1. Fragile Lakes, Fragile Lands: Research on the Sustainable Human Uses and Management of Two Transnational Lakes of East Africa (Lakes Victoria and Malawi)

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This three-year research program began in January 1990 with support by the Program on Collaborative Research Grants in Peace and International Cooperation of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($350,000). This "keystone grant" supported the first segment of the project to develop direct, policy-relevant findings to support the sustainable uses of these transnationally shared lakes, their aquatic resources and the resources of their basins for the human populations and the owning nations. The collaborative research design seeks:

• To understand the human ecology of these lakes and the many watershed and market factors affecting them.
• To generate increased attention for and efficient monitoring of these lakes with external assistance for the African governments and scholars by increasing their scientific research capacity and resources.
• Ultimately, to affect the local practices, national policies, and transnational cooperation which facilitate the health or illness of these invaluable lake resources.

The study concerns

• The transnational policies and structures of conflict and cooperation which facilitate the health of the lakes or lead to their decline.
• The current and potential impacts of lake changes on the lakeside and more distant users of the lakes.
• The successful and unsuccessful modes of governance and control of these common property resources - locally, nationally, and transnationally.

The study is particularly relevant to Lake Victoria, which has felt the impact of changing human "development" activities, including over-fishing (especially breeding populations), agricultural practice (irrigation, pesticides/herbicides, cropping techniques), tourism, and physical changes (causeways, lake levels, and others).

This project also is concerned with issues of biological diversity of freshwater species in Africa. The lakes of the Great East African Rift are some of the oldest, deepest, and most diversely speciated natural lakes in the world. Because of this astounding adaptive radiation and the resultant species diversity (there are more species in L. Malawi alone - over 400 cichlids - than in all North American lakes and rivers), there is a special urgency to give immediate attention to preserving the biological diversity while simultaneously seeking to maximize the rates of sustainable harvesting for the consumption and economic needs of a burgeoning human population.