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Great Rivers Partnership Great Rivers The Partnership The Great Rivers Mississippi Upper Lower Paraguay-Paranα Yangtze River Science Press Releases |
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It's got elephants, hippos, crocodiles and over 600 species of birds not to mention tens of millions of people over eight countries depending on its abundant resources.
The Zambezi River which flows 1,500 miles from Zambia to the Indian Ocean is often called "the lifeline of Southern Africa." But that lifeline is under increasing threats everything from dams and unsustainable agriculture to pollution and overfishing.
Now The Nature Conservancy's Great Rivers Partnership (GRP) is bringing its expertise in large river basins from China's Yangtze to Brazil's Pantanal to the Zambezi. Nature.org spoke with Michael Reuter, the partnership's director, about the Zambezi's importance to Africa's humans and wildlife and how the Conservancy is now working with the African Wildlife Federation and other local partners to preserve it.
Nature.org: You recently visited the Zambezi what's it like?
Michael Reuter: It is such a beautiful, productive river valley. We were on the river downstream of Kariba, Zimbabwe for no more than five minutes before we saw a herd of elephants coming right up to the river's edge on the floodplain. We saw abundant crocodiles and hippos as well as waterbirds and a variety of large grazing mammals.
While it's a river clearly stressed by human activities, it's also a river that vibrates with a life and productivity that's hard to compare to any other place I've been other than the Pantanal in Brazil.
Nature.org: Sounds fascinating. But why is the Conservancy moving to work there now?
Michael Reuter: First, eight of the world's 13 major terrestrial habitat types are found in Africa, and the Zambezi River is seen as a key freshwater resource on the continent. It's a large and relatively intact system, but one that's under increasing threats.
And there's increasing international concern about Africa and interest among multilateral organizations to fund work there, particularly targeting human poverty and the Millennium Development Goals. So the Conservancy has a real opportunity now to use our expertise and leverage to accelerate the pace of conservation in Africa through our work in the Zambezi.
Nature.org: What's threatening the Zambezi? What are your conservation priorities there?
Michael Reuter: The number one threat we're focusing on is overfishing. There's great pressure on the fisheries from communities and villages along the river people are dependent daily on the Zambezi for cooking, cleaning, washing clothes and dishes as well as for fish.
Second, we're going to support the development of a conservation blueprint for the Zambezi River Basin. We have done similar work on the Mississippi and the Yangtze, so there is much the Conservancy can contribute in this regard. Our partners there have told us that ranking a suite of issues to address and a portfolio of places to protect would be very important for them strategically.
The blueprint will also address other issues, such as agricultural expansion and pollution. And the operation and continued development of dams on the Zambezi are interrupting the flood regime that's so important to a floodplain river.
Nature.org: Really? Most people think of flooding as a bad thing.
Michael Reuter: The interaction between the river and the floodplain is what drives these systems such as the Pantanal and the Zambezi ecologically. The Zambezi has a relatively large floodplain, and the more that floodplain is allowed to interact with the river during natural flood events, the greater the nutrients and the habitat made available to fish for spawning and feeding, not to mention migratory waterfowl and shorebirds.
But when dams or diversions limit the flooding or stop it completely, that changes the productivity of the system considerably which obviously affects fishing. Dams also store sediment and can influence water temperature, and that can change dynamics downstream.
We plan to work with our colleagues in the Conservancy's Sustainable Waters Program to influence how the existing dams operate, so that these structures supply electricity while also providing more ecologically compatible flows downstream. And we'll also try to influence where additional dams might be sited.
Nature.org: Reducing overfishing on this river seems a huge task. You've got to influence practices in eight different countries and myriad communities. How can the Conservancy accomplish that?
Michael Reuter: For one thing, we're going to ask communities to help in zoning the shoreline and river system to identify those areas that are seasonally critical to the system's productivity and then to protect those areas during those periods.
We're also going to work with those communities to better market their catch to connect them through fishing agreements and cooperatives so that they command a better price at market and avoid unnecessary middlemen. We're hoping and expecting that this combination will provide incentives for communities to get involved in conservation efforts.
And we're going to work to harmonize fishing regulations among the various countries of this shared resource. All those countries need to regulate the resource similarly to be effective. In fact, the Zambezi is going to furnish the Great Rivers Partnership with lessons in harmonizing legislation across countries that share a large river.
Nature.org: Tell us why this effort is going to succeed.
Michael Reuter: For a couple of reasons. First, the local communities are already excited about taking conservation to the next level. We're not pushing something that people don't want. They're highly aware of the need to protect these areas and to improve livelihoods based on a healthy river and a healthy landscape. For instance, 10 staff and board members of the Zambezi River Authority attended the Yangtze Forum in China earlier this month to learn about the conservation efforts of the Conservancy and others there.
Second, the African Wildlife Foundation is very well connected in the region and has a phenomenal staff they're smart, well-grounded, highly respected, science-based and results oriented.
They're very experienced at working at the community level, with people who are poor and dependent on natural resources for their very survival. And they have focused on leadership development and leadership strategies as an integral part of their wildlife conservation efforts in Africa, that is extremely important.
All the pieces are there the table is set for this effort. I think that if we can influence the Zambezi's development and the way it's being managed, that's a river system that can be viable well into the future and have all of its species and ecosystems intact and that's pretty uncommon. There aren't many large river systems left where that statement can be made.
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Michael Reuter/TNC (Zimbabwean children on banks of the Zambezi); Photo © TNC (Michael Reuter); Photo © Michael Reuter/TNC (elephant on the banks of the Zambezi River).
