The great pyramids at Giza, EgyptElephants crossing the Zambezi river in Mana Pools National Park world heritage site, ZimbabweThe great mosque in the Old Towns of Djenne world heritage site, MaliBlack and white ruffed lemur, Rainforests of the Atsinanana world heritage site, Madagascar

Eastern Arc Mountain Forests - Tanzania & Kenya

Map showing the location of the isolated mountain forests of the Eastern Arc (Tanzania) with World Heritage Site potentialConsidered 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 NewsBirdlife IBA

Lush montane forest characterises many of the protected mountains that make up the Eastern Arc The Eastern Arc forests support a great diversity of endemic plants, including species of impatiens (shown here) and African violets known to horticulturalists around the worldClosed canopy montane forest in the Udzungwa Mountains National Park (Tanzania), a key component of a possible future serial world heritage site Several species of recently-discovered primate, such as these Udzungwa red colobus monkeys, are known only from isolated forests along the Eastern Arc chain of mountains in Tanzania     

 

 

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