MOUNT Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, has been photographed
stripped of its millennia-old snow and glacier peak for the first time, in a
move used by environmentalists to show the perils of global warming.
The picture is the first time anyone has caught the Tanzanian mountain's
dramatic change, according to the Climate Change group which led a project to
document the effects of global warming across the world.
The launch of the photo project NorthSouthEastWest coincides with a meeting
of environment and energy ministers from 20 countries at a British-sponsored
conference on climate change that opened today in London.
It also comes ahead of a further meeting of G8 ministers in Derbyshire, north
England, later in the week.
Mount Kilimanjaro's crowning snow and glaciers are melting and likely to
disappear completely by 2020, triggering major disruptions to ecosystems on the
dry African plains that spread out at its feet below, scientists have warned.
The forests on Kilimanjaro's lower slopers absorb moisture from the cloud top
hovering near the peak, and in turn nourish flora and fauna below.
"Rising temperatures threaten not only the ice-cap, but also this essential
natural process," Climate Change warned.
The mountain, one of Africa's most stunning landscapes, was memorialised in
Ernest Hemingway's 1938 short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro.
The story, and the 1952 film which followed, has brought tens of thousands of
visitors to Tanzania for decades.
The loss of snows on the 5,892m peak, which have been there for about 11,700
years, could have disastrous effects on the Tanzanian economy, US researchers
warned in a 2001 Science article warning about the melting.
The NorthSouthEastWest project also includes images from Magnum agency
photographers of 10 "climate hotspots" including the Marshall Islands and
Greenland, as well as Kilimanjaro, showing "the most dramatic examples of the
impact of global warming", Climate Change's Denise Meredith said today.
The printed collection of the photos is being given to the environment and
energy ministers gathered in London and will be distributed at the G8 meeting.
The photos are on exhibit through May 15 at London's Science Museum. The British
Council will also tour the exhibition in 100 cities in 60 countries in 2004 and
2005, Climate Change said.