African Great Lakes

The Great Lakes and the East African coastline as seen from space. The Indian Ocean can be seen to the right.

The Great Lakes of Africa are a series of lakes in and around the Great Rift Valley. They include Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area, and Lake Tanganyika, the world's second largest in volume as well as the second deepest.

The term "Great Lakes" is in the African context a rather loose one. Unlike their American counterparts, the three largest lakes have a host of nearby middle-sized and small lakes, though the small ones would be considered very substantial in many countries of the world. There is no accepted size criterion for "Great Lake."

Contrary to early European explorers' assumptions that one lake was the source of the Nile, it is now accepted that glaciers in the Ruwezori Mountains and more than one lake and river feed the Nile's waters. Burundi claims to be the site of the springs that flow into the Kagera River, the largest of the several rivers that feed into Lake Victoria before the water exits the lake at Ripon Falls as the Victoria Nile. But a smaller system of rivers drains the Virungas and Ruwenzori mountains and the land between them and empties into Lake Albert, where the water joins with the Victoria Nile and then flows north as the White Nile.

Geography

The lakes are divided between three different catchments (river basins), and a number have no exit. The following, in order of size from largest down, are included on most lists of the African Great Lakes:

• Lake Victoria
• Lake Tanganyika
• Lake Malawi
• Lake Turkana
• Lake Albert
• Lake Edward
• Lake Kivu

Some call only Lake Victoria, Lake Albert, and Lake Edward the Great Lakes as they are the only three that empty into the White Nile, which feeds into the Nile River. (Lake Kyoga is part of the Great Lakes system but is not itself considered a Great Lake, on size grounds. Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu both empty into the Congo River system, while Lake Malawi is drained by the Shire River into the Zambezi. Lake Turkana has no outlet.

Two other lakes close to Lake Tanganyika do not appear on the lists despite being larger than Edward and Kivu: Lake Rukwa and Lake Mweru.

Because the term is a loose one, it is often preferable to use other categorizations such as 'African Rift Valley Lakes' or 'East African Lakes'.

The lakes of the Western or Albertine Rift, together with Lake Victoria, include the largest, deepest, and oldest of the Rift Valley lakes. They are also referred to as the Central African lakes. Lakes Albert, Victoria, and Edward are part of the Nile River basin.

Lake Victoria (elevation 1,134 meters), with an area of 68,800 square kilometers, is the largest lake in Africa, but is not actually within the Rift Valley; it occupies a depression between the Eastern and Western Rifts, formed by the uplift of the rifts to either side. Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi are sometimes collectively known as the African Great Lakes.

The Western Rift Valley Lakes are freshwater and home to an extraordinary number of endemic species. Approximately 1,500 cichlid fish species live in the lakes, as well as other fish families. The lakes are also important habitats for a number of amphibian species.

   * Lake Albert (5,300 square kilometers; elevation 615 meters) is the northernmost lake in the Western Rift
   * Lake Edward (2,325 square kilometers; elevation 912 meters) drains north into Lake Albert
   * Lake Kivu (2,220 square kilometers; elevation 1,460 meters) empties into Lake Tanganyika via the Ruzizi River
   * Lake Tanganyika (32,000 square kilometers; elevation 773 meters) is the largest and deepest of the Rift Valley lakes (more than 1,400 meters), and is thought to be the second-oldest lake on the planet (after Lake Baikal); part of the Congo River basin, it feeds into it via the Lukuga River 

Geology

Until 12 million years ago, the bountiful waters of the equatorial plateau either flowed west into the Congo River system or east to the Indian Ocean. Creation of the Great Rift Valley changed that. The basins that resulted from the geological uplifts filled with water that now flowed north.

Great Lakes region

The term Great Lake region is likewise somewhat loose. It is used in a narrow sense for the area lying between northern Lake Tanganyika, western Lake Victoria, and lakes Kivu, Edward and Albert. This comprises Burundi, Rwanda, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and northwestern Kenya and Tanzania. It is used in a wider sense to extend to all of Kenya and Tanzania, but not usually as far south as Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique nor as far north as Ethiopia, though these four countries border one of the Great Lakes.

An estimated 107 million people live in the Great Lakes region. The area described in the narrow sense above is one of the most densely populated areas of Africa.

UNEP:The climate and rich volcanic soils in the highlands sustain intensely cultivated croplands, encouraging the growth of human population. This increased population is competing for habitat used by many endangered species, including the mountain gorilla and the forest elephant. Governments in the region are attempting to lessen the impact through integrated conservation and development projects.

Because of past volcanic activity this area also contains some of Africa's best farmland. Its altitude gives it a sub-tropical climate despite being right on the equator, becoming temperate in the mountains. This makes tropical diseases of humans and livestock, such as trypanosomiasis, less prevalent, so that, for instance, cattle and other susceptible animals thrive.

Because of the density of population and the agricultural surplus in the region the area became highly organized into a number of small states. The most powerful of these monarchies were Rwanda, Burundi, Buganda, and Bunyoro. Unusually for sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional borders were largely maintained by the colonial powers.

Being the much-sought-after source of the Nile River, the region had long been of interest to Europeans. The first Europeans to arrive in the region in any numbers were missionaries, who had limited success in converting the locals but did open the region to later colonization. The increased contact with the rest of the world led to a series of devastating epidemics affecting both humans and livestock. These decreased the region's population dramatically, by up to 60 percent in some areas. The region did not return to its precolonial population until the 1950s.

While seen as a region with great potential after independence, the region has in recent decades been marred by civil war and conflict, from which only Kenya and Tanzania have largely escaped. The worst affected areas have been left in great poverty.

Three of the countries in the region, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda, have created a join commission to facilitate cooperation and resolve conflict in the Great Lakes, with particular attention to the problem of armed groups in eastern Congo.

More than three and a half million people have died as a result of deprivation and conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is the highest death toll in any conflict since the end of World War II. Although conditions have improved, there are continuing incidents of violence in eastern Congo and the situation remains volatile.

Published: 06-JUN-07

Lubumbashi - Representatives of four states in the Great Lakes region began a three-day meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo Tuesday to discuss regional security and economic issues.

Experts in the two fields from Burundi, the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda held preparatory talks in the southeastern DRC city of Lubumbashi before ministerial meetings on Wednesday.

It came 10 days after a massacre of civilians in the eastern DRC province of Sud-Kivu. Local people blamed it on the so-called "rasta" rebels, a group made up of former Rwandan rebels, deserters from the DRC army and local criminals.

At their last meeting, in Bujumbura in Burundi in April, the four states adopted a common military strategy aimed at active armed groups, dubbed "negative forces", in the region.

In a document signed by the four countries' chiefs of staff the DRC government undertook over the next two months to intensify its offensive against rebels on its territory."

But it ruled out any intervention by foreign troops on its soil.

A force of 16,475 UN peacekeepers, known by its French acronym, MONUC, already operates in DRC.

They estimate there are more than 10,000 Rwandan Hutu rebels in the forests and mountains of eastern DRC.

The rebels have been operating since the Hutu-led genocide of at least 800,000 mostly minority Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

The Great Lakes region has been the theatre of repeated violence since the 1990s, with a civil war in Burundi in 1993, the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and rebellions and wars in the DRC from 1996 to 1997 and 1998 to 2003. -AFP

Published: 18-APR-07

Bujumbura - Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have re-launched the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL), an organisation that has been dormant for 13 years.

Diplomatic heads from the three nations participated in the meeting, which will relaunch an organisation begun in 1976 but is inactive because of war and rebellion that has plagued the region.

Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht was also in Bujumbura for the occasion, representing the former colonial power in the three nations.

"We are going to relaunch the CEPGL. The revival of economic co-operation between Rwanda, the DRC and Burundi is very important for this region from an economic point of view but also from a political one. This co-operation, if well-developed, will ensure lasting piece and stability in this region," the Belgian minister said.

"The CEPGL has been active in the past, but the war that has ravaged the region has brought its activity to almost zero," he said.

The re-launch program includes a budget for the first year of $970 000, financed primarily by Belgium and the European Union, and the creation of an interim executive secretary.

The organisation will permit the free movement of people and goods within the region, and plans to create a regional bank and an institute for agricultural research.

The Great Lakes Countries were plagued by violence in the 1990s, with the beginning of the ongoing civil war in Burundi in 1993, the Rwandan genocide in 1994, which was followed by rebellions and regional warfare in the DRC. Sapa-AFP

Sources and further reading

• Jean-Pierre Chrétien. The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History trans Scott Straus
• Pavitt, Nigel. 2001. Africa's Great Rift Valley. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0810906023
• East Africa. 1986. Amsterdam: Time Life Books. ISBN 0809453193
• Holmes, Martha, Gavin Maxwell, and Tim Scoones. 2004. Nile. London: BBC Books. ISBN 0563487135
• [1] "Cichlids of the Great Lakes." Friends of the National Zoo
• [2] United Nations Environment Programme
• [3] ReliefWeb
• [4] International Association for Great Lakes Research

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