NEW MALAWI UPDATE FROM JOE GALLAGHER

As you walk around the villages along the lake shore large trees canbe seen in the middle of the street around which people and the few vehicles have to maneuvre! One might wonder why these trees remainhere in the way of things and two reasons emerge - firstly they are thousands of years old and were here before any humans arrived and secondly their wood is poor for burning and therefore cutting themdown is of little use and a lot of work for local people! These trees are known as Baobab trees and this is the common name of a genus(Adansonia) containing eight species of trees, of which one typeoccurs on mainland Africa. In Malawi Baobabs are found principally on the lake shore. Storieshave passed down through the generations of how God angry with the baobab picked up the tree and flung it back into the ground upsidedown. In Namibia it is said that God gave each animal a seed of a tree to plant. The hyena was left until last and angry at this planted the seed of the baobab tree upside down. Research has shown that the tree grows fast for the first 270 years and then slows down.Baobab trees do not produce annual growth rings and so radiocarbondating is used to estimate their age.

They produce big white flowersin October with each bloom lasting only 24 hours. These flowers are then pollinated by the fruit bat. It is a deciduous tree and shedsits leaves during the dry season from April until October. Baobabs store water inside the swollen trunk (up to 120,000 litres) to endurethe harsh drought conditions which occur during the dry season and hence their poor burning potential.The species reach heights of 5 to 30 metres (16 to 98 ft) and trunkdiameters of 7 to 11 metres (23 to 36 ft). An African Baobab specimenin Limpopo Province, South Africa, often considered the largest example alive, has a circumference of 47 metres (150 ft) and anaverage diameter of 15 metres (49 ft) and has been radiocarbon datedto be 6,000 years old.

The baobab has many uses here in Africa. The leaves are commonly used as a leaf vegetable throughout the area of mainland African distribution. They are eaten both fresh and as a dry powder. The fruit is nutritious possibly having more vitamin C than oranges and exceeding the calcium content of cow's milk Also known as "sour gourd"or "monkey's bread", the dry fruit pulp separated from seeds and fibers is eaten directly or mixed into porridge or milk. In Malawi,the fruit pulp is used to make a nutrient-rich juice.

Having a distinctive foul smell, tree parts may have been used by primitive tribes to ward off evil spirits, making the tree known inAfrican folklore as "God's Thumb."A Major Trollip while stationed in Namibia during World War One installed a flush toilet in his local hollow baobab where it remainsto this day (see picture)!

So these ancient trees have many uses here on this continent and are likely to remain an obstruction in thestreets of Africa for some time! Tionana

Google Video - Spring Lecture Series

If you missed the talk on the 25/03/09 the The Cicada's 17 Year Sleep - Complexity and Emergence in the Natural World given by Dr. Declan Murphy you can view it through google videos by following the link below http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2763690042769934717&hl=en

If you missed the talk on 'Darwin and Darwinism' given by Adam Tozer in Feburary, you can also watch it on google vidoes by following the link http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5765645832228418054

MALAWI UPDATE FROM JOE GALLAGHER

Muli bwanji! Greetings from Malawi. It is now a month since I arrived in this area to work for 4 months and I have been asked to write a little bit about what is to be found here. You may well ask what interest the natural world here might hold for Cabragh Wetlands but as I arrived here on a Saturday evening 4 weeks ago and saw the swallows flying low over the ponds collecting flys and watched the egrets picking their way through the muddy flats I realised that many of these birds were en route to Ireland and could well find themselves settling near Thurles for the summer months!


I am here on the the Nankhumba Peninsula which divides the southern end of Lake Malawi. The area here is part of Lake Malawi National Park and is a World Heritage Site This National Park, with its deep clear waters, is home to many hundred species of fish, nearly all endemic. Their importance for the study of evolution is comparable to that of the Galapagos Islands finches. Lake Malawi, lying within the Western Rift Valley, is a unique inland sea 560 km long. The lake's water is permanently stratified, having a warm upper layer overlying a cooler lower layer and is remarkably clear. Because of the these characteristics of the lake, should it be contaminated, the renewal time would be in the order of 1,700 years. The water level fluctuates according to season with a long-term cycle of fluctuation over years. Recent years have seen increases to the highest levels since recording began, probably due to increased rainfall and to forest clearing on the high plateau above. The peninsula has poor rocky soils very susceptible to erosion. In general, the hills are wooded and rise steeply from the lakeshore. Habitat types vary from cliffs and bouldery shores to pebbly and sandy beaches and from wooded hillsides to occasional swamps and lagoons.


The Park was established primarily to protect some of Lake Malawi's very rich aquatic life. The lake contains the largest number of fish species of any lake in the world: over 1,000 from eleven families with perhaps half occurring in the Park area. Over 90% of the fish can only be found in Lake Malawi. The lake contains 30% of all known mbuna or cichlid species of fish of which all but five species of over 400 are endemic to Lake Malawi. More than 70% of mbuna species are not described. They are highly colored, highly territorial and very specialized.
Mammals include chacma baboon and a variety of monkeys, leopard and hippopotamus. The varied birdlife includes black eagle, fish eagle and along the shoreline many waders. The islands, especially Mumbo and Boadzulu, are important nesting sites for several thousand white-breasted cormorant.


Much of the lakeshore is heavily populated. Five shoreline villages, Chembe, Masaka, Mvunguti, Zambo and Chidzale, are included within enclaves in the park. As the soil of the peninsula is poor and crops fail about 50% of the time, local people are dependent on fishing for a livelihood. Some 40,000 people make a living directly from the lake in offshore fisheries, catching 70% of the country's animal protein intake. The Park has been zoned to allow traditional fishing methods aimed at catching migratory fish in limited areas, although in most of the Park the resident fish
are completely protected.



And so this is an introduction to this area of Malawi from which many of our summer visitors will come. Tuanana!













Source: United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre