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Gäst svaradeDear defender of Malawi cichlids!
With the sale of the Maleri Island concession to Dimitri (Jimmy) and Chris Giannakis of Farmers World, Malawi, we were lucky to have engaging new owners who are anxious to protect Malawi fish. About a month ago I was in Malawi and met twice with Dimitri who also had the same idea as I had: to make much more durable ANDs that would function easily 10, perhaps more than 25 years in the lake. When I inspected a few of the ANDs last year at Nakantenga Island I was disappointed to see how quickly they had deteriorated. Worse, local fishermen now were trying their nets again as they noticed that many of the ANDs were either lost or, more likely, had sunk to the bottom where they are ineffective. We decided to construct a new type of AND from thick-walled PVC and stainless steel. PVC is locally available and Dimitri has made already a prototype using a 60 cm long pipe with a diameter of 10 cm. Both ends have glued-on caps and two stainless steel collars. The top collar has 4 hooks, to catch the nets, and the bottom collar has two eyelets to tie the anchor line (4 mm stainless steel cable). The whole construction with up to 10 m anchor cable has plenty of buoyancy so we will not see slowly sinking ANDs anymore. The PVC is blue (one of the two colors available in Malawi) which is impossible to see from a boat when the ANDs are tied up about 5 m below the surface.
A second lucky strike we got when Leon du Plessis, a dive instructor who runs a dive school in Senga Bay (Wamwai), offered to place the ANDs. He suggested that, instead of hauling rocks from the island, drill holes, tie the AND, and then haul the whole contraption to its final resting site, the holes should be drilled underwater with a pneumatic drill. If everything goes to plan he will have divers who are in need of 50-60 dives for their certification as dive master, 30-40 dives of which are just to build up experience and not part of the training. During such non-training dives he will have these divers drill holes in the rocks and anchor the ANDs at specific places around the island. We found out that you can run a pneumatic drill from a SCUBA tank and the idea is that a diver goes down with a double tank of which one is used to drill 1-2 holes in a rock. A stainless steel lug bolt is inserted in the rock and the anchor cable of the AND attached. I have bought already the drill but will try it out at home if all works underwater before I send it off to Malawi.
Anxious to do more for the environment Leon also offered to start replanting the sandy area along the east coast of the main island. Over the years beach seines (illegal on the islands of course) have taken out all vegetation. On the other side of the island there are still a few clumps of Vallisneria and from there he is going to replant Bata Bay, as the small bay along the east coast is called. Before putting any new plants in he is going to place some large rocks strategically on the sandy bottom so that nets cannot be moved over the plants. This work he will start first as we are in the process of getting quotes on the stainless steel material for the ANDs in South Africa and then the contraptions have to be welded and put together.
In cooperation with Dimitri, Leon is planning a minimum-impact dive camp on the main island (the lodge is on Nankoma, the second largest island of the group) near Bata Bay. To have a camp site right there where work is needed will be beneficial to the project and volunteers can also stay at this camp on Maleri Island.
For almost 18 months the project had been in limbo during which local fishermen realized that fishing was at some places again possible. Since Parks found that something had to be done in the interim they recently installed a team of guards (paid by Parks & Wildlife) with a boat at the islands. We decided to also support these men by providing fuel so that they can continue to make their daily inspection rounds. In this way we are going to protect the cichlids with a two-pronged approach and when Leon will be successful in replanting Bata Bay also that will drastically increase the nursery grounds for many utaka found at the Maleri islands. Pennstate has more than $12,000 ready to be sent to Malawi and these funds will go towards the purchase of the material necessary to make 200 stainless steel ANDs.
It starts to look good for Malawi cichlids! Expect some photos and video clips this fall!
Enjoy your cichlids!
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Varför blir det som i inlägget ovan om man skall lägga in inläggLämna en kommentar:
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Fick just ett mail med positiva nyheter om AND-projektet från Ad Konings
Dear defender of Malawi cichlids!
With the sale of the Maleri Island concession to Dimitri (Jimmy) and Chris Giannakis of Farmers World, Malawi, we were lucky to have engaging new owners who are anxious to protect Malawi fish. About a month ago I was in Malawi and met twice with Dimitri who also had the same idea as I had: to make much more durable ANDs that would function easily 10, perhaps more than 25 years in the lake. When I inspected a few of the ANDs last year at Nakantenga Island I was disappointed to see how quickly they had deteriorated. Worse, local fishermen now were trying their nets again as they noticed that many of the ANDs were either lost or, more likely, had sunk to the bottom where they are ineffective. We decided to construct a new type of AND from thick-walled PVC and stainless steel. PVC is locally available and Dimitri has made already a prototype using a 60 cm long pipe with a diameter of 10 cm. Both ends have glued-on caps and two stainless steel collars. The top collar has 4 hooks, to catch the nets, and the bottom collar has two eyelets to tie the anchor line (4 mm stainless steel cable). The whole construction with up to 10 m anchor cable has plenty of buoyancy so we will not see slowly sinking ANDs anymore. The PVC is blue (one of the two colors available in Malawi) which is impossible to see from a boat when the ANDs are tied up about 5 m below the surface.
A second lucky strike we got when Leon du Plessis, a dive instructor who runs a dive school in Senga Bay (Wamwai), offered to place the ANDs. He suggested that, instead of hauling rocks from the island, drill holes, tie the AND, and then haul the whole contraption to its final resting site, the holes should be drilled underwater with a pneumatic drill. If everything goes to plan he will have divers who are in need of 50-60 dives for their certification as dive master, 30-40 dives of which are just to build up experience and not part of the training. During such non-training dives he will have these divers drill holes in the rocks and anchor the ANDs at specific places around the island. We found out that you can run a pneumatic drill from a SCUBA tank and the idea is that a diver goes down with a double tank of which one is used to drill 1-2 holes in a rock. A stainless steel lug bolt is inserted in the rock and the anchor cable of the AND attached. I have bought already the drill but will try it out at home if all works underwater before I send it off to Malawi.
Anxious to do more for the environment Leon also offered to start replanting the sandy area along the east coast of the main island. Over the years beach seines (illegal on the islands of course) have taken out all vegetation. On the other side of the island there are still a few clumps of Vallisneria and from there he is going to replant Bata Bay, as the small bay along the east coast is called. Before putting any new plants in he is going to place some large rocks strategically on the sandy bottom so that nets cannot be moved over the plants. This work he will start first as we are in the process of getting quotes on the stainless steel material for the ANDs in South Africa and then the contraptions have to be welded and put together.
In cooperation with Dimitri, Leon is planning a minimum-impact dive camp on the main island (the lodge is on Nankoma, the second largest island of the group) near Bata Bay. To have a camp site right there where work is needed will be beneficial to the project and volunteers can also stay at this camp on Maleri Island.
For almost 18 months the project had been in limbo during which local fishermen realized that fishing was at some places again possible. Since Parks found that something had to be done in the interim they recently installed a team of guards (paid by Parks & Wildlife) with a boat at the islands. We decided to also support these men by providing fuel so that they can continue to make their daily inspection rounds. In this way we are going to protect the cichlids with a two-pronged approach and when Leon will be successful in replanting Bata Bay also that will drastically increase the nursery grounds for many utaka found at the Maleri islands. Pennstate has more than $12,000 ready to be sent to Malawi and these funds will go towards the purchase of the material necessary to make 200 stainless steel ANDs.
It starts to look good for Malawi cichlids! Expect some photos and video clips this fall!
Enjoy your cichlids!
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Ad ska försöka komma med en uppdatering i Ciklidbladet 3/2011 dvs. numret som kommer ut efter sommaren. Vi kommer självklart kommunicera huvuddragen här på Ciklid.org också.Lämna en kommentar:
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AND på Maleri Islands
Hej,
Jag talade nyss (07:30) med Ad i Malawi. Han åker vidare idag efter att ha träffat de nya ägarna till lodgen på Maleri Islands. Allt var mycket positivt och även en ny intressent har utlovat hjälp med att få projektet att utvecklas.
De AND som vi har placerat ut har visat sig inte hålla måttet så att det kommer att tillverkas nya i rostfritt stål. Naturligtvis dyrare men med längre livslängd. En dykare från Sydafrika som driver en Lodge på Senga Beach (Wam Wai Lodge ) har lovat att göra större delen av arbetet. Han har intresse av att få använda Lodgen på Maleri för dykutbildning och jag tror att det bara är bra att det finns ekonomiska incitament (som inte direkt berör AND projektet) med i bilden för de som skall göra jobbet skall känna sig motiverade.
Det måste understykas att de AND vi redan placerat ut under ett antal år fungerat väl (tills en del av dem sjönk) och att de varit kraftigt avskräckande på de fiskare som illegalt fångat fisk i nationalparken. Såklart lär sig fiskarna snabbt att ett antal AND sjunkit till botten och att det är fritt fram där.
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Senaste nytt från Ad och SMG-fonden
Dear friends, This is the first update since a long time of absence. Last year we had a bit of a setback regarding the production and placements of the ANDs, because Alan had to sell his lodge on the Maleri Islands. The ANDs were made ready there and also the rocks of the island served as anchors for the net busters. The good news is that the new owners, Jimmy and Chris Giannakis, are keen to continue Alan’s work and will continue to place the ANDs. I’m very grateful to Alan for all his excellent work and wish him luck with his new venture in southern Malawi.
Since my visit to the islands last September I wanted to improve some details of the contraptions, i.e. to add better floating material inside the AND because I found some of them that were leak and then became too heavy and sank to the bottom (where they are useless). My first idea was to replace the three plastic water bottles (empty) inside with floating polypropylene balls but I expected to get a large bag of balls for my $100 but that turned out to be a small box. Way too expensive. So now I’m thinking of a PVC tube inside with glued caps on either end and hope that this gives the AND enough buoyancy to keep it up when leak. Stuff in Africa takes time, as you are well aware off. In mid May I’ll be in Malawi and will meet the new owners of the lodge and we will make a “plan de attack”. We have about $12,000 at Pennstate waiting for things to get rolling again in Malawi. Jimmy and Chris also took over the account of the Maleri Island Community Trust which was used to transfer fund to from the US. We are back in business of protecting Malawi cichlids! Thank you again for your concern and your assistance. Enjoy your cichlids!
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