In 100 years Lake Victoria has gone from an ecological miracle to a fish production powerhouse and now to an ecosystem on the brink of collapse. If the Lake continues on it's current path of pollution and degradation the impacts will be felt far and wide by the 25 million people whose livelihoods are dependent on the Lake.

In this episode I speak to Mark Weston, author of The Saviour Fish (links to buy below), who spent two years living on Ukerewe island in Lake Victoria looking into all aspects of the environmental crisis he saw unfolding in front of him. We speak about:

• The fish that make up the biodiversity of Lake Victoria
• Why the cichlid numbers started to fall and the impact of this on the communities around the Lake
• The amazing resilience of the the fishermen and their families
• What can be done to reverse these trends and restore Lake Victoria to it's former glory

Other links mentioned in the podcast:

• Buy the Saviour Fish here >>>https://saviourfish.net/
• Organisations working to restore the Lake: Shift 17 (https://www.shift17.co.uk/) in Lake Victoria and Ripple Africa in Lake Malawi (https://rippleafrica.org/)
• Book recommendation - Darwin's Dreampond by Tijs Goldschmidt (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Darwins-Dreampond-Drama-Lake-Victoria/dp/0262571218)
• Documentary recommendation - Darwin's Nightmare (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424024/)

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