I read this very interesting article in National Geographic about the Albertine Rift in Central-East Africa, a region of high biodiversity and home to amazing wildlife including lions, hippos, elephants, dozens of rare bird and fish species, and the critically endangered mountain gorilla pictured here.
The Albertine Rift is part of the Great Rift System, which runs from the Jordan Valley in the Middle East, through the Red Sea and South through East Africa to Mozambique which is created by the cracking (“rifting”) of the tectonic plate carrying the African continent. In equatorial Africa, the Rift System has two branches, the eastern branch is often referred to as the Great Rift Valley or Eastern Rift Valley. The western branch is more commonly known as the Albertine Rift or the Western Rift Valley and runs north-south with a westerly arc and provides a natural border for Democratic Republic of Congo and its western neighbours, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.
The 920-mile-long geologic crease of highland forests, snowcapped mountains, savannas, chain of lakes, and wetlands is the most fecund and biodiverse region on the African continent. The western rift, which was named after Lake Albert, includes the Virunga and Rwenzori mountain ranges and several of Africa’s Great Lakes, where the deep rift has filled with water.
The paradox of the Albertine Rift is that its very richness has led to scarcity. People crowded into this area because of its fertile volcanic soil, its plentiful rainfall, its biodiversity, and its high altitude, which made it inhospitable to mosquitoes and tsetse flies and the diseases they carry. However, this influx of people is compounded as a consequence of the fabulous (rare earth) mineral wealth that also exists beneath the surface, and this creates a further competition for the land which leads directly to additional pressures on the environment and the rich diversity of animal and plantlife that currently exists here.
As the human populations have grown, more and more forest has also been cut down to increase farm and grazing land.
Although, this really isn’t just today’s problem; even in the 19th century the paradise that visitors beheld was already racked with a central preoccupation:
Is there enough for everyone?
With regards to the photography accompanying this article:
The main image shows the hand of a mountain gorilla that pokes from the rain forest in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.
The second image is of a tree-climbing lion in Uganda’s Queen Elisabeth National Park.
The third image shows an Nyiragongo, an active volcano in the Congo.
The fourth image is of elephants in miles of unbroken savanna inside Uganda’s Queen Elisabeth Park, where their numbers total 2.500, a dramatic rise after heavy poaching in the 1980’s.
Via: National Geographic
