naturalfeature:lake victoria

The Paradox of the Elephant Brain - Issue 35: Boundaries
▻http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/the-paradox-of-the-elephant-brain

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We have long deemed ourselves to be at the pinnacle of cognitive abilities among animals. But that is different from being at the pinnacle of evolution in a number of very important ways. As Mark Twain pointed out in 1903, to presume that evolution has been a long path leading to humans as its crowning achievement is just as preposterous as presuming that the whole purpose of building the Eiffel Tower was to put that final coat of paint on its tip. Moreover, evolution is not synonymous with progress, but simply change over time. And humans aren’t even the youngest, most recently evolved species. For example, more than 500 new species of cichlid fish in Lake Victoria, the youngest of the great African lakes, have appeared since it filled with water some 14,500 years ago. Still, there is (...)

First estimate of Congo Basin’s pygmy population comes with warning about increasing threat of deforestation
▻http://news.mongabay.com/2016/01/first-estimate-of-congo-basins-pygmy-population-comes-with-warnings-a

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As many as 920,000 pygmies live in the forests of the Congo Basin, and deforestation of Central Africa’s rainforests is not only intensifying the threats to their lives but the survival of their very culture, a new study suggests.

Pygmy communities occupy a large amount of territory in central Africa, from the Congo Basin to Lake Victoria. It has been virtually impossible to determine their population numbers and geographic distribution until now due to a number of factors, primarily the fact that they live in remote forest areas and, as hunter-gatherers, tend to move around a lot.

#pygmées #peuples_autochtones #forêt #déforestation

Distribution and Numbers of Pygmies in Central African Forests | Center for International Forestry Research
▻http://www.cifor.org/library/5931/distribution-and-numbers-of-pygmies-in-central-african-forests

Pygmy populations occupy a vast territory extending west-to-east along the central African belt from the Congo Basin to Lake Victoria. However, their numbers and actual distribution is not known precisely. Here, we undertake this task by using locational data and population sizes for an unprecedented number of known Pygmy camps and settlements (n = 654) in five of the nine countries where currently distributed. With these data we develop spatial distribution models based on the favourability function, which distinguish areas with favourable environmental conditions from those less suitable for Pygmy presence. Highly favourable areas were significantly explained by presence of tropical forests, and by lower human pressure variables. For documented Pygmy settlements, we use the relationship between observed population sizes and predicted favourability values to estimate the total Pygmy population throughout Central Africa. We estimate that around 920,000 Pygmies (over 60% in DRC) is possible within favourable forest areas in Central Africa. We argue that fragmentation of the existing Pygmy populations, alongside pressure from extractive industries and sometimes conflict with conservation areas, endanger their future. There is an urgent need to inform policies that can mitigate against future external threats to these indigenous peoples’ culture and lifestyles.

#peuples_premiers #pygmées #Afrique #forêt #déforestation

Lake Victoria
Photo essay: Polluted, overfished, and choked by weeds, world’s second-largest lake is ’on its knees’
▻http://news.mongabay.com/2015/0602-esipisu-lake-victoria-polluted-overfished.html

Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest fresh water body and the world’s second largest lake, is no longer fresh.

The lake is choking with pollution from industrial and agricultural wastes, as well as raw sewage from Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city of just under 400,000 residents. Its problems are compounded by illegal fishing, catching of juvenile fish, and infestation by the invasive water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes). And there’s also the carnivorous Nile perch (Lates niloticus), an introduced behemoth of a fish that can grow to 200 kilograms (440 pounds) and has already wiped out nearly half of the 500-plus endemic species of Victoria cichlids — colorful fishes that once thrived within the lake basin.

“This lake is in a very sorry state,” Moris Okulo, a trained ecologist who has worked as a guide at the lake’s Dunga beach in Kisumu for the past 20 years, told mongabay.com.

“Everything about the lake is wrong. Fishermen are using wrong fishing gears, but nobody arrests them. Industries are discharging waste into the lake, but no action is being taken. Some people have built structures including latrines inside the lake with the knowledge of law enforcing personnel, but nobody is even talking about it,” he lamented.

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