Lake Malawi National Park

Lake Malawi National Park (English Lake Malawi National Park ) is a national park in Malawi Monkey Bay on the south shore of Lake Malawi. The 88 km ² park includes a portion of the lake, the Khumba Peninsula and twelve smaller islands. He is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984.

1934 were established on some of the islands forest reserves and bird sanctuaries. This protection was extended in 1972 to the hills of Cape Maclear, Mwenya and Nkhudzi. On November 24, 1980, the present National Park was established. In Monkey Bay, there is a research station of the Ministry of Fisheries.

Lake Malawi contains the largest species richness of fish worldwide. In the area of the park about half of the estimated 1,000 species occur, of which over 90 % are native here. This is the result of an evolutionary adaptation that can be studied only on the Galapagos Islands in a comparable scale. The lake contains 30 % of all known cichlid species, especially the mbuna. Up to 5 all 400 species are endemic.

The boundary of the protected area for fish on only a small part of the lake, where they live, may seem strange. In fact, many of them, especially the Mbunu bound by their way of life at all certain islands and coastal areas.

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