It's All Connected

I just read a fascinating post in the blog "Safari Ecology." The author is a British ecologist doing research and living in Tanzania. He started "Safari Ecology" as a tool for safari guide training. As a former forester and environmental coordinator, and a current enthusiast of Tanzanian parks, I've been sneaking in and reading it all.

His  latest post  ties together two subjects I've written about previously--Ruaha National Park and electricity shortages in Tanzania.

I won't attempt to link to every post I wrote that mentions lack of electricity. But when I came back to America near the end of May, we'd been getting about 12 hours of electricity per day with alternating blackouts day to night. After I was comfortably ensconced in my American house, enjoying electricity 24-7, Arusha dropped back to 8 hours per day, then to 4 hours only during the night, then they had a few 72-hour blackouts. A lot of that was attributed to a meager rainy season without enough accumulated water to power the hydroelectric system.

I only wrote one post on Ruaha National Park, which is much more fun to read than my whining about lack of electricity. In that post, I discussed the sandy river channels, partially dry, running through the park, and included a few pictures of the rivers.

"Safari Ecology" gives a fascinating discussion of the effect of grazing in wetlands that feed the Ruaha River, how that has altered the river's historic flows, the effect of the altered flows on electricity generation, and the effect of the unreliable electricity supply on Tanzania's economy. So click on over  and take a look at it. But you will have to concentrate because it's science and math, whereas I mostly centered my discussion around elephant jokes!