The Great Lakes of Africa

“In the course of history, people have often failed to recognize times that call for urgent action until some ultimate insult--usually the desecration of a holy place or national treasure--at last pushes the society over the brink. Hallowed waters to all biologists, and treasure to the tens of millions of people who live about them, the Great Lakes of East Africa have for decades showed signs that something is going terribly wrong. Today, the situation has become so pressing that it can no longer be ignored. Unfortunately, the intellectual and physical effort that will be required to rectify years of arrogant experimentation and benign neglect have assumed monumental proportions. In this special section, we highlight the dire threats now facing these lakes and their spectacular endemic faunas. Unlike in the tropical rainforests, however, the threats facing the endemic ecosystems of the Great Lakes have received very little attention among the conservation biology community, let alone the general public. We hope to stimulate the exchange of ideas and resources so necessary to make any headway in understanding and conserving these very special systems.”

The first paragraph from Kaufman and Cohen 1993
Conservation Biology vol 7 p632

Published in 1993, a special volume of Conservation Biology covers all of the major lakes mentioned in this part of the course: In all, the volume contained nine papers on African Lakes but. in this context of this course, Lakes Victoria, Malawi & Tanganyika are very much worth reading                    Click on a Lake on the map or on a link below

Lake Victoria
Lake Tanganyika 
Lake Malawi