Lake Tanganyika temperature increase worries top expertby | 21-07-2012 01:06 |
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 Climate change has been causing rise in temperatures that impact production levels of Lake Tanganyika, affecting the livelihoods of millions of Tanzanians who depend on the lake?s ecosystem, it was revealed here yesterday. An American scientist recently said Lake Tanganyika temperatures have been warming since the 1900s at a rate not seen for at least 1,500 years. Dr Elizabeth Gray, a global climate change fellow with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a US charitable environmental organisation that works to preserve the lands and waters on which all life depends, said in western Tanzania temperatures have been rising steadily at the rate of 0.12 degrees centigrade per decade since the 1950s. She was presenting findings of forecasted changes in climate for the area on the first day of a two-day climate change adaptation workshop aimed at advancing common understanding and shape future actions on climate change adaptations. ?Fish catches are declining, which has led to declines in income and protein that feed local families,? Dr Gray told the workshop jointly organised by The Nature Conservancy, the Jane Goodall Institute (also runs the roots and shoots program for youth worldwide) and the Frankfurt Zoological Society to raise awareness about climate change issues and related impacts throughout western Tanzania.Explaining that Lake Tanganyika provides about 40 per cent of the protein to the lake shore communities, Dr Gray said since these current trends were likely to continue, the effects would extend far beyond the shoreline as people would increasingly turn to the forests to replace lost income and nutrition from the lake. The lake is the second largest freshwater body in the world by volume, and the second deepest, after Lake Baikal in Siberia.She said the most effective way to try and reverse the trend was to empower local communities to make sustainable management of their natural resources. The ability of people and natural systems to respond to a changing climate is great and local communities could begin taking immediate action to start adapting to changing climatic conditions, said the American scientist. She added: ?There is good reason to hope that our natural systems are still resilient enough and our human communities motivated to prepare for this changing future.? She said future climate forecasts indicate that increasing temperatures and more sporadic, intense and unpredictable rainstorms would impact the region?s forests, woodlands, rivers and lake. However, the scientist said local communities had started taking actions that would help them adapt to changing climatic conditions now that relevant climate change information was available. She said most of these actions did not involve radical departures from actions people were already taking to improve their livelihoods through protection of the ecosystem they depend on. |
