The beautiful, biodiversity-rich mountain systems of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region provide vital water catchment services for the region’s fast-growing population. But climate change, alien invasive species and over-grazing are degrading these mountains and making it harder for them to act as water towers for lowland agriculture, towns and cities. If action isn’t taken now the consequences could be catastrophic for hundreds of millions of people.

African Mountain Research Foundation is a UK registered charity set up to help safeguard these fragile mountain systems by enhancing field research, supporting landscape conservation and restoration programmes, and improving national and regional policy-making.

Working with local and regional partners we are installing and operating a network of hydro-meteorological stations, each with a data logging capability, in secure locations above 1,700 metres across SADC countries. Our data is made available to national and multinational agencies on an “open access, right to co-publish, right to disseminate for the public good, IP jointly owned” basis.

In 2022 we were co-producers of the first-ever Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022), a four-day residential even attended by over 250 scientists and policy-makers from the region. The next SAMC takes place in 2025.

Website: www.africanmountainresearch.com                    
Contact: clara@africanmountainresearch.com

Cover image by African Mountain Research Foundation