75% of Kilimanjaro’s natural plants have been wiped out – and climate change isn’t the biggest threat

By Andreas Hemp, Research Associate Plant Systematics, Bayreuth University

Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is sold to the world as frozen romance and pure nature. But the real story today is at its feet, not its peak.

That’s because Kilimanjaro is a great real-world place for scientists to study how and why biodiversity is changing. The mountain has many different land uses, from forests to farms to towns, so researchers can see in real landscapes, not just in computer models or theories, how human activity affects nature in practice.

I’ve been researching east Africa and Kilimanjaro’s vegetation for 36 years. I joined scientists from Tokyo and…

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