We have just come back from the footslopes of the Rwenzori mountains, on the border between Uganda and DR-Congo. We had a 1-day workshop there to introduce a new monitoring activity: ITFC will lead a new study that will set up high altitude plots (well above the treeline, around 4000 m.a.s.l.) to follow temperature and vegetation trends over decades to come. These are the first such plots in Africa!
Climate change is expected to hit hardest and fastest at high altitudes, where plants are adapted to cold and have little area to move to once it gets too warm. A perfect setting for research on the impact of climate change! We need data to know what is happening.
For over a decade mountain researchers from around the world have developed and agreed a protocol for standardised data collection, called ‘GLORIA’ (Global Alpine Research Initiative in Alpine Environments). Plots have been set up in the Alps, and other parts of Europe, and more recently in the Andes, New Zealand and Asia. But until now not in Africa. The team ITFC put together is setting up the plots on the Rwenzori mountains right now. Included in the team are staff of the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Research and Monitoring unit, WCS’s botanist Ben Kirunda who has some alpine experience, and ITFC staff Fredric Ssali, Robert Barigyira and Badru Mugerwa.
We had also invited local community members to the planning and training workshop. The mountain, and particularly its snow covered parts, are the abode of the ‘little gods’ of the Bakonjo who live on Rwenzori’s footslopes. They consider the mountain their cultural home and do not like to see their gods disturbed. Their elders shared the ‘cultural behavioral guidelines’ to be followed while on the mountain with the team and two members of their cultural organisation joined the expedition as guides. Rules include to avoid pointing at any of the peaks of the mountain and to referain from referring to them by their sacred names.
After the workshop, we sorted out all the scientific, camping and personal equipment for the team; an impressive quantity! In the night, a thunderstorm broke loose and rain pounded the roofs for 4 hours… It made us think about how conditions for camping on the mountain would be, but according to the local people, this was Rwenzori’s welcome and a positive omen!
The team started climbing in good spirits: it will take 3 days to get to the base camp from where they will select sites for the plots. We look forward to their stories ‘from above’!