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80pc of K’njaro snow lost, expert says

Mount Kilimanjaro

What you need to know:

While in 1901, there were approximately 12.1 square kilometres of ice on the mountain, aerial photographs taken in 2000 showed only 2.2 square km remained with most of the loss occurring since 1970

Moshi. Melting ice atop Mt Kilimanjaro was in the spotlight once again this week with repeated calls to save the proverbial “Roof of Africa” after it was revealed the area covered by the glaciers has dropped by more than 80 per cent to a mere 1.6 square kilometres from 20km some 125 years ago. The phenomenon has been largely blamed on rising global temperatures, forest fires and increasing human activities on the densely populated slopes of the mountain.

Kilimanjaro National Park (Kinapa) chief warden Erasto Lufungulo said records indicate that at least 20 square kilometres of the mountain peak were covered by ice in 1889. This is when German explorer Hans Meyer scaled the 5,895 metre high mountain, becoming the first white man to reach its snow-covered summit.

“Ice has been decreasing at a fast rate during the last 100 years since records began. It’s all due to global warming,” he said during the 70th anniversary of the United Nations which was marked at the national level at Maruwa Village on the slopes of the mountain, the highest in Africa.

While in 1901, there were approximately 12.1 square kilometres of ice on the mountain, aerial photographs taken in 2000 showed only 2.2 square km remained with most of the loss occurring since 1970.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report released in 2012 found that Mt Kilimanjaro glaciers and snow cover have been retreating, with a 55 per cent of glacier loss recorded between 1962 and 2000.

Mr Lufungulo declined to be drawn into the debate on when the glaciers will disappear with the current receding rate but emphasised the need to step up conservation programmes that would stem the impact of global warming which has seen decreasing the flow of water. Some experts had previously warned that if the same climatological conditions persisted, the remaining icefields were likely to dissappear in the next few decades, a view contested by some researchers.

The chief park warden told the stakeholders who converged at the village for the event that Mt Kilimanjaro, and its ice cap in particular, was crucial for the people’s lives in the region and beyond being the source of water for domestic use, irrigation and hydropower generation.