The highland-lowland areas of East Africa, for example, are a syndrome context. The Mt. Kenya or Mt. Kilimanjaro regions are typical examples of highland-lowland systems, in which the resource-rich highlands are surrounded by vast resource-poor lowlands. This unequal situation results in a broad range of interactions and conflicts between the different stakeholders and their interest as regards resource use and land use practices.

Such highland-lowland systems often suffer from a great range of problems, such as the degradation of forests, land, soil and vegetation cover, lack of adequate infrastructure and its management, an incompatible and fragile economic system, governance failures, insufficient empowerment, poverty, sociocultural and ethnic tensions, and others. These problems are interlinked, forming a cluster of problems, which are characteristic of highland-lowland systems. Such a cluster of problems is called a syndrome of global change.