Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Snows of Kilimanjaro

We will shortly be posting pictures from the successful bid to climb Kilimanjaro by our tireless volunteer fundraisers Sharon Oliver, Jill Golding, Sarah Alcock, Julieanne Cloete, Ann Butterworth, Chris Eppinger and Jo Roberts and Jackie Cheng from the office.

In the meantime, this story out on Reuters might be of interest - related to our earlier post about the disappering glaciers on Kilimanjaro:

"The snows are getting smaller year by year," Kinyaol Porboli, the chief of Esiteti village, told Reuters at the base of Africa's highest peak at 5,895 metres (19,340 feet). Many a travel brochure has shown the pastoralist Maasai, with their spears and bright red robes, standing before the towering peak which is a life-giver to their tribe and Kenya's crucial tourism economy. But now both may be threatened...
- Full story here...

Now, a small footnote on the above: Kilimanjaro is of course in Tanzania but when the colonial borders were drawn, not much attention was paid to tribal lines, but with Kili almost on the dividing line, it benefits both Kenya and Tanzanian communities.

The Wilderness Foundation is working actively in East Africa to secure Wilderness areas and make traditional communities more sustainable in the face of the changing environment.

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