Into the Misty Mountains

by Dr. Mark Nicholson

 Nyungwe Forest, Rwanda

"Excuse me, Sir" asked the controller of the baggage scanner at the airport as he viewed a large mass of something opaque, "What are you carrying in your luggage?" "Soil", I replied.  "What are you doing in Rwanda?" "I am the dendrologist for Victory." That tends to be a conversation stopper so he shrugged and went back to his screen. In fact, I had tree seedlings in bags of soil in my suitcase for reasons which I shall explain.

I was in Rwanda at the invitation of a friend and entrepreneur who has started two fish farms on Lake Victoria and Lake Kivu. I was travelling with the company's Board comprising investors and aquaculturists from nine countries.

We set off to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border in the southwest corner in a convoy. The roads are good, and unlike in Kenya, there are no spring-breaking humps/bumps (with three-inch high rumble strips) in the road every hundred metres. After a six-hour drive we arrived at the border with DRC on Lake Kivu.

The company, Victory Farms, has expanded massively on both lakes. New 30m cages (each holding 200 tons of fish) are being set up on Kivu: production is set to rise from 5000 tons of farmed tilapia this year to more than 25,000 tons in 2026. Seventy-five percent of the daily catch is harvested at 2am and sold at 6am in Bukavu in the DRC 100m from our hotel every morning and the company is paid upfront in US$. The Congolese boats are filled and ferried 50 m across a creek to the fish markets. The supply is of huge nutritional benefit to the inhabitants of Eastern Congo.

I always liken Rwanda and DRC to David and Goliath, since the latter is ninety times the size of Rwanda and yet DRC always seems to come off second best after their frequent squabbles. The reason is clear of course: in Rwanda, order prevails. In the DRC, or even in Kenya, life is different. On arrival in Kigali from Nairobi (or Kinshasa), the difference is striking. In Kenya, laws exist but no one takes any notice of them. In Nairobi, traffic lights are either ignored or don’t work. In both countries, the hordes of motorcyclists are legally obliged to wear helmets and carry only one passenger. In Kenya, over half the motorcycle drivers are without helmets and their passengers (up to four at a time) almost never. In Kigali, every driver and every passenger (ONE only) wears a helmet with a visor. Overspeed in Kenya and you will be arguing with a cop about the size of the bribe for the next thirty minutes; in Rwanda, you are caught on camera, stopped, you pay the fine on your phone immediately or go to jail till you do.

Kivu is a smaller lake[1] in the western Albertine Rift to the north of Lake Tanganyika between DRC and Rwanda, which are not the closest bedfellows at the moment. Most of the western shore of the lake is guerilla territory supported (says the DRC) by President Kagame of Rwanda.

Immediately to the south is Burundi, a small country the same size as Rwanda, with the same population and the same ethnic makeup. Another friend was there recently and described that country as a basket case. The border between Rwanda and Burundi is closed.

In the extreme southwest of Rwanda, where the three countries meet, is Nyungwe, one of the most stunning tropical forests in East Africa. This was the venue of a treat for the Victory Board, generously organized and paid for by the CEO.

Setting off at 3.30a.m. we were split into small groups to track chimpanzees. Unlike Virunga in the north, Nyungwe has no gorillas (but plenty of guerillas judging by the number of fully-equipped Rwandan soldiers on the roads). The terrain is very steep, and the forest in places often impenetrable. Sure enough, one of the Directors, an old friend, managed to get lost for an hour or two till he heard a guide shouting for him. But during his solitary peregrination, he managed to get a good photograph of a tree (Entandophragma excelsum or Umuyove in Kinyarwanda), the seeds or seedlings of which I have been searching for 20 years.  It is the tallest tree species in Africa and we reckoned it was at least 80m high.

I find chimps much more interesting than gorillas, which, being vegetarian are on the thick side (apologies to my veggie friends!). Eating leaves all day does not elevate the IQ. I am clearly in the minority because a day of gorilla-tracking will set you back $1500, in contrast to chimp-tracking at $250. Chimps are group planners: they are also aggressive, devious, murderous, manipulative and greedy, remarkably like their closest cousins.

So why does a fish farm need a tree planter? The answer is that Rwanda is one of the most degraded and hilly countries in Africa. The native forests have almost all gone except Virunga and Nyungwe and they have been replaced by eucalyptus from Australia which have leaves that do not break down into fertile soil. Every rainstorm increases soil erosion into rivers which feed the lake and this affects water quality and fish yield. The fish farm has purchased a large area that will be restored to forest. We started with a tree-planting ceremony for (and by) the Board but Rwanda is so devoid of interesting tree species that I had to smuggle in some rare ones in my suitcase.

Lake Kivu was only discovered in 1894 by a German explorer. It is difficult to understand how Burton and Speke could have missed it in 1858 on their way north from Lake Tanganyika. For a limnologist, Kivu is one of the world’s most interesting lakes. Firstly, it is meromictic which means the water stays in layers unlike most lakes which mix freely. The very deep (over 500m/ 1650ft) and dense bottom layer is saline and stagnant, full of organic detritus which breaks down very slowly. It is also one of three lakes on the planet that undergo limnic eruptions when vast trapped ‘bubbles’ of CO₂ and methane can be released after an earthquake. Those of us of a certain age may remember the Lake Nyos eruption in Cameroon in 1986, which killed nearly 1800 inhabitants and thousands of livestock. Should Lake Kivu belch, it is likely to result in 2.5 million human deaths from asphyxiation in five minutes. This may also explain the absence of crocodiles in the lake. Such thoughts were far from my mind as I floated serenely on the glass-like blue surface on a Sunday afternoon.

The southern tip of Lake Kivu (showing cages in the distance)

Almost every village in Rwanda has a genocide memorial site. 1994 seems like yesterday to me but then I realized that most Rwandans today were born in the thirty-one years since that terrible year. I was born thirty-two years after the end of World War One, and what does that war really mean to me? They started with a one-month long memorial, since when it was shortened to two weeks, then one week, and now one day a year. Does a Remembrance Day stop wars or genocide? I doubt it. It is taboo in Rwanda to mention ethnicity. I was working with the majority tribe who come across as gentle, polite and slightly introverted. It is almost impossible to understand how politicians could whip up such a frenzy of hatred that could lead to mass murder on such a scale but it happened and it could happen anywhere.

Today the country is peaceful and one feels safe; but it is no democracy. In contrast, we all thought Tanzania was a safe, budding democracy but we were disabused two weeks ago when Madam Hassan banned or imprisoned all opposition candidates and won 98% of the vote. Around a thousand people were killed there in two days by "security" forces. The path to democracy in many countries remains a stony one.

Boris Johnson, when UK Prime Minister, cut a deal with President Kagame to deport illegal immigrants to his country. Rwanda has received around £350-400 million as an incentive but no one has ever been forcibly deported. If I were a Syrian given a choice between a gloomy, depressed, fractious country in Europe or starting life in a young and growing economy in a beautiful country with a wonderful climate and lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs, I know which I would choose.

My last day was spent in the Nyungwe forest with a lady guide on a non-stop, eight-hour hike to the top at 2900m (9800ft.). I had a lot to burn off. I had spent the previous day with the Afrikaner Head of Security and a white Liswati who owns a game farm near Mbabane, Eswatini (ex Swaziland). Lunch was a gigantic potjiekos[2] followed by an evening braai with an unending supply of springbok steaks (one of the most delicious game meats), downed with local beer and Irish whiskey. When I told them about the soil in the suitcase story, the Liswati laughed and said:

 "Ach, man, don’t worry. Every time I come up from Jo’burg, I ‘ave two suitcases, one containing 20kg of frozen springbok steaks. The okes[3] at the airport make a fuss, but they always let me in."

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[1] ‘Small’ is relative. It is twice as deep as Loch Ness (the UK’s largest freshwater body) and seventy times the volume. The huge Lake Tanganyika is forty times the volume of Lake Kivu.

[2] An Afrikaner stew of beef T-Bone, butternuts, pumpkins and assorted vegetables

[3] Informal and friendly Afrikaans word for fellow or bloke