Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

The last Afromontane forests in Angola are threatened by fires

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 628–629 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Afromontane forests — a unique ecosystem of cool, moist temperate forest that is now mostly restricted to high elevations — are a relic of glacial periods, when they were much more widespread in Africa1,2. In southwestern Africa, only around 700 ha remains, all of which is located in Angola. The Namba mountain range in the highlands of western Angola contains the majority (about 85%) of the Afromontane forest patches of the region3. Despite these mountains only recently being explored by scientists3, they represent the best opportunity to conserve the most-threatened habitat in Angola — however, the situation there is alarming.

Despite the promising findings of a large number of endemic and forest-restricted taxa, our excitement is tempered by observations of an escalating threat to the Namba forests. During three expeditions, in 2010 (M.S.L.M. and M.M.), 2021 (P.V.P. & K.C.) and 2022 (all authors), we documented fires within the closed-canopy forest (Fig. 1d). Fires were documented on 8 out of 18 total expedition days. Local people have corroborated the regularity of forest fires, reporting them in the interior forests of Namba as well as the losses of many hectares of edge to the surrounding grasslands. Fires have also been reported in the approximately 85 ha of Afromontane forest at nearby Mount Moco1, which (as with Namba) remains unprotected. Fires — both natural and manmade (for clearing) — have probably occurred sustainably in the adjacent grasslands for millennia. However, increasing human pressure combined with drier conditions (linked to climate change) may have changed this. Increasing demand for fuelwood and timber along with increased fire frequency has degraded the edges and enabled fires to penetrate into forest interiors. These conditions are no longer sustainable: one particularly severe fire in a dry year could jeopardize the future of the last remaining 700 ha of forest. Fires now pose an existential threat to this habitat akin to a tipping point, as in normal conditions these forests are effectively fireproof and they cannot regenerate under a regular fire regime8,9. With at least 18 villages and settlements within 5 km of Namba, ongoing internal migration to the area and Angola’s human population expected to quadruple by 2100 (ref. 10), the outlook for these forests is very concerning.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: The Namba Mountains in central Angola.

References

  1. Collar, N. J. & Stuart, S. N. Key Forests for Threatened Birds in Africa (International Council for Bird Preservation Monograph No. 3) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988).

  2. Huntley, B. J. J. S. Afr. Wildl. Mgmt. Assoc. 5, 157–166 (1974).

  3. Mills, M. S. L., Melo, M. & Vaz, A. Bird Conserv. Int. 23, 159–167 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. White, F. Afr. J. Ecol. 19, 33–54 (1981).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Vaz da Silva, B. A. D. N. Evolutionary History of the Birds of the Angolan Highlands - The Missing Piece to Understand the Biogeography of the Afromontane Forests. MSc. thesis, Univ. do Porto (2015).

  6. Huntley, B. J. Ecology of Angola: Terrestrial Biomes and Ecoregions (Springer Open, 2023).

  7. Government of Angola. Presidential Decree no. 26/20 of February 6th. National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP 2019-2025) (2020).

  8. Hirota, M. et al. Science 334, 232–235 (2011).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Kelly, L. T. et al. Science 370, eabb0355 (2020).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2022. population.un.org, https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/24 (2022).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratorio Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal

    Luke L. Powell, Pedro Vaz Pinto, Ninda L. Baptista, Patricia Guedes, Ana Filipa Palmeirim & Martim Melo

  2. BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, CIBIO, Vairão, Portugal

    Luke L. Powell, Pedro Vaz Pinto, Ninda L. Baptista, Patricia Guedes, Ana Filipa Palmeirim & Martim Melo

  3. School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Luke L. Powell

  4. Biodiversity Initiative, Houghton, MI, USA

    Luke L. Powell

  5. Fundação Kissama, Luanda, Angola

    Pedro Vaz Pinto, Kerllen Costa, Timóteo Júlio & Vladimir Russo

  6. A. P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute, University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria

    Michael S. L. Mills

  7. FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Michael S. L. Mills & Martim Melo

  8. Instituto Superior de Ciências da Educação da Huíla (ISCED-Huíla), Lubango, Angola

    Ninda L. Baptista

  9. Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Ninda L. Baptista

  10. Museum für Naturkunde–Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Berlin, Germany

    Ninda L. Baptista

  11. National Geographic, Washington, DC, USA

    Kerllen Costa

  12. Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Klaas-Douwe B. Dijkstra

  13. Departamento de Biologia da Faculdade de Ciências Naturais da Universidade Agostinho Neto, Luanda, Angola

    Amândio Luís Gomes

  14. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni, Eswatini

    Ara Monadjem

  15. Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology & Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Ara Monadjem

  16. Museu de História Natural e da Ciência da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Martim Melo

Authors
  1. Luke L. Powell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pedro Vaz Pinto
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Michael S. L. Mills
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ninda L. Baptista
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Kerllen Costa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Klaas-Douwe B. Dijkstra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Amândio Luís Gomes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Patricia Guedes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Timóteo Júlio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Ara Monadjem
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Ana Filipa Palmeirim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Vladimir Russo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Martim Melo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martim Melo.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Powell, L.L., Vaz Pinto, P., Mills, M.S.L. et al. The last Afromontane forests in Angola are threatened by fires. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 628–629 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02025-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02025-9

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene