By IPS Correspondents
GRAHAMSTOWN, South-Eastern South Africa, Mar 21 2008 (IPS)

More than 50 species of fish have been recorded in the initial phase of a two-year joint research project on the Kwanza River in Angola.

An Angolan research body, the Instituto Nacional de Investigação Pesqueira (National Fishing Research Institute, INIP), and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), an academic grouping affiliated to Rhodes University in Grahamstown, have been working together to find out more about the fish, which inhabit the lower reaches of the Kwanza River.

The Angolan Ministry of Fisheries tasked INIP with investigating the fisheries potential of the river, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean about 60 kilometres south of Luanda, the country&#39s capital and largest city. However, before assessing the fisheries potential INIP decided that it had to give priority to a full investigation of the river&#39s biodiversity, and to produce a list of species found in the watercourse.

INIP approached SAIAB late in 2005 to discuss the possibilities of conducting joint aquatic biodiversity surveys. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation provided most of the funding for the initiative, while the South African National Research Foundation also made a substantial contribution.

SAIAB&#39s Ernst Swartz, Paul Skelton and Luis da Costa visited Angola in November 2006 to get a sense of the scope of the project. They conducted field surveys at Capanda Dam, about 230 kilometres south-east of Luanda, together with researchers from INIP and from the state company charged with managing the dam.

The joint SAIAB and INIP research team then did another survey, this time in the Kissama National Park on the lower reaches of the Kwanza, about 70 kilometres from Luanda, with staff from the park.

The joint project includes a number of workshops aimed at transferring skills to Angolan researchers, to be held at SAIAB headquarters in Grahamstown later this year. The workshops will include sessions on collecting techniques, fish identification and curation procedures. Project leaders are expected to make use of the opportunity to plan the final field surveys for the initiative, as well as publications for the next year.

As the project progresses it is producing a simple guide to the fish of the Kwanza. Some of the researchers believe that they may even discover fish that are new to science; as a result they are conducting thorough morphological and genetic analyses of species.

The mouth of the Kwanza River is known in big-game fishing circles as an excellent place to trawl for tarpon, a large coastal fish that can weigh up 90 kilogrammes. Local fishermen are also familiar with fish that they catch on a daily basis, but until the INIP/SAIAB study began, there had been no attempt to compile a definitive list of fish in the river.

Even when the Angolan government decided to build dams on the Kwanza, there was no environmental impact study to assess the effects of these projects on the biodiversity of the river.

Authorities signed an agreement with Soviet and Brazilian construction companies in 1982 to build the Capanda Dam, and work began four years later with state investment of 750 million dollars. Delays caused mainly by the civil war pushed the estimated total cost of the project to over four billion dollars. (The war formally ended in 1991; however fighting continued sporadically until 2002.)

The recently completed Capanda dam is the largest ever civil construction project in Angola.

The fisheries department expects that Capanda will be a vital building block for future freshwater fisheries; but the dam was built principally to generate electricity for Luanda and the country&#39s northern provinces.

Capanda has four turbines, each capable of generating 130 megawatts of electricity, giving the project a total capacity of 520 megawatts. Although all four turbines are operational there are still problems transmitting this power to Luanda, where regular power cuts are part of daily life.

The INIP/SAIAB research project will provide useful information to the government as it plans construction of at least another seven dams on the under-utilised Kwanza river. According to official estimates the river has the potential to generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power.

The need for sustainable use of water resources is receiving particular attention this week, in which World Water Day (Mar. 22) is being marked.

Noting that this year&#39s event coincides with the International Year of Sanitation, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in his message for World Water Day that meeting challenges related to sanitation stands to have a positive effect that "will reverberate far beyond better access to clean water. Every dollar invested in water and sanitation yields an estimated seven dollars worth of productive activity. And that comes on top of the immeasurable gains in cutting poverty, improving health and raising living standards."

According to the United Nations, about 2.6 billion people around the world are confronted with poor sanitation, with a child dying every 20 seconds as a result.

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