Abstract ID: 3.8345 | Accepted as Talk | Requested as: Talk | TBA | TBA

On the global platform, Africa’s mountains are unique – characterized by disjunction: Africa’s mountains are mostly scattered, “archipelago-like” systems widely separated by great plateaux, basins, and coastal plains. One of the characteristic features of African mountains is that— perhaps with the exception of some eastern African mountains—they are relatively poorly studied, in all disciplines (notably the humanities), and hardly feature at a continental scale in co-ordinated global mountain data initiatives. While the historical mystique of Africa’s mountains may hold sway over the public, there is nothing mysterious about the risks and challenges facing African mountains, their people, their biodiversity, and the essential goods and services they provide. While each mountain system and geographic region has its unique challenges, there are several common themes across African mountains: 1. Major biodiversity erosion, with historical and modern mega-faunal extinctions; 2. Alien invasive species, especially mountains with natural, mesic grassland; 3. Rapid landscape change through direct human activity; 4. Lack of evidence for improved sustainability from existing transboundary co-operation agreements; 5. Endemic—and at times seemingly epidemic—political conflict and poor governance; 6. Climate change may aggravate all of the above challenges, in addition to creating its own sets of challenges. What will ensure the protection of African mountains and indigenous communities into the future, and thus secure the sustainability of precious water production? Most central is the need for stable governments that cooperate across political divides and co-own mountain management. Second, a greater profiling of the value of mountains at a national level, at the regional level, and at the African Union level. To achieve these, there needs to be a major investment in and buy-in from a robust and diverse indigenous community of practice for African mountains, that can increase the impact of a science-policy-action feedback system for African mountains. While this has been most well established in eastern Africa, and increasingly in southern Africa it is desperately needed for the entire continent, and most especially for northern Africa. Finally, active research—with a strong capacity-building component—should be a major intervention in the short- to mid-term.