Frontosa.com - Stuart M. Grant Conservation Fund

Home • Forum • Check your PM • Register • Log in

Board Navigation

Map

FAQ

User Block

Who is Online

In total there are 10 users online ::
1 Registered,
9 Guests

Registered Users: frontkeeper

[ View complete list ]

Recent Topics

» I never get tired of this
by me on Thu Sep 09, 2010 12:46 am

» breeding age
by me on Thu Sep 09, 2010 12:43 am

» thought i would share
by me on Thu Sep 09, 2010 12:36 am

» New member
by me on Wed Sep 08, 2010 9:35 pm

» Spawning
by me on Wed Sep 08, 2010 9:33 pm

» My living room display Tank
by me on Wed Sep 08, 2010 6:55 pm

» Hello from essex
by AA on Wed Sep 08, 2010 6:19 pm

» Vitamins!
by me on Wed Sep 08, 2010 3:01 pm

» 50+ F1 Fry from 2 wc Moba Mommas (with pics)!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by Forestcat on Wed Sep 08, 2010 11:28 am

» Wondering If Frontosa Are For Me ............
by AA on Wed Sep 08, 2010 8:35 am

» August 2010 Best Frontosa Photo Contest
by Tanksalot on Tue Sep 07, 2010 11:09 pm

» Breeding age and size
by me on Tue Sep 07, 2010 5:17 pm

» Tankmates For Burundi's
by BobSD on Tue Sep 07, 2010 2:49 pm

» Hello
by BobSD on Tue Sep 07, 2010 2:25 pm

Link to us
Please feel free to link to Frontosa.com Use the following HTML: <a href="http://www.frontosa.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.frontosa.com/images/logo130x130.png" width="130" height="130" border="0" alt="Frontosa.com" /><br><br></a> Or choose a different banner by clicking here.

Stuart M. Grant Cichlid Conservation fund

Net Shredder

Donations over $25 are tax-deductible.

Ad Konings and Frontosa.com team up to preserve the fish and habitats we love so much. The Stuart Grant Fund finances conservation efforts in Africa that help to protect the natural habitats. In memory of the late Stuart Grant we wish to keep his conservation efforts alive. Stuart Grant was a great mentor to many people including Ad Konings. Ad wrote about and photographed the fish and Stuart is the gentleman who presented them to us. Even as his time is gone he will be remembered as one of the greatest people in African cichlid history.

The Net Shredder you see to the left is designed to destroy poaching nets within the park preserves of Africa. It is the goal to be able to put Net Shredders around all the preserves of Africa. This goal requires a lot of money.

Between all of us we have the ability to make a difference. It does not take much of a donation from each of us to accomplish great things. I can't think of any one more worthy of my donation than Ad Konings and the Stuart Grant Conservation Fund. They have brought a great wonder to my life and I am sure to many of you also. Ad Konings has been our link to Africa. He has written and photographed fish we otherwise may not know exist.

Make a donation to the Stuart Grant Cichlid Conservation Fund. Together we can make a difference. If we do not step up to help Ad Konings in his efforts, who will??

Protecting Malawi cichlids by Ad Konings

For years it was thought that the huge biodiversity in Africa’s Rift lakes was in good shape and unlikely to be affected by the burgeoning human population; the simple reason being that no industry had established on the lakes’ shores. Industrial pollution and loss of habitat is the main cause of biodiversity loss around the world but the lack of an industrial-sized infrastructure in the countries around the lakes discouraged prospecting entrepreneurs from setting up camp. However, the paucity of jobs and income more or less forced the riparian communities to increase their fishing efforts. This massive increase naturally brought an enormous reduction in fish stocks. Since the early 1970s beach seines have systematically been employed by almost every village along the shores of Lake Malawi and by 1985 the number of nets had increased 50-fold and the fishing efforts even more, but the amount of landed fish had actually decreased.
	In the early 1990s fish stocks in the southeastern arm of the lake and those of Lake Malombe had collapsed. At present there is still no regulation in force even though beach seines and small-meshed gill nets are forbidden. When I visited the lake in the late 1980s beach seines were very prevalent and the catches, even strongly reduced from what they were 10 years earlier, were substantial. Nowadays beach seines are rare in the South East Arm of Lake Malawi, not because the authorities finally caught up with applying law, but simply because there are no fish left.
The same is true for the Zambian section of Lake Tanganyika where beach seines are banned as well but the sand-dwelling cichlids of the shallow inshore waters never returned. In Lake Malawi I remember witnessing seines tied between two large diesel boats being dragged over long sandy stretches swiping several Lethrinops species into oblivion. Most of those operations have since long ceased because the fish are gone, but in the Salima Area seining is still very prevalent, with nets and ropes being laid 2 km into the lake. Unfortunately the area affected, the southwestern corner of the lake near Chipoka, is a major breeding area for chambo (Oreochromis spp. —tilapias) one of the main food fishes of Lake Malawi. These seine nets are employed during the breeding season of these fishes as they return to the area every year. Legislation is in place that prohibits fishing during the breeding period (Nov / Dec), but the controlling government body (Fisheries) does not have the means to enforce it.
	In 1980 the rocky shorelines and the islands around the Nankumba Peninsula in the southern part of the lake were declared National Park and in 1983 the park was elevated to a World Heritage Site. The park, the major part of which includes the forest reserve on Nankumba Peninsula, embraces lake waters that lie within 100 meters of the park’s terrestrial sections. Almost all shorelines within the park’s boundaries are rocky and the purpose of this arrangement is to include and protect as wide a variety as possible of cichlids, many of which are restricted to particular rocky shores.
To date, a total of 220 species of rock-frequenting cichlids have been recognized within park waters. The total water area protected under the National Park is estimated at about 7 km2, a mere fraction of the lake’s overall surface area, but about 25% of the lake’s cichlid species are represented within. The lake and its multitude of fish species have been around long before our own species appeared on the scene, and although the lake is governed by the jurisdiction of three different countries, none of them can responsibly claim owning the lake and its treasures. Lake Malawi is a natural treasure of world-magnitude and it should be treated as such. The Malawi government has taken upon itself the difficult task of protecting a section, an important section, of this treasure for generations to come. Their mission is not simple and/or straightforward. Besides the preservation of the lake’s riches there is also the need to alleviate poverty of the people that presently live along its shores. However, the cichlids of Lake Malawi National Park must never be exploited as a solution towards that predicament.
	Poorly-regulated and uncontrolled fishing is certainly a step in the wrong direction in preserving the lake’s viability but also controlled or sustained usage of resources in the park must be out of the question. The lake’s cichlid diversity is not a resource that can be measured or controlled. Conservation is the only option—indeed a difficult mission. Fishing in park waters is not allowed within 100 meter of the shore and although this was well conceived on paper, in reality the Park lacks the manpower to oversee these regulations.
As a consequence fishing occurs in all park waters and in fact some places are so much over-fished that at present absolutely none of the many sand-dwelling or open water species, still present 10 years ago, can be found. It is also forbidden to set up camp or just to live on any of the islands included in the park, but hundreds of fishermen manage to dodge the law and permanently live in the Park. Since most of the sand-dwelling cichlids around these islands have been wiped out the fishing effort is now directed to catching the rock-dwelling mbuna. I have seen several small-meshed gill nets with hundreds of trapped mbuna right in front of Park headquarters at the southeastern tip of Thumbi West Island. Mbuna are also caught with so-called chirimila nets, originally intended for utaka but they have disappeared as well, around the islands where plankton blooms lure the mbuna away from rocks.
	This gruesome scenario was also in place around the Maleri islands where, over the years, beach seines had torn out the aquatic plants in the shallow sandy areas and left a bare sandy bottom void of any fish. Plankton-feeding mbuna were caught in chirimilas and trees on the island were cut for firewood for the numerous camps on the three islands. The islands were too far from Park headquarters at Otter Point (Cape Maclear) and the illegal fishing could thus continue virtually uncontrolled. The situation was grim all around the lake and the various tourist establishments had difficulty finding good spots for their guests to snorkel or dive and meet some of the awesome fish known to inhabit Lake Malawi.
In 2006 a group of concerned Malawians were awarded a concession to “develop” the Maleri islands by establishing a camp on Nankoma Island, a lodge on Maleri Island, and a single cottage on Nakantenga Island. They had to build everything in agreement to the natural settings and where possible restore the original flora and fauna. There were also given “control” over the enforcement of the no-fishing zone around the islands and had to expel the illegal squatters. This group, called Waterlands, was initially funded by the Malawi Environmental Endowment Trust (MEET) as they understood that local control of the over-fishing situation would be more effective. Two main performers of this group, Nigel Cheal and Alan Pitman, set to develop and employ Anti Netting Devices (ANDs) that would hinder the illegal fishermen from pulling a net at any point in the no-fishing zone around the three islands.
	The first were set at the end of 2006 and after a few months had to be removed because too many bits of netting had accumulated around the device that it became ineffective catching additional nets. October 2007 more than 150 of these devices were protecting the cichlids around the Maleri islands. Most of these net-traps are suspended in the water by a thick steel cable attached to a very large anchor. The anchor either consists of a large boulder or, in sandy areas, of a large drum-size cylinder (made up of old tobacco thresher baskets welded together to form a cylinder) that will be filled underwater with rocks and to which the floating trap is attached (see photo).
Most of these contraptions were made and placed by Alan who has also started to plant the bare sandy areas with aquatic plants from parts of the island where they were still present. I remember that one particular corner along the eastside of the large island was heavily vegetated 20 years ago (underwater). All these plants have since been torn out by seine nets. Now they are slowly replaced by transplants from the surrounding areas. Illegal fishing is sometimes still a problem but these are with short static nets placed at risk between the artificial reefs. These aquatic plants play a very important role in the lives of many utaka as they serve as nursery grounds giving protection and food to the small fry. The local fishermen, who are allowed to fish beyond the 100 meter boundary of the Park, commented recently that there seems to be more fish around the islands. Also the tour operators of Danforth Yachting commented that the rock-dwelling cichlid populations around the Maleri islands are in a much better shape than those at Cape Maclear and they now prefer to bring their guests to the Maleris for snorkeling and/or diving excursions.
Click to Continue Reading...