The Rwenzori (also known as the Ruwenzori, Rwenzururu or Rwenjura) are a range of mountains in eastern equatorial Africa, located on the border between

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

and the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

. The highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches , and the range's upper regions are permanently snow-capped and glaciated. Rivers fed by mountain streams form one of the sources of the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

. Because of this, European explorers linked the Ruwenzori with the legendary Mountains of the Moon, claimed by the Greek scholar

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

as the source of the Nile. Virunga National Park in eastern DR Congo and Rwenzori Mountains National Park in southwestern Uganda are located within the range.

Geology

The mountains formed about three million years ago in the late

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58crystalline rocks including gneiss,

amphibolite Amphibolite () is a metamorphic rock that contains amphibole, especially hornblende and actinolite, as well as plagioclase feldspar, but with little or no quartz. It is typically dark-colored and dense, with a weakly foliated or schistose ...

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

and quartzite. The Rwenzori mountains are the highest non-volcanic, non- orogenic mountains in the world. This uplift divided the paleolake Obweruka and created three of the present-day

African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes (; ) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tangan ...

: Lake Albert,

Lake Edward Lake Edward (locally Rwitanzigye or Rweru) is one of the smaller African Great Lakes. It is located in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift, on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, ...

, and Lake George. The range is about long and wide. It consists of six massifs separated by deep gorges: Mount Stanley (),

Mount Speke Mount Speke lies in the Ruwenzori Mountains National Park in Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the D ...

(), Mount Baker (),

Mount Emin Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, ...

(), Mount Gessi () and Mount Luigi di Savoia (). Mount Stanley has several subsidiary summits, with Margherita Peak being the highest point.

Human history

The mountains are occasionally identified with the legendary " Mountains of the Moon", described in antiquity as the source of the Nile River. Modern European explorers observed the range beginning in the late nineteenth century, with Samuel Baker reporting what he called the "Blue Mountains" looming in the distance in 1864, and Henry M. Stanley visiting the range in 1875 and 1888, when he recorded the name as "Ruwenzori". In 1906, the Duke of Abruzzi mounted an expedition to the Ruwenzori, the account of which was subsequently published by Filippo De Filippi. The expedition scaled the highest peaks of the range, several of which were named by the duke, while Mount Luigi di Savoia was named in his honour. Accompanying the duke was photographer Vittorio Sella, who had previously visited the mountains. His photographs of the

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

s and

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and Rock (geology), rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a gla ...

s of the Ruwenzori demonstrated that the glaciers were already in retreat. Sella's photographic work is conserved at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

and at the Istituto di Fotografia Alpina Vittorio Sella in Biella, both in Italy. The

Makerere University Makerere University (; Mak) is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922, and the oldest currently active university in East Africa. It became an independent national university in ...

, Uganda, also has a selection of his images.
Flowers of the Moon, Afroalpine vegetation of the Rwenzori Mountains
'', Schutyser S., 2007, 5 Continents Editions, . The first traverse of the six massifs of the Ruwenzori was done in 1975, starting on 27 January and ending on 13 February. The traverse was done by Polish climbers Janusz Chalecki, Stanisław Cholewa and Leszek S. Czarnecki, with Mirosław Kuraś accompanying them on the last half of the traverse.
Wielka Grań Ruwenzori 1975
', Wojtera T., Taternik iss 3. 1976. Since Uganda's independence from the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

, the Rwenzori Mountains have repeatedly become sanctuaries to rebel groups. The

secessionist Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a Polity, political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession (such as a declaration of independence). A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal i ...

Rwenzururu movement fought an insurgency in the mountains in the 1960s. In course of the

Ugandan Bush War The Ugandan Bush War was a civil war fought in Uganda by the official Ugandan government and its armed wing, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), against a number of rebel groups, most importantly the National Resistance Army (NRA), from 19 ...

, the Rwenzururu movement reemerged and continued its struggle until signing a peace deal with Ugandan President

Milton Obote Apollo Milton Obote (28 December 1925 – 10 October 2005) was a Ugandan politician who served as the second prime minister of Uganda from 1962 to 1966 and the second president of Uganda from 1966 to 1971 and later from 1980 to 1985. A Lango, ...

's government. In the Bush War's later stages, the National Resistance Army (NRA) rebel force operated in the mountains. After the NRA seized power in Uganda in 1986, another civil war broke out. This time, the Rwenzori Mountains hosted the bases of the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU) and the "Partie de Liberation Congolaise" (PLC), an anti- Mobutu rebel group. In the early 1990s, a Congolese rebel group known as the National Council of Resistance for Democracy (''Conseil National de Résistance pour la Démocratie'', CNRD) led by

André Kisase Ngandu André Kisase Ngandu (died January 1997) was a Congolese rebel leader. An insurgent in the Simba rebellion of the 1960s, he immigrated to East and later West Germany where he lived for many years. He resumed his rebel activity with Ugandan s ...

began to wage an insurgency against Mobutu from the Rwenzori Mountains. Militias aligned with the old Rwenzururu movement's ideology occupied the Rwenzori Mountains from 1997 to June 2001. In 2020, after being defeated across the border by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, some elements of the Allied Democratic Forces moved into the Rwenzori Mountains.

Natural history

Flora

The Ruwenzori are known for their vegetation, ranging from

tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...

through alpine

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non- woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as they maintain an open character. Meadows can occur naturally under favourable con ...

s to snow. The range supports its own species and varieties of giant groundsel and giant lobelia and even has a tall heather covered in

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

that lives on one of its peaks. Most of the range is now a World Heritage Site and is covered jointly by Rwenzori Mountains National Park in southwestern Uganda and the Virunga National Park in the eastern Congo. There is no water shortage in the Ruwenzori; yet, several members of the afro-alpine family resemble species that normally thrive in desert climates. The reason lies in their similar water economy. Water is not always readily available to the afroalpine plants when they need it. In addition, nightly frosts affect the sap transport in the plants and the intake of water by its roots. As the day begins, the air temperature and radiation level rise rapidly, putting strenuous demands on the exposed parts of the plants as they try to meet the transpiration demands of the leaves and maintain a proper water balance. To counter the effects of freezing, the afro-alpine plants have developed the insulation systems that give them such a striking appearance. These adaptations become more prominent as the elevation increases. There are five overlapping vegetation zones in the Ruwenzori: the evergreen forest zone (up to ); the bamboo zone (); the heather zone (); the alpine zone (); and, the nival zone (). At higher elevations, some plants reach an unusually large size, such as lobelia and groundsels. The vegetation in the Ruwenzori is unique to equatorial alpine Africa. Sources:

Glacial recession

The Mountains Have Melted - Klaus Thymann

An ongoing concern is the impact of climate change on the Ruwenzori's glaciers. In 1906, forty-three named glaciers were distributed over six mountains with a total area of , about half the total glacier area in Africa. By 2005, less than half of these were still present, on only three mountains, with an area of about . Recent scientific studies, such as those by Richard Taylor of

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, have attributed this retreat to global

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

and have investigated the impact of this change on the mountain's vegetation and

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

. In 2012, 2020 and 2022; Klaus Thymann led an expedition with the environmental charity Project Pressure creating comparative photographs to visually document the glacier recession, the findings were published in global media including BBC One Planet, The Guardian and Yale Environment 360. The alteration can be seen in comparative images. As the temperature rises and the glaciers recede, vegetation slowly creeps up the mountain.

Notes

References

* * ''Glaciers of the Middle East and Africa'', Williams, Richard S. Jr. (editor) In: U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper, 1991, pp.G1-G70 * ''Guide to the Ruwenzori'', Osmaston, H.A., Pasteur, D. 1972, Mountain Club of Uganda. 200 p.
''Recession of Equatorial Glaciers. A Photo Documentation''
Hastenrath, S., 2008, Sundog Publishing, Madison, WI, , 144 pp. * ''Tropical Glaciers'', Kaser, G., Osmaston, H.A. 2002, Cambridge University Press, UK. 207 p. * ''Ruwenzori'', De Filippi, F. 1909. Constable, London. 408 p.
Greenpeace article "The Death of the Ice Giants"

BBC Article "Fabled ice field set to vanish"

* Kaser et al. 2006, in ''International Book of Climatology'' 24: 329–339 (2004) * *

External links

*
UWM.edu: 1937 aerial photographs of Rwenzori Mountains
– ''University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries Digital Collections''. * {{Authority control Albertine Rift montane forests Mountain ranges of Uganda Mountain ranges of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Great Rift Valley Kasese District North Kivu Mountains of Uganda