor a rich assemblage of mammals, birds and plants. The fractured landscape ranges from desert grasslands and famous flamingo lakes on the rift valley floor to the highland forests and snow-clad peak of Kilimanjaro. Each year over one and a half million visitors are drawn to the region’s 14 world-famous parks, earning the two African nations over $0.5 billion in revenues. The borderland is also home to the Maasai and other indigenous peoples whose migratory lifestyle and hardy livestock allow them to survive harsh droughts and live alongside wildlife.

In recent decades a burgeoning human population, expanding settlements and shrinking pastures have curbed the movements of wildlife and traditional herders alike, making them more vulnerable to drought and habitat loss. Global warming, already visible in the rapidly melting glaciers of Kilimanjaro, may soon pose and even larger threat to wildlife and traditional livelihoods in the borderlands.

The project, funded by the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation and other donors, is mapping the distribution of plants, animals and human livelihoods in the borderlands and modeling their vulnerability to climate change. The project brings together national and international scientists and draws heavily on traditional knowledge. It will identify the landscape connections and help build the national and local capacity for conserving biodiversity and sustaining livelihoods.

The study draws heavily on the work of project coordinator, Dr. David Western, who has monitored the changes in wildlife and traditional communities in the Amboseli ecosystem at the foot of Kilimanjaro over the last 40 years. 

Click here to download the Conservation Bulletin PDF press release, with a full list of partners and affiliations.