Eastern Arc Mountain Forests - Tanzania & Kenya

Considered to have potential as a future World Heritage Site

Location and Area: The so-called ‘Eastern Arc’ is a chain of isolated mountains that lies in the savanna lowlands of tropical East Africa.  A serial site would be necessary to capture the full range of values of these mountain forests and their massive concentrations of unique and highly threatened species (see map).

Inscription Status:  Ras Mohamed National Park is included on Egypt’s Tentative List (2015), and the Sanganeb area (Sudan) has been nominated (most recently in 2015) as a ‘stand-alone’ site. 

Important Values:  The long-standing ecological isolation of forests on each block of mountains - from one another, and from other tropical moist forests in central and west Africa – has resulted in very high levels of endemism, with many species of plants and animals restricted to single mountains along the ‘Arc’. Amongst these unique species are 3 recently-discovered monkeys, one belonging to entirely new genus. 

Slideshow of Eastern Arc Mountain Forests

Comparison with other sites:

Possible constraints to world heritage listing: 

Links:  Google Earth | UNEP-WCMC Site Description |Official UNESCO Site Details | WWF Project News | Birdlife IBA