Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania, and Zambia have jointly unveiled a USD 14.5 million (EUR 13.3 million) project to evaluate and tackle threats to the biodiversity of Lake Tanganyika.
The “Biodiversity Conservation, Sustainable Land Management, and Enhanced Water Security in Lake Tanganyika Basin” project, unveiled in late February and financed by multilateral environmental fund Global Environment Facility (GEF), aims to promote sustainable and harmonized fishing practices on the transboundary freshwater lake. Cccording to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Lake Tanganyika’s biodiversity is “under serious threat, exacerbated by increasing human populations, their intensified usage of natural resources, and climate change.”
“Through this transformative project, we are taking concrete steps to reverse biodiversity loss, promote sustainable fisheries, and restore the health of the lake for current and future generations,” said Sylvain Mukanga, the executive director of the Lake Tanganyika Authority (LTA), an intergovernmental organization that coordinates lake management efforts.
The five-year initiative is the culmination of a series of investments made by the GEF, which first endorsed a Strategic Action Program (SAP) for the lake in 2000. The SAP was then revised in 2012 by the four countries that border the lake. In addition to GEF investments, the United Nations Office for Project Services will help execute the project’s goals in partnership with the LTA.
To protect the lake’s biodiversity, the project will outline strict regulations on fishing gear, such as net mesh sizes, and fishing quotas in an attempt to identify and address transboundary threats to fish stocks.
The project also intends to support the four countries in enacting measures to conserve three protected areas within the Lake Tanganyika basin, including a national park in Burundi, a natural reserve in DRC, and a game reserve in Tanzania.
Furthermore, the project outlines proposals on how to streamline transboundary coordination among government agencies in the four countries, the LTA, and other stakeholders through effective information management, monitoring, and evaluation.
The project was designed to avoid duplication with such agreements as the “Convention on the Sustainable Management of Lake Tanganyika," which was approved by the four governments in 2003, ensuring alignment with existing regulatory frameworks.
The 2003 convention committed the countries to cooperate in the development and implementation of harmonized laws and standards on the management of the lake and its basin, as well as ensuring communities living around the freshwater resource benefit from its sustainable use.
Other previously launched transboundary projects that the new project will supplement include the EUR 2 million (USD 2.2 million) Lake Tanganyika Fisheries Management (LATAFIMA) initiative financed by the E.U. to develop sustainable measures to reinforce fisheries monitoring, control, and surveillance systems to reduce instances of IUU fishing on the lake.
LTA is also working with global agencies in the implementation of the Lake Tanganyika Water Management (LATAWAMA) project focused on the collection and monitoring of data to provide the latest information on the ecological state of the lake, water quality, fish populations, and biodiversity, as well as the impacts of human activities.
Lake Tanganyika is Africa’s second-largest lake after Lake Victoria and the world’s second-deepest after Russia’s Lake Baikal. Fishers operating on the lake produce an estimated 165,000 to 200,000 metric tons of fish products annually, and the lake provides approximately 100,000 jobs.
More than 1,500 aquatic species live in the lake, of which approximately 600 are considered endemic. However, the lake’s species continue to grapple with challenges of high population growth, overfishing, and habitat degradation.
UNEP has expressed concern about the declining value of lake ecosystems globally, saying that by 2050, the current value lakes provide of USD 3 trillion (EUR 2.8 trillion), “could decrease by up to 20 percent, while nutrient pollution from agriculture and wastewater is expected to at least double, costing hundreds of billions of dollars annually to address.”
“Currently, freshwater biodiversity decline is twice the rate of decline of biodiversity in terrestrial and marine biomes,” the agency said.
