Looming high among the volcanic outriders of the Great Rift Valley in northern Ethiopia, is nature with a serious case of gigantism: a basalt escarpment 40 kilometers long, staggered between altitudes of 11,000 and 15,000 feet, populated with super-sized plants and armies of monkeys 500-strong. In 1978, UNESCO dubbed it “one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world,” and consecrated the Simien Mountains National Park in its very first batch of World Heritage Sites, alongside Yellowstone and the Galapagos Islands.
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Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet
Improve understanding of and access to the biology and natural history of species – information that is lacking for the vast majority of species on the planet.
Increase knowledge of the evolutionary and ecological history of species and ecosystems, and the processes responsible for population declines and extinction.
ERC Grand Challenges Network: for inquiry, for project design, for activism.
Photo Credit: Clay Knight on Unsplash