Imatong Mountains
Encyclopedia
The Imatong Mountains are located in the southeast of South Sudan
in the state of Eastern Equatoria, and extend into Uganda. Mount Kinyeti is the highest mountain of the range at 3187 metres (10,456 ft), and the highest in the whole of South Sudan.
The range has an equatorial climate and had dense montane forests supporting diverse wildlife. In recent years the rich ecology has been severely degraded by forest clearance and subsistence farming, leading to extensive erosion of the steep slopes.
(western part) and Ikotos County
(eastern part).
It is located some 190 kilometres (118.1 mi) southeast of Juba and south of the main road from Torit
to the Kenyan border town of Lokichoggio.
The mountains rise steeply from the surrounding plains, which slope gradually down from about 1000 metres (3,280.8 ft) on the South Sudan-Uganda border in the south to 600 metres (1,968.5 ft) at Torit
in the north.
These plains are crossed by many streams, separated by low, rounded ridges, and dotted with small gneiss hills, outliers of the main mountain range.
The mountains are formed of crystaline basement rock that rises through the Tertiary and Quaternary unconsolidated deposits of the plains in the South Sudan-Uganda frontier zone. The most widespread types of rock are leucocratic gneisses rich in quartz.
The mountains are sharply faulted and are the source of many year-round rivers.
The mountains are highest in the southeast where a group of peaks reach about 3000 metres (9,842.5 ft) and the tallest, Mount Kinyeti, reaches 3187 metres (10,456 ft).
This group of high mountains around Mount Kinyeti are sometimes called the Lomariti or Lolibai mountains, and the high central part on the Uganda side is sometimes called the Lomwaga Mountains.
The Modole or Langia mountains in the southeast of the central block are separated from the lower Teretenya ridge to the east by the Shilok River, a tributary of the Koss river
.
Ranges run to the northwest, west and southwest of this central zone, The northwest and west ranges are separated by the Kinyeti River
valley, and the west and southwest ranges by the Ateppi valley. The ranges are generally about 2000 metres (6,561.7 ft) high, with peaks rising to 2400 metres (7,874 ft).
The northwestern chain culminates in Mount Garia and Mount Konoro, both about 2500 metres (8,202.1 ft) high, rising above the villages of Gilo and Katire. The western chain, with peaks rising up to 2500 metres (8,202.1 ft) high, is usually known as the Acholi Mountains. The southwestern chain extending into Uganda is often called the Agoro Mountains.
The Kinyeti valley lies between the northwest and west ranges.
The Kinyeti River and other streams that drain the northern slopes of the mountains feed the Badigeru Swamp
s, which are 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) long and up to 25 kilometres (15.5 mi) wide at high water, but generally only 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) wide. Some of the water from the northern end of this swamp may filter eastward to the Veveno River, then via the Sobat River
to the White Nile. Some of the water may filter westward to the Bahr el Jebel.
To the south and west the mountains are drained by the fast-flowing Aswa / Ateppi system. To the northeast the mountains are drained by the Koss river, which flows between the Imatongs and the Dongotona hills.
Little is known of the area before the arrival of Europeans.
The explorer Samuel Baker
was the first European to visit the region, travelling in the northwest and west of the area in 1863. He visited Tarrangolle (Tirangole) and observed unnamed mountains to the south. Later he passed through these mountains, the western Acholi range of the Imatongs.
Emin Pasha
made a trip in 1881 in which he traveled along the eastern foothills of the mountains and then southwest to the Nile.
J.R.L. Macdonald passed through the region in 1898 on a patrol towards Lado, and later the Ugandan colonial government established a post at Ikotos
, just east of the mountains.
However, the official map of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan published in 1922 only showed the outlines of the mountains.
The first map to show the mountains and give them the name of the Imatong Mountains was published in the Geographical Journal in May 1929, prepared from a compilation of the Sudan Government Survey Department.
Apart from a visit by R. Good to Gebel Marra which had obtained a few specimens, no European botanist had investigated the mountains.
In 1929 the botanist Thomas Ford Chipp, then deputy director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, reached the peak of Kinyeti. The same year he published a report on the flora with several photographs.
The first detailed map appeared in 1931.
Later the British established an observation post on the north side, above the village of Gilo (1800 meters) at an altitude of about 2200 meters.
The biologist Neal A. Weber examined the ants in the area in 1942/1943.
They practice subsistence farming and raise some livestock.
Years of civil war have made violence commonplace; most people have experienced the murder of a close family member.
According to a 2010 report, "interviews suggested that at least every male community member over 20 years of age owns a gun in Ikotos, with some households having as many as eight to nine guns ... 33 per cent of all crimes were reportedly carried out with an AK-47 or similar automatic rifle".
Relatively small numbers of the people practice Christianity.
Since the civil war ended in 2005, more foreign aid workers are spending time in the region and Christian missionaries are starting to work in the remote mountainous areas.
The mountains were a haven for the Lord's Resistance Army
(LRA) during the second Sudanese civil war
(1983–2005). In 1986 the government of Sudan started to provide arms, training and sanctuary for the LRA, who began to raid and plunder villages along the then Sudan–Uganda border. The secessionist Sudan People's Liberation Army
assisted the Uganda People's Defence Force
in fighting back.
The struggle dragged on for over twenty years. Over 400 people were massacred by the LRA in the Imotong area in March 2002.
The LRA finally withdrew from the region in April 2007.
The people of the area mostly live on the plains at the foot of the mountains, but recently they have been forced to move into the mountains as high as 2300 metres (7,545.9 ft) to find land for farming. Their agricultural practices have led to serious erosion of the steep slopes.
The plains and the lower parts of the mountains are covered by deciduous woodland, wooded grassland and bamboo thickets to the north and west. The areas to the east and southeast are in the rain shadow of the mountains, with dry subdesert grassland or deciduous or semi-evergreen bush.
The mountains have rich diversity of flora, with hundreds of species that are found nowhere else in South Sudan. Their diversity is due to their position between the West African rain forest, the Ethiopian plateau and the East African mountains, coupled with their relative isolation for long periods during which new species could emerge.
Vegetation in the lower areas includes woodlands of Albizia
and Terminalia
, and mixed Khaya
lowland semi-evergreen forest up to 1000 metres (3,280.8 ft).
Above 1000 metres (3,280.8 ft) there is montane forest with Podocarpus
, Croton
, Macaranga
and Albizia
up to 2900 metres (9,514.4 ft).
The levels above 2500 metres (8,202.1 ft) do not seem to have ever been inhabited by humans, but have been visited by honey-gatherers and hunters, and the fires they have started have destroyed the forest on many hill tops.
At the highest levels, the forest is replaced by Hagenia
woodland, Erica
(heather) thicket and areas of bamboo
.
According to a 1984 report, the mountains supported abundant wildlife, including healthy populations of colobus and blue monkey, bush-pig and a local sub-species of bushbuck. The south eastern Kipia and Lomwaga Uplands were least visited by hunters and had the largest populations of elephant, buffalo, duiker's, hyaena and leopard.
Mammals that normally inhabit a forest environment show greatest differentiation from similar mammals elsewhere, probably due to isolation of the Imatong forests from other forests by wide areas of semi-arid savanna. This isolation dates back to the last Pleistocene Pluvial period about 12,000 years ago.
The forest contains many birds found in no other part of South Sudan, and is a resting place for European songbirds en route to their overwintering places in East Africa.
Birdlife includes the endangered Spotted Ground-thrush Zoothera guttata.
In 1950 the mountains above 1500 metres (4,921.3 ft) were made a forest reserve with no further settlement permitted, but the ban was not enforced during the civil wars.
Forestry brought laborers into the mountains, and they started hillside farming in a wide area around the forest plantations.
Forestry was neglected during the First Sudanese Civil War
(1955–1972).
After 1972 an effort was made to rehabilitate the plantations, with a new road built from Torit
, a hydro-electric scheme developed to power sawmills and other changes. As of 1984 only the steepest slopes had natural forest and there were plans to clear-cut most of the Kinyeti basin.
Farming was causing erosion by 1984, made evident by muddiness of the Kinyeti river in the rainy season downstream from a potato project. Erosion was very visible on farms established on steep hillsides by people who had moved into the mountains after the 1940s. Fingermillet was the last crop, grown on what soil remained among the rocks and giving a scanty yield.
Erosion can be greatly reduced by building terraces, but this takes a great deal of effort.
The Imatong forestry project let farm laborers plant crops between young trees for two years, reducing erosion and improving crop yields while also producing wood.
A tea project was launched at Upper Talinga in 1975, opening a route for people to move into the mountains through the Ateppi valley. The result was an increase in hunting, hillside farming and erosion.
As of 1984 only the Acholi mountains in the west and the inaccessible area south east of Mount Kinyeti were still relatively unaffected.
The Second Sudanese Civil War
(1983–2005) caused further disruption.
A project was launched in 2009 where the Wildlife Conservation Society
worked with the Ministry of Wildlife Conservation and Tourism and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to evaluate the impact of humans on the mountain ecology and to develop a plan for land use that balances the needs of communities, commercial plantations and conservation of biodiversity. The project makes extensive use of satellite imagery, combined with field observations to map changes to forest coverage.
This has confirmed continued forest clearance.
A proposal has been made to convert part of the Imatong Central Forest Reserve, which lies within the range, into a National Park, designating the remainder as a buffer zone.
South Sudan
South Sudan , officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country located in the Sahel region of northeastern Africa. It is also part of the North Africa UN sub-region. Its current capital is Juba, which is also its largest city; the capital city is planned to be moved to the more...
in the state of Eastern Equatoria, and extend into Uganda. Mount Kinyeti is the highest mountain of the range at 3187 metres (10,456 ft), and the highest in the whole of South Sudan.
The range has an equatorial climate and had dense montane forests supporting diverse wildlife. In recent years the rich ecology has been severely degraded by forest clearance and subsistence farming, leading to extensive erosion of the steep slopes.
Geography
The Imatong massif lies mainly within Torit CountyTorit County
Torit County is an administrative region in Eastern Equatoria State of South Sudan, with headquarters in the town of Torit, which is also the state capital.-Location:...
(western part) and Ikotos County
Ikotos County
Ikotos County is an administrative area in the Eastern Equatoria state of South Sudan with headquarters in the town of Ikotos. The people, who live by subsistence agriculture and cattle herding, are poverty-stricken. Years of civil war have made violence commonplace: most people have experienced...
(eastern part).
It is located some 190 kilometres (118.1 mi) southeast of Juba and south of the main road from Torit
Torit
-Location:The town is located in Torit County, Eastern Equatoria State, in the southeastern part of South Sudan, close to the International border with the Republic of Uganda. Its location lies approximately , by road, east of Juba, the capital and largest city in that country...
to the Kenyan border town of Lokichoggio.
The mountains rise steeply from the surrounding plains, which slope gradually down from about 1000 metres (3,280.8 ft) on the South Sudan-Uganda border in the south to 600 metres (1,968.5 ft) at Torit
Torit
-Location:The town is located in Torit County, Eastern Equatoria State, in the southeastern part of South Sudan, close to the International border with the Republic of Uganda. Its location lies approximately , by road, east of Juba, the capital and largest city in that country...
in the north.
These plains are crossed by many streams, separated by low, rounded ridges, and dotted with small gneiss hills, outliers of the main mountain range.
The mountains are formed of crystaline basement rock that rises through the Tertiary and Quaternary unconsolidated deposits of the plains in the South Sudan-Uganda frontier zone. The most widespread types of rock are leucocratic gneisses rich in quartz.
The mountains are sharply faulted and are the source of many year-round rivers.
The mountains are highest in the southeast where a group of peaks reach about 3000 metres (9,842.5 ft) and the tallest, Mount Kinyeti, reaches 3187 metres (10,456 ft).
This group of high mountains around Mount Kinyeti are sometimes called the Lomariti or Lolibai mountains, and the high central part on the Uganda side is sometimes called the Lomwaga Mountains.
The Modole or Langia mountains in the southeast of the central block are separated from the lower Teretenya ridge to the east by the Shilok River, a tributary of the Koss river
Koss River
The Koss River is a river that flows in a north of northwest direction through the Eastern Equatoria state of South Sudan, fed by streams from the Imatong Mountains to the west.The Koss river rises near Ikotos....
.
Ranges run to the northwest, west and southwest of this central zone, The northwest and west ranges are separated by the Kinyeti River
Kinyeti River
The Kinyeti River flows northward from the Imatong Mountains in the Eastern Equatoria state of South Sudan, eventually dispersing into the Badigeru swamp.-Location:...
valley, and the west and southwest ranges by the Ateppi valley. The ranges are generally about 2000 metres (6,561.7 ft) high, with peaks rising to 2400 metres (7,874 ft).
The northwestern chain culminates in Mount Garia and Mount Konoro, both about 2500 metres (8,202.1 ft) high, rising above the villages of Gilo and Katire. The western chain, with peaks rising up to 2500 metres (8,202.1 ft) high, is usually known as the Acholi Mountains. The southwestern chain extending into Uganda is often called the Agoro Mountains.
The Kinyeti valley lies between the northwest and west ranges.
The Kinyeti River and other streams that drain the northern slopes of the mountains feed the Badigeru Swamp
Badigeru Swamp
The Badigeru swamp swamp lies in South Sudan, in the Central Equatoria and Eastern Equatoria states between Terekeka and Lafon....
s, which are 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) long and up to 25 kilometres (15.5 mi) wide at high water, but generally only 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) wide. Some of the water from the northern end of this swamp may filter eastward to the Veveno River, then via the Sobat River
Sobat River
The Sobat River is a river in South Sudan, Africa. The most southerly of the great eastern tributaries of the Nile, the Sobat enters the White Nile at Doleib Hill, near the city of Malakal in the Upper Nile state of South Sudan...
to the White Nile. Some of the water may filter westward to the Bahr el Jebel.
To the south and west the mountains are drained by the fast-flowing Aswa / Ateppi system. To the northeast the mountains are drained by the Koss river, which flows between the Imatongs and the Dongotona hills.
European explorations
The explorer Samuel Baker
Samuel Baker
Sir Samuel White Baker, KCB, FRS, FRGS was a British explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. He served as the Governor-General of the Equatorial Nile Basin between Apr....
was the first European to visit the region, travelling in the northwest and west of the area in 1863. He visited Tarrangolle (Tirangole) and observed unnamed mountains to the south. Later he passed through these mountains, the western Acholi range of the Imatongs.
Emin Pasha
Emin Pasha
Mehmed Emin Pasha — he was born Isaak Eduard Schnitzer and baptized Eduard Carl Oscar Theodor Schnitzer — was a physician, naturalist, and governor of the Egyptian province of Equatoria on the upper Nile...
made a trip in 1881 in which he traveled along the eastern foothills of the mountains and then southwest to the Nile.
J.R.L. Macdonald passed through the region in 1898 on a patrol towards Lado, and later the Ugandan colonial government established a post at Ikotos
Ikotos
Ikotos is a town in the Eastern Equatoria state of South Sudan, headquarters of Ikotos County.The town is home to the Lango people, who have a total population of 25,000 - 30,000 people in Ikotos county and elsewhere, and speak dialects of the Lotuko language....
, just east of the mountains.
However, the official map of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan published in 1922 only showed the outlines of the mountains.
The first map to show the mountains and give them the name of the Imatong Mountains was published in the Geographical Journal in May 1929, prepared from a compilation of the Sudan Government Survey Department.
Apart from a visit by R. Good to Gebel Marra which had obtained a few specimens, no European botanist had investigated the mountains.
In 1929 the botanist Thomas Ford Chipp, then deputy director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, reached the peak of Kinyeti. The same year he published a report on the flora with several photographs.
The first detailed map appeared in 1931.
Later the British established an observation post on the north side, above the village of Gilo (1800 meters) at an altitude of about 2200 meters.
The biologist Neal A. Weber examined the ants in the area in 1942/1943.
People
The villages and settlements of the region are inhabited by Nilotic people including Lotuko in the east, Acholi in the west and Lango in the southern part.They practice subsistence farming and raise some livestock.
Years of civil war have made violence commonplace; most people have experienced the murder of a close family member.
According to a 2010 report, "interviews suggested that at least every male community member over 20 years of age owns a gun in Ikotos, with some households having as many as eight to nine guns ... 33 per cent of all crimes were reportedly carried out with an AK-47 or similar automatic rifle".
Relatively small numbers of the people practice Christianity.
Since the civil war ended in 2005, more foreign aid workers are spending time in the region and Christian missionaries are starting to work in the remote mountainous areas.
The mountains were a haven for the Lord's Resistance Army
Lord's Resistance Army
The Lord's Resistance Army insurgency is an ongoing guerrilla campaign waged since 1987 by the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group, operating mainly in northern Uganda, but also in South Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo...
(LRA) during the second Sudanese civil war
Second Sudanese Civil War
The Second Sudanese Civil War started in 1983, although it was largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil War of 1955 to 1972. Although it originated in southern Sudan, the civil war spread to the Nuba mountains and Blue Nile by the end of the 1980s....
(1983–2005). In 1986 the government of Sudan started to provide arms, training and sanctuary for the LRA, who began to raid and plunder villages along the then Sudan–Uganda border. The secessionist Sudan People's Liberation Army
Sudan People's Liberation Army
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement is a political party in South Sudan. It was initially founded as a rebel political movement with a military wing known as the Sudan People's Liberation Army estimated at 180,000 soldiers. The SPLM fought in the Second Sudanese Civil War against the Sudanese...
assisted the Uganda People's Defence Force
Uganda People's Defence Force
The Uganda Peoples Defence Force , previously the National Resistance Army, is the armed forces of Uganda. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates the UPDF has a total strength of 40–45,000, and consists of land forces and an Air Wing.The IISS Military Balance 2007 says there...
in fighting back.
The struggle dragged on for over twenty years. Over 400 people were massacred by the LRA in the Imotong area in March 2002.
The LRA finally withdrew from the region in April 2007.
The people of the area mostly live on the plains at the foot of the mountains, but recently they have been forced to move into the mountains as high as 2300 metres (7,545.9 ft) to find land for farming. Their agricultural practices have led to serious erosion of the steep slopes.
Ecology
Average annual rainfall is about 1500 millimetres (4.9 ft)The plains and the lower parts of the mountains are covered by deciduous woodland, wooded grassland and bamboo thickets to the north and west. The areas to the east and southeast are in the rain shadow of the mountains, with dry subdesert grassland or deciduous or semi-evergreen bush.
The mountains have rich diversity of flora, with hundreds of species that are found nowhere else in South Sudan. Their diversity is due to their position between the West African rain forest, the Ethiopian plateau and the East African mountains, coupled with their relative isolation for long periods during which new species could emerge.
Vegetation in the lower areas includes woodlands of Albizia
Albizia
Albizia is a genus of about 150 species of mostly fast-growing subtropical and tropical trees and shrubs in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the legume family, Fabaceae. The genus is pantropical, occurring in Asia, Africa, Madagascar, Central, South, and southern North America and Australia, but mostly...
and Terminalia
Terminalia (plant)
Terminalia is a genus of large trees of the flowering plant family Combretaceae, comprising around 100 species distributed in tropical regions of the world. This genus gets it name from Latin terminus, referring to the fact that the leaves appear at the very tips of the shoots.Trees of this genus...
, and mixed Khaya
Khaya
Khaya is a genus of seven species of trees in the mahogany family Meliaceae, native to tropical Africa and Madagascar. All species become big trees 30-35 m tall, rarely 45 m, with a trunk over 1 m trunk diameter, often buttressed at the base...
lowland semi-evergreen forest up to 1000 metres (3,280.8 ft).
Above 1000 metres (3,280.8 ft) there is montane forest with Podocarpus
Podocarpus
Podocarpus is a genus of conifers, the most numerous and widely distributed of the podocarp family Podocarpaceae. The 105 species of Podocarpus are evergreen shrubs or trees from 1-25 m in height...
, Croton
Croton
-In plants:* Croton , a plant genus of the family Euphorbiaceae* Crotoneae, a tribe of the subfamily Crotonoideae* Codiaeum variegatum, a plant commonly called a "Croton"...
, Macaranga
Macaranga
Macaranga is a large genus of Old World tropical trees of the family Euphorbiaceae and the only genus in the subtribe Macaranginae. Native to Africa, Australasia, Asia and the South Pacific, the genus comprises over 300 different species. These plants are noted for being recolonizers...
and Albizia
Albizia
Albizia is a genus of about 150 species of mostly fast-growing subtropical and tropical trees and shrubs in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the legume family, Fabaceae. The genus is pantropical, occurring in Asia, Africa, Madagascar, Central, South, and southern North America and Australia, but mostly...
up to 2900 metres (9,514.4 ft).
The levels above 2500 metres (8,202.1 ft) do not seem to have ever been inhabited by humans, but have been visited by honey-gatherers and hunters, and the fires they have started have destroyed the forest on many hill tops.
At the highest levels, the forest is replaced by Hagenia
Hagenia
Hagenia abyssinica is a species of flowering plant native to the high-elevation Afromontane regions of central and eastern Africa. It also has a disjunct distribution in the high mountains of East Africa from Sudan and Ethiopia in the north, through Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic...
woodland, Erica
Erica
Erica ,the heaths or heathers, is a genus of approximately 860 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. The English common names "heath" and "heather" are shared by some closely related genera of similar appearance....
(heather) thicket and areas of bamboo
Bamboo
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
.
According to a 1984 report, the mountains supported abundant wildlife, including healthy populations of colobus and blue monkey, bush-pig and a local sub-species of bushbuck. The south eastern Kipia and Lomwaga Uplands were least visited by hunters and had the largest populations of elephant, buffalo, duiker's, hyaena and leopard.
Mammals that normally inhabit a forest environment show greatest differentiation from similar mammals elsewhere, probably due to isolation of the Imatong forests from other forests by wide areas of semi-arid savanna. This isolation dates back to the last Pleistocene Pluvial period about 12,000 years ago.
The forest contains many birds found in no other part of South Sudan, and is a resting place for European songbirds en route to their overwintering places in East Africa.
Birdlife includes the endangered Spotted Ground-thrush Zoothera guttata.
Human impact
The British colonial administration began a forestry project in the Kinyeti basin in the 1940s, clearing the natural forest and planting fast-growing softwoods, Cyprus and Pine.In 1950 the mountains above 1500 metres (4,921.3 ft) were made a forest reserve with no further settlement permitted, but the ban was not enforced during the civil wars.
Forestry brought laborers into the mountains, and they started hillside farming in a wide area around the forest plantations.
Forestry was neglected during the First Sudanese Civil War
First Sudanese Civil War
The First Sudanese Civil War was a conflict from 1955 to 1972 between the northern part of Sudan and the southern Sudan region that demanded representation and more regional autonomy...
(1955–1972).
After 1972 an effort was made to rehabilitate the plantations, with a new road built from Torit
Torit
-Location:The town is located in Torit County, Eastern Equatoria State, in the southeastern part of South Sudan, close to the International border with the Republic of Uganda. Its location lies approximately , by road, east of Juba, the capital and largest city in that country...
, a hydro-electric scheme developed to power sawmills and other changes. As of 1984 only the steepest slopes had natural forest and there were plans to clear-cut most of the Kinyeti basin.
Farming was causing erosion by 1984, made evident by muddiness of the Kinyeti river in the rainy season downstream from a potato project. Erosion was very visible on farms established on steep hillsides by people who had moved into the mountains after the 1940s. Fingermillet was the last crop, grown on what soil remained among the rocks and giving a scanty yield.
Erosion can be greatly reduced by building terraces, but this takes a great deal of effort.
The Imatong forestry project let farm laborers plant crops between young trees for two years, reducing erosion and improving crop yields while also producing wood.
A tea project was launched at Upper Talinga in 1975, opening a route for people to move into the mountains through the Ateppi valley. The result was an increase in hunting, hillside farming and erosion.
As of 1984 only the Acholi mountains in the west and the inaccessible area south east of Mount Kinyeti were still relatively unaffected.
The Second Sudanese Civil War
Second Sudanese Civil War
The Second Sudanese Civil War started in 1983, although it was largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil War of 1955 to 1972. Although it originated in southern Sudan, the civil war spread to the Nuba mountains and Blue Nile by the end of the 1980s....
(1983–2005) caused further disruption.
A project was launched in 2009 where the Wildlife Conservation Society
Wildlife Conservation Society
The Wildlife Conservation Society based at the Bronx Zoo was founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society and currently manages some of wild places around the world, with over 500 field conservation projects in 60 countries, and 200 scientists on staff...
worked with the Ministry of Wildlife Conservation and Tourism and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to evaluate the impact of humans on the mountain ecology and to develop a plan for land use that balances the needs of communities, commercial plantations and conservation of biodiversity. The project makes extensive use of satellite imagery, combined with field observations to map changes to forest coverage.
This has confirmed continued forest clearance.
A proposal has been made to convert part of the Imatong Central Forest Reserve, which lies within the range, into a National Park, designating the remainder as a buffer zone.