Racing to Save Ethiopia’s Mountain Icon

This story is drawn from AWF’s 2025 Annual Report—Seizing the Moment—which paperwork a yr of groundbreaking conservation work throughout Africa. The report captures how AWF is embedding African management on the coronary heart of conservation technique, from coverage dialogues with heads of state to the work of neighborhood rangers in among the continent’s most distant landscapes. Read the total report at https://annualreport.awf.org/

Perched on the jagged cliffs of Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains, greater than 3,000 meters above sea stage, lives considered one of Africa’s rarest and least-known animals: the Walia ibex. There are fewer than 400 of those putting animals left within the wild. Their horns, sweeping again in dramatic arcs, have develop into each a hidden treasure and a strong image of the fragile steadiness sustaining Ethiopia’s highland wilderness and ecosystems.

In 2025, AWF marked a major milestone within the effort to guard them: the event of Ethiopia’s first-ever nationwide Walia Ibex Recovery and Conservation Strategy and Action Plan, produced in shut collaboration with the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA). It is a doc that issues not simply as a conservation blueprint, however as an announcement of nationwide dedication to a species that has no different residence on the planet.

The plan covers the interval 2026 to 2035—a decade-long roadmap for restoration grounded in science, native information, and authorities possession. But the work doesn’t cease at coverage. In Simien Mountains National Park, rangers proceed lively patrols.

Despite civil unrest that has disrupted operations in northern Ethiopia, ecological monitoring in 2025 revealed regarding inhabitants traits within the Walia ibex. This prompted the creation of a Wildlife Ambassadors engagement program. Ambassadors, drawn from native communities, assist sensitize their friends and acquire precious science knowledge from areas outdoors the park—extending the attain of conservation intelligence into landscapes the place rangers can not all the time function.

The park can be residence to exceptional avian biodiversity. A hen range research accomplished in 2025 recorded 154 species through the dry season alone, together with 15 categorized as very uncommon—a discovering that reinforces the Simien Mountains’ worth as a globally important ecosystem. 

More current updates present that the park hosts as many as 239 hen species, which is over 1 / 4 of all hen species discovered within the nation. This consists of a number of species discovered nowhere else on this planet, in addition to many which might be distinctive to the Horn of Africa. Some of those birds are threatened globally, whereas others are of particular conservation concern, additional underlining the park’s significance for wildlife.

Conservation right here is inseparable from the neighborhood. AWF’s help to Adsige School—a part of a conservation settlement with the area people—has progressed with the set up of a greenhouse, kitchen backyard, solar energy system, and pc gear, enhancing each the varsity atmosphere and entry to scrub water for college kids and close by residents. 

Through conservation golf equipment and faculty packages, AWF is shaping the following technology of guardians of Ethiopia’s pure heritage.

At the sting of the cliff, the ibex endures. So do those that defend it.