DAY THREE: MEET MOROGORO
We arrived late afternoon yesterday in Morogoro, greeted by the imposing green mountains and a refreshing cool breeze courtesy of recent rains. We are staying at the faculty and visitors’ hostel for the forestry department at the university. A couple of geckos are bunking with us. The passionate call to prayer from the local mosque serves as our morning alarm.
Kellee has begun her cartography course, facing the typical technical challenges that trip up all well-planned presentations. (It seems to be a global truth that projectors in particular are pretty reliable in regard to being unreliable.) But she overcame them, and the class seems to be very engaged.
Conrad and I attended the session for a while, and later decided to take a walking tour of the area so I could get some video and photos of both the magnificent scenery and, at the same time and often in the same picture, the human-driven forest change that continues in the Ulugurus. Smoke sidled up the mountains from fires clearing land for agricultural use, and the scars from landslides caused by erosion were readily visible.
From an agricultural point of view, the fertile mountains are an important source of fruit and vegetables for the residents of the region, Conrad tells me.
But mountain forests’ role as water, and therefore power, supplier for millions of people as well as businesses in a large portion of the country leaves human interests in the site in some conflict with each other, as clearing of trees lowers the mountains’ ability to absorb the water and send it on its way through the soil to streams and rivers. The soil erosion that also comes with deforestation, is, of course, of no good to anyone.
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