THE CONSQUNCES OF CLIMATIC CHANGE ON MOUNT KILIMANJARO.

Mount Kilimanjaro derives its name from the Swahili words Kilima Njaro meaning shining mountain, a reference to its legendary ice cap. It is the retreat of this ice cap, arguably linked to rising temperatures, that has made the Kilimanjaro a prominent symbol of the impacts of global climate change.
Beyond the symbolism of the ice cap Kilimanjaro is also a hot spot of biodiversity with nearly 3000 plant species and providing a range of critical ecosystem services to over one million local inhabitants who depend on it for their livelihoods, as well as to the broader region that depends on water resources that originate at the Kilimanjaro. The Kilimanjaro ecosystem is also subject to wide ranging impacts that may be more directly attributable to changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, and which may have far greater significance than the melting of the ice cap itself.
Mount Kilimanjaro with the height of 5,895 meters is the highest mountain in Africa. Located in Kilimanjaro Region Mount Kilimanjaro dominates Tanzania's northern border with Kenya. Mount Kilimanjaro and its surrounding areas provide beautiful and attractive scenario where as local and foreign tourist visit the area and climb the mountain every year.
Through tourism Kilimanjaro region collects revenue that invested in various social and development projects such as social services like schools, hospitals, water and sanitation and others.
Global warming, deforestation, fires, unsustainable agricultural practices such as farming on slop areas without using contours, shifting cultivation and others contribute to climatic change on Mount Kilimanjaro. Wild fires, deforestation, global warming and other factors contribute to glacier depletion on Mont Kilimanjaro.
Due to a decline in precipitation coupled with a local warming trend that has been recorded in the second half of the twentieth century Kilimanjaro’s ice cap is now projected to vanish entirely by as early as 2020.
Climatic change has tremendous effects on Mount Kilimanjaro such as water shortage, fall in revenue on tourism and loss in ecosystem.
This has also affects the national economy.
The melting of Kilimanjaro’s ice cap receives much attention. Articles in local, regional and international newspapers described the results of ice core drilling by American scientists during the years 2000-2001. A study on climatic changes in the context of the receding ice level on Mt. Kilimanjaro was chosen to be a topic among the proposed research priorities for the next years of TANAPA - Tanzanian National Parks.
Bulk of development processes is departing from the mountain, although most of the population still remains there. Manufacturing in the region has collapsed following the closure of most leading factories. Even in the tourism market neighboring Arusha out-competes Moshi in the Kilimanjaro region. Agriculture, the livelihood for most residents, accounts for over 85 percent of the total regional income with coffee being the main cash crop. Many farmers think about replacing their coffee trees with other crops such as passion fruits. In the 1970s 35,000 tonnes of coffee were harvested annually in the region whereas today only 12,000 to 15,000 tonnes are produced.