One of the remarkable contemporary features of the landscape on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro is the sharp land use-land cover boundary that cuts across the gradient coinciding with the political boundary between Tanzania and Kenya. The general similarities in ecological conditions and potential land use on both the Kenyan and Tanzanian sides of the boundary raise the question as to why the contrast in land use-cover is so marked? This paper seeks to address this question. It adopts an approach that explores the recent history of land use, dynamics and distribution of wildlife, herding and farming, and the interactions among and within them, in a nested system in which local processes are examined in their wider national and international context. Both ecological and socio-economic conditions and processes define this context. Ecological characteristics include topography, rainfall, hydrology, vegetation, and fauna. There are differences between north and south sides of the mountain such as the presence of rain shadow on the northwest side, and more swamps northern side. The socio-economic context reflects the patterns of land use (farming, herding, and wildlife), interactions and exchanges between them within the study area and particularly their relationships with broader regional, national, and international processes such as trade and migration, and economic, social and environmental policies.