By Mboneko Munyaga
To prevent the snows of the Kilimanjaro from melting, conserve Mount Meru’s forest cover, and combat desertification in Monduli, Karatu, and Babati, experts warn that Arusha, Manyara, and Kilimanjaro regions must prioritize environmental protection in all their activities for progress.
GONE BALD: Mount Meru, Tanzania’s second-highest peak, is located about 100 kilometers west of the world-famous Mount Kilimanjaro. Around 50 years ago, it was also permanently snow-covered.However, due to climate change and environmental damage, the summit is now bare. On the right is how the mountain appears today, compared to how it looked in the 1970s (left).
Environmental expert and UN Climate Change Ambassador, Rev. Prof. Dr. Aidan G. Msafiri of Moshi, told The Arusha News that this year’s heatwave should serve as a wake-up call for leaders and residents alike to recognize that environmental protection is now a do-or-die matter if the present generation is to bequeath to future generations the kind of livable surroundings that they too inherited from their forebears.
“Let us face it. To have permanent snow cover on Mount Kilimanjaro, almost along the Equator, is not just a question of high altitude but overall good vegetation, for which our zone is still well endowed although it is currently under serious stress due to indiscriminate tree felling, industrial development, and farming practices that do not take environmental sustainability as a top priority,” said Mr. Kidon Mkuu, Coordinator of the non-profit Wildlife and Environmental Care Initiative (WECI).
Mr. Mkuu, a grandfather now, recalled growing up in Arusha with Mount Meru (over 17,000 ft above sea level), also showing clear glaciers from its summit. However, all that remains now are mere dark gullies, indicating that even the mountain’s days as a dependable source of downhill water supply could be numbered if people won’t stop stripping it bare of its forest cover.
Big Stretches Turning Treeless
He praised the residents of Karatu, a national grain granary, especially for maize, wheat, and barley, for embracing “agroforestry,” which is a farming practice that mixes crops with trees.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Africa has lost an estimated four million hectares of its forests, or roughly 10 percent of its forest cover, in the last 30 years.
Rev. Msafiri called on the government, NGOs, and faith leaders to work together and speak the same language when it comes to environmental protection.
“The slogan ‘cut a tree, plant a tree’ is not really the way to go. You cannot cut a 100-year-old tree only to replace it with a fledgling seedling that shall be eaten by goats,” he said. He elaborated that the northern zone is currently experiencing the impact of “emissions concentration” in the atmosphere.
The land, he said, has been stripped bare of trees, tremendously hampering its ability to absorb fluorocarbons that fuel the heat causing warming on Earth. He explained that pollution emanating from other countries has impacted the entire world as greenhouse gases floated freely in the atmosphere.
Ultimately, scientists estimate that the various layers of Earth’s atmosphere have been damaged by over 70 percent by greenhouse gases emitted mostly through human industrial activities.
He said there was no magical cure for the planet’s climate woes other than planting trees to absorb emissions from the atmosphere. Climatic conditions in the world are currently characterized by extreme heatwaves in the dry seasons and flooding when it rains, which are all disasters that require emergency responses, usually draining resources from other key activities and services.
Tanzania has seen significant forest loss in recent decades. The country had 28.0 million hectares of natural forest, covering about 30 percent of its land area, according to Global Forest Watch. But it now loses roughly 277,000 hectares of its forests annually, which equates to the ability to absorb about 139 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
This deforestation is primarily driven by agricultural expansion, wood extraction for charcoal and firewood, as well as infrastructure development.
After an unusually dry spell this year, much of the northern zone had again to brace for flash floods when the long rains came last week, which appears to have become the typical weather pattern in recent times. This has been stirred by both the La Niña and El Niño phenomena, all caused by emissions concentrations in the atmosphere.
