This paper reviews the importance of African lakes and their management challenges. African inland lakes contribute significantly to food security, livelihoods and national economies through direct exploitation of fisheries, water resources for irrigation and hydropower generation. Because of these key contributions, the ecosystem services provided are under significant stress mainly owing to high demand by increasing populations, negative anthropogenic impacts on lake catchments and high levels of poverty which result in unsustainable use. Climate variability exacerbates the stress on these ecosystems. Current research findings show that the lakes cannot sustain further development activities on the scale seen over the past few decades. Millions of people are at risk of losing livelihoods through impacts on livestock and wildlife. The review further shows that the problems facing these lakes are beyond the purview of current management practices. A much better understanding of the interactions and feedbacks between different components of the lake socio-ecological systems is needed to address the complex challenges of managing these ecosystem services. This review suggests that the three small wetlands of Chad, Chilwa and Naivasha provide an opportunity for testing novel ideas that integrate sustainability of natural resource management with livelihoods in order to inform policy on how future land use and climatic variability will affect both food security and the ecosystem services associated with it.

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It is essential that the net effect of biodiversity on crop yields is determined; particularly in developing nations, where both increasing food security and reducing biodiversity losses are of high importance. This study modelled the abundance of pests, pollinators and pest-control animals and determined their impact on crop yield within agroecosystems in four rural villages in Malawi. Data on the habitat area, survivorship, fecundity, birthing month and effect on crop yield for 14 animal functional groups were collated through a focused meta-analysis. Using this data, models were created to determine the abundance of each functional group using land cover as the sole input variable; with Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA) utilised to validate the model prediction. Bees, birds and insects always improved crop yield, whereas monkeys, rodents and large herbivores always result in losses. Three out of four villages experienced a net benefit to crop yield from the animal biodiversity present. We conclude that models derived from metaanalyses appear useful for broadly predicting the local-scale abundance of functional groups and their qualitative impact on crop yield. However, long-term field observations should be conducted to ensure that the PRA values in this study correlate with direct observation.

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