Maiden African Mountain forum to be hosted in Arusha

clock tower in Arusha, is the centre between Cape town and Cairo

By Staff Reporter

Arusha, which is home to Tanzania’s second and third highest peaks, will be hosting the first African Mountains Regional Forum, under the auspices of the East African Community, next October.

The African Mountains Region Forum is organized by the Arusha-based EAC in Partnership with Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS), African Mountains Partnership, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the
Austrian Development Cooperation and Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation.

According to the EAC  Head of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, Mr Rochard Owora-Othieno, the three-day event will be taking place between the 22nd and the 24th October 2014, the venue to be announced later.

The forum, which aims at enhancing collaboration and framing a regional agenda for sustainable mountain development challenges in African mountains, will bring together senior officials from African government institutions, academia, civil society and private sector.

The forum will provide an opportunity for different sustainable mountain development stakeholders to enhance understanding of common conservation and development issues in the region; identify strategic actions to address major emerging issues such as climate change in the region as well as promote linkages and collaboration between

Zebra grazing in Arusha National Park

different stakeholders for a regional framework on sustainable mountain development in Africa.

In addition, the forum will share lessons and experiences in meeting the conservation and development challenges including water, energy, food security and climate change in Africa Mountain regions as well as entail a special session devoted to UNEP’s inter-regional project ‘’Climate Change action in developing countries with fragile mountainous ecosystems from a sub-regional perspective’’.

At the regional level, according to the Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community, Partner States agreed to cooperate in the management of shared natural resources and to take concerted measures to foster cooperation in the joint efficient management and sustainable utilization of natural resources within the Community for the benefits of the Partner States.

Article 9 of the EAC Protocol on Environment and Natural Resources Management puts emphasize on the need to promote the management of trans-boundary ecosystem in East Africa, while under article 20, Partner States agreed to protect mountain ecosystems such as critical water catchment, conservation of heritage areas and other areas of common strategic interest at local, national, regional and international levels.