In a remote part of Angola’s highlands, a critical natural reservoir or “water tower” has been recognized as a wetland of international importance. Known to locals as lisima lya mwono, or “source of life,” the area supplies water to the region’s most important rivers and supports unique native wildlife.
Officially designated last October by the Angolan government and announced Jan. 6 by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the site covers around 53,000 square kilometers (20,500 square miles) in Moxico province.
The area sits on a vast plateau roughly 1,200 meters (3,900 feet) above sea level. It’s creased by valleys and dotted with freshwater lakes, rivers, peatlands and marshes. These ecosystems store huge volumes of rainfall, releasing it steadily into major African river systems, including the Okavango and Zambezi.
“It’s like a hidden world,” Kerllen Costa, Angolan director for the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project (NGOWP), told Mongabay. Project researchers first encountered the region’s water systems while tracing the length of the Cuito River in 2015.
Since then, the team has documented nearly 150 new-to-science species from the area, including spiders, snakes, mice and mushrooms. Camera traps have revealed abundant wildlife, including lions, leopards and cheetahs. They’ve also confirmed local reports of secretive “ghost elephants” that may be a genetically distinct population.
NGOWP botanical research director David Goyder, also with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., said the water tower’s deep, sandy soils support deciduous miombo woodlands. These are home to highly specialized plants, often unique to the region, such as Cochlospermum adjanyae — a tree that grows mostly underground, with little more than its bright yellow flowers emerging above the surface.
The recently described Cochlospermum adjanyae. Image courtesy of Chris Boyes
“Conservation of the miombo woodlands [is] essential in maintaining this water source,” Goyder told Mongabay by email.
Costa said the local Luchazi people culturally prohibit building near water sources and have played a key role in sustaining the ecosystem for generations.
“Every 20 kilometers there’s a valley and there’s a river,” he said. “They’re all crystal-clear, free-flowing, there’s absolutely no development; people live according to their ancient traditions and beliefs; forests are intact, there’s no charcoal production.”
The area has been spared from deforestation as well as large-scale mining and logging, mostly due to its remoteness and decades of isolation during the Angolan civil war that ended in 2002. However, things are beginning to change.
“There’s more and more access to the landscape,” Costa said, citing the incursion of hunters on motorbikes from big towns in neighboring provinces.
Driven by the demand for wild meat, some hunters light late-season fires to flush out animals, risking damage to parts of the delicate ecosystem.
The Ramsar designation offers a new conservation model in Angola, Costa said.
“It’s shining a light in order for [the] government and partners … to protect these people and this landscape.”
Banner image: An African elephant moves through the Cuando River. Image courtesy of Kostadin Luchansky/National Geographic.
Credits
This story first appeared on Mongabay
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
