Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
baby fat that insulates them and gives them metabolic reserves. This endurance of human also
gives us the ability to range over large territories and adjust dwelling locations to the climate
and seasons. Maybe this accounts for some of the wanderlust in humans and the high mobility,
particularly in North America. The downside is that humans do not get “used” to diseases in
the area the way other animals do. And human brain power was what allowed humans to
conquer the environment and access to wildlife to feed the high energy demanding human
brains. Our physiological Achilles Heel, however, is our need for fire (energy) to cook our
food to absorb it and our need for water for both cooking and drinking. But man's relationship
with the water and climate is always a tenuous and fragile one. The story is long and complex.
In the far north of this thorny Bushveld area is the Zambezi River that, with the Congo river,
bisects the African continent in half at Kalene hill near Mwinilunga. Zambezi means “gods
river,” “great river,” “broad river” or is named after an upriver tribe. Just north of this, the
long Nile river takes its origin as it drains into some successive lakes before joining together
with tributaries to flow north into Egypt. In a similar manner, the Glacier Park Rivers flow
north to the Hudson Bay, west to the Pacific, and south to the Gulf Mexico. There are only
three such pyramid like peaks that separate rivers into three directions, the other being at the
northwest corner of the Amazon basin where the rivers flow into three separate oceans.
Further south is the Limpopo River, the border between Botswana in the west and Zimbabwe
in the north and South Africa in the south. Limpopo is said to refer to the sound of the rapids at
the site where Mzilikazi and his tribe crossed into Zimbabwe on their way from fleeing from
South Africa, although it may also have Indian Hindi origins. Rudyard Kipling described the
Limpopo as “the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees”
where the “bi-coloured python rock-snake dwells” in the short story “The Elephant's Child.”
Just south of the river in the Kruger Park Pafuri Triangle is a huge beautiful fever tree forest
and rock pythons are not uncommon (we had a few as “pets”) but the river is now more dirty,
muddy, filled with sand and algae growth from pollution. An analysis by Zhu and Ringler has
suggested that in four future climate change models the stress on the river will continue to
increase up to at least 2030, particularly for water resources as plans are under way to
increasingly use the water from the Limpopo, and other rivers, to improve and intensify
productivity of land by irrigation. Water infrastructure and management may mitigate the
effects but will not entirely compensate for climate changes effects they predict. On a global
scale, based on the world population in 2000, a report in Nature September 2010 found that
80% (4.8 billion) of people live in areas of water insecurity or a biodiversity threat exceeding
the 75 percentile and ten to twenty freshwater species have become or will become extinct.
While dams and water reservoirs enhance human water security and often energy production,
these may harm biodiversity of associated ecosystems.
A bizarre river, created from an inland depression and sea between the cratons, is the
Kavango River that arises in the western highlands of Angola. It runs southeast from the
western side of Africa and then disappears into the semi desert area of the Okavango Delta, the
last remains of the inland sea till some 8000 years ago. Occasionally the water level gets high
enough, as it did when we were camping in Moremi in 2010, and the Savuti channel opens up.
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