154
I had been to the marine biological station at Inhaca Island, across the bay some
30 kilometers, a few hours by boat from Maputo, the Indian Ocean on its eastern
side. The 299 bird species there, including much discussed Afrotropical “extra continental” land birds, made it one of the most densely packed avifauna paradises on
the planet.
20
But in addition, Inhaca hosted remarkable assemblages of plant life in
half-dozen main vegetation types, from mangrove to evergreen forest. I’d seen the
unusual nests of leaves of the ant Oecophyllum smaragdina, as described by William
Macnae and Margaret Kalk 60 years before when they had compiled the first comprehensive overview of biodiversity on Inhaca. These eaves were held together by
silk gland secretions from larvae, stimulated by worker ants. And palms under
which the diurnal Old World Fruit bats hung, taking off hours before sunset to help
themselves to the various flies and abundant wasps and stink bugs. Geckos and tree
frogs also cohabited in great numbers there, along with nesting sea birds.
All of which paled in comparison with the intertidal species—tropical, subtropical, and warm-temperate, as carefully documented back in 1958.
21
But it was Malhazine that was key to the country’s aspiration to create its own
version of New York’s Central Park, and thereby provide not only the cooling grace
of shadowing arbors for the surrounding shanty town, but solid environmental education opportunities for the residents of Maputo. It would be the largest and most
ambitious city park on the Continent. Uniquely, Malhazine would also provide an
oasis/staging ground for transcontinental, migratory birds and flying insects that
benefitted from the combined power of having Malhazine so close to an island of
endemics.
By 2016, however, political scandals had driven Mozambique into financial turmoil and an actual currency crash. The International Monetary Fund was pulling out.
To this day, Malhazine remains a dream, like that in the Old Testament, of
“swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks…” (Isaiah, 2.4); an
ideal held hostage by human distractions, and a population size guaranteed to add
cumulative counterweight to the survival needs, and mishaps by the end of each
day. The quotidian vagaries of an economically marginalized history, where such
woes are certainly as salient in the case of Mozambique’s past, as are the definitively
positive radar signals coming from the sanctuary and enormous sacred mountain
of Gorongosa; and the birds of a friendly and beautiful little island in the southern
Indian Ocean known as Inhaca. How the human psyche manages to endure fickle
pros and cons that add up in the tired mind, or broken heart, on a long-suffering
Continent, is not something easily given to rhetorical, geopolitical, or economic
indicators. If experience be our guide, all humans need basically the same things.
20 See The Birds of Inhaca Island, Mozambique, by W.F. de Boer and C.M.Bento, BLAS Guide
#22, BirdLife South Africa and Avian Demography Unit, 1999, p. 51; See also Clancey’s The Rare
Birds Of Southern Africa, Written and Illustrated by Dr. P.A.Clancy, Winchester Press,
Johannesburg, 1985; and Birds of East Africa, by V. G. L. van Someren, A.C.Allyn, Allyn Museum
of Entomology, Sarasota, Fl., 1973.
21 See William Macnae and Margaret Kalk, eds., A Natural History of Inhaca Island, Mocambique,
Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, South Africa.
17 The Echoes of Malhazine
I had been to the marine biological station at Inhaca Island, across the bay some
30 kilometers, a few hours by boat from Maputo, the Indian Ocean on its eastern
side. The 299 bird species there, including much discussed Afrotropical “extra continental” land birds, made it one of the most densely packed avifauna paradises on
the planet.
20
But in addition, Inhaca hosted remarkable assemblages of plant life in
half-dozen main vegetation types, from mangrove to evergreen forest. I’d seen the
unusual nests of leaves of the ant Oecophyllum smaragdina, as described by William
Macnae and Margaret Kalk 60 years before when they had compiled the first comprehensive overview of biodiversity on Inhaca. These eaves were held together by
silk gland secretions from larvae, stimulated by worker ants. And palms under
which the diurnal Old World Fruit bats hung, taking off hours before sunset to help
themselves to the various flies and abundant wasps and stink bugs. Geckos and tree
frogs also cohabited in great numbers there, along with nesting sea birds.
All of which paled in comparison with the intertidal species—tropical, subtropical, and warm-temperate, as carefully documented back in 1958.
21
But it was Malhazine that was key to the country’s aspiration to create its own
version of New York’s Central Park, and thereby provide not only the cooling grace
of shadowing arbors for the surrounding shanty town, but solid environmental education opportunities for the residents of Maputo. It would be the largest and most
ambitious city park on the Continent. Uniquely, Malhazine would also provide an
oasis/staging ground for transcontinental, migratory birds and flying insects that
benefitted from the combined power of having Malhazine so close to an island of
endemics.
By 2016, however, political scandals had driven Mozambique into financial turmoil and an actual currency crash. The International Monetary Fund was pulling out.
To this day, Malhazine remains a dream, like that in the Old Testament, of
“swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks…” (Isaiah, 2.4); an
ideal held hostage by human distractions, and a population size guaranteed to add
cumulative counterweight to the survival needs, and mishaps by the end of each
day. The quotidian vagaries of an economically marginalized history, where such
woes are certainly as salient in the case of Mozambique’s past, as are the definitively
positive radar signals coming from the sanctuary and enormous sacred mountain
of Gorongosa; and the birds of a friendly and beautiful little island in the southern
Indian Ocean known as Inhaca. How the human psyche manages to endure fickle
pros and cons that add up in the tired mind, or broken heart, on a long-suffering
Continent, is not something easily given to rhetorical, geopolitical, or economic
indicators. If experience be our guide, all humans need basically the same things.
20 See The Birds of Inhaca Island, Mozambique, by W.F. de Boer and C.M.Bento, BLAS Guide
#22, BirdLife South Africa and Avian Demography Unit, 1999, p. 51; See also Clancey’s The Rare
Birds Of Southern Africa, Written and Illustrated by Dr. P.A.Clancy, Winchester Press,
Johannesburg, 1985; and Birds of East Africa, by V. G. L. van Someren, A.C.Allyn, Allyn Museum
of Entomology, Sarasota, Fl., 1973.
21 See William Macnae and Margaret Kalk, eds., A Natural History of Inhaca Island, Mocambique,
Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, South Africa.
17 The Echoes of Malhazine