Lake Malawi National Park

Lake Malawi National Park

Lake Malawi National Park is located at the southern end of Lake Malawi. It is the only national park in Malawi established to protect fish and aquatic wildlife. Although this is its main objective, the park covers a fairly large area, including a headland in Lake Malawi, the foreshore and several small rocky islands. Lake Malawi National Park was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984, because of its global importance for the conservation of biodiversity, particularly its fish diversity. Other features of the park are the outstanding scenic beauty of the site, with its craggy landscape in contrast to the clear waters of the lake. Lake Malawi was formed millions of years ago, and its water level has fluctuated considerably over the millennia. This made available many different niches for the cichlids and other fish that lived there, which adapted to different habitats and adopted different lifestyles as part of an evolutionary radiation. There have been various estimates of how many species of cichlids live in Lake Malawi, with 700 species being a reasonable estimate. Almost all of these species are endemic, and some have only a tiny range: a bay, a rocky islet or a few hundred meters of coastline. Mammals such as Chacma Baboons, Velvet Monkeys, hippos, leopards, Common Duikers, Bushbucks, Greater Kudus and klipspringers live in the park. You can also see crocodiles, African Fish Eagles and White-Breasted Cormorants, along with wading birds, kingfishers, hornbills, nightjars, kestrels, Swallow-Tailed Bee-Eaters and many other species.