At 5,860 metres (19,341 feet), Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, is Africa's highest mountain and one of its most recognisable landmarks.

The international environmental group held its video-link press conference on the sidelines of U.N. talks on the Kyoto Protocol climate change treaty held in Marrakesh.

"The snow you see now might disappear in 10-20 years," Thijssen said near a yellow banner that read: "Stop CO2" in reference to carbon dioxide blamed for global warming.

Thijssen said Kilimanjaro's case was not unique and the same phenomenon was happening in the Himalayas, Peru and Alaska.

The Kilimanjaro is one of the few places in the world where ice and snow can be found on the equator.

Thijssen said that geological sciences professor Lonnie Thompson, of Ohio State University in the United States, reported in February that at least one-third of Kilimanjaro's ice field had disappeared in the past 12 years.

More than 80 percent of the ice field has been lost since it was first mapped in 1912.

"This is the price we pay if climate change is allowed to go unchecked. Here in Africa we won't only lose glaciers but will face more extreme droughts and floods, widespread agriculture losses and increased infectious diseases," Thijssen said.