Gain and loss: Human and environmental wellbeing – drivers of Kilimanjaro’s decreasing biodiversity

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334184 October 29, 2025 10 / 23 Similarly, agroforestry expanded to 26%, surpassing savanna, which declined to 18%, becoming the second-largest land-use class in 2022. Apart from savanna, the other two natural vegetation types (forest and regeneration), also showed a steady decline. Forest plantations exhibited only minor changes in their extent, while built-up areas increased twelvefold between 1976 and 2022 (Fig 4). The same patterns but from a different perspective can be seen in Fig 6B, which shows the net and gross changes across the period 1976–2022. From this figure, two key insights arise: Agriculture and savanna were the most dynamic classes. Furthermore, all anthropogenic LULC classes experienced a net gain, while natural vegetation experienced a net loss across all categories. The Sankey diagram (Fig 6C) provides further insights into LULC transitions by illustrating the relative changes between LULC classes across three time periods (1976, 2002, and 2022). The diagram highlights which LULC classes Fig 5. Maps of land cover/land use (LULC) on Kilimanjaro between 1911 and 2022. (A-D) LULC maps of 1911, 1976, 2002 and 2022. AGR. agricul- ture, AFO: agroforestry, BTU: built-up area, FPL: forest plantation, FOR: forest, GRA: anthropogenic grassland, REG: forest regeneration, SAV: savanna, WAT: water body. Reprinted from World Imagery Basemap (Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Community) under a CC BY license, with permission from Esri Deutschland GmbH, original copyright 2024.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334184.g005