Vital but vulnerable : climate change vulnerability and human use of wildlife in Africa's Albertine Rift

This report brings together a broad range of new and existing information on 2,358 plant and animal species of the Albertine Rift (AR) region of East and Central Africa. A collaborative project assessed the climate change vulnerability of all known Albertine Rift mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, as well as a range of plants, whilst simultaneously gathering detailed information on their use by humans. This powerful combination of climate change vulnerability and use information provided a new tool for assessment of the possible impacts of climate change on the important provisioning services these species provide. These results have been combined with Red List assessments of species' extinction risk due to non-climate change driven threats, where available. Overall, this study presents the results of perhaps the most holistic assessment to date of the status of, threats to, and use by humans of the region's biota.