Management of mountain environments and genetic erosion in tropical mountain systems: the Ethiopian example

High mountain areas in low (tropical) latitudes are contrasted with those in middle and high latitudes in terms of their ability to provide a natural resource base for human development. The initial superiority of low-latitude mountains is outlined in the context of the broad span of human history and civilization. Early advantages are shown to become disadvantages as centers of technological development and political power moved progressively northward from the Stone Age to the modern era. Isolation of tropical mountain societies has resulted in stagnation and retrogression and by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the beginnings of major environmental degradation. This scenario is developed using Ethiopia as a case study. Deforestation and soil erosion on a tropical high mountain periphery, leading to extensive depletion of an unusually rich gene pool, sets the pattern for accelerated famines triggered by droughts in recent decades. An entirely new approach to development and environmental protection is needed before the losses incurred by Ethiopia today are transferred downstream to the Sudan and Egypt and eventually to world society at large.