MONTANE TO MANGROVE
FRAMEWORK OF THE GORONGOSA ECOSYSTEM MOZAMBIQUE
KEN LOCHNER TINLEY
D.Sc. (Ecology and Wildlife Management)
PUBLICATION
Publication date: 2020
ISBN: 978-0-620-90482-7
Format: 340 mm x 250 mm (landscape)
Extent: 396 pages
Photographs
Historic: 124
Contemporary: 7
Text: ~ 145 358 words
Maps: 51
Binding: Case bound
Imprint: Hamilton-Fynch
Classification: Ecological
The book is available only in the USA at US$150.00 from:
Megan Carolla megancarolla@gmail.com.
A digital copy is available for free download: https://gorongosa.org/montane-to-mangrove/
You can read Greg Carr’s foreword to the book in an Africa Geographic article on the Gorongosa restoration project here: https://tinyurl.com/vma2rpa5.
THE AUTHOR
Ken was born in South Africa in 1936 and grew up amongst the Natal midland forests and grasslands where he learnt his basic ecological knowledge from the local Zulu people. After high school he worked 6 years as a game ranger in Northern Zululand during which time he completed ecological surveys of the lakes and river systems. At age 26 he started university, achieving over the years B.Sc. (Earth and Life Sciences, Natal University), M.Sc. (on the Okavango Delta, Botswana) and D.Sc. in ecology and natural resource management (on Gorongosa at Pretoria University).
Ken’s proficiency in reading landscape patterns and processes grew as he worked in the field interrelating earth and life sciences. On low-level air flights he identified patterns, processes and trends; ground-truthing followed for map recording, planning and management solutions (including photographic record).
Fifty-five years were spent in rangeland studies and land management/conservation from extreme deserts in southern Africa and Saudi Arabia; to the savannas of central Western Australia, Northern Territory and Kimberley; to the tropical savannas and forests of central Mozambique.
In 1984 Ken, Lynne and their three children moved to Western Australia. At this stage of his life Ken secretly hoped to give up conservation work and become a full-time surfer! This was not meant to be and he worked for the local nature conservation department as well as doing consulting projects overseas (including one back in Gorongosa National Park in 1994).
In January 2000 he originated an extension program, based on his Mozambique work with rural neighbours of the national parks, for pastoralists and land care groups in the arid mulga savannas of Western Australia. This program, Ecosystem Management Understanding (EMU) was judged in 2005 by two independent assessors the most successful rangeland extension work ever done in WA.
Ken and Lynne are now retired and living in Fremantle on the coast of Western Australia.
THE BOOK
'Ken Tinley’s D.Sc. thesis is a masterpiece. He’s a tremendous intellect and a visionary, we really respect and appreciate what he did, and we are going to make sure that his pioneering work is clearly acknowledged in everything that we ever do that draws on his research, from now until I’m his age.
There’s no way he could have been conscious at the time of how valuable his work was going to be — and in what ways’.
Robert M. Pringle, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
AFRICAN FLYFISHING SAFARI
Karl and Lesley Lane
Year: 2003
ISBN: 1-86872-840-4
Format: 250 mm x 270 mm (Portrait)
Extent: 176 pages
Photographs /
illustrations ~250
Text: ~ 70 000 words
Binding: Case bound
Imprint: Struik Publishers
Classification: Travel/recreation
This book was born out of a passion for fly fishing and travel. It was written and photographed in its entirety by Karl and Lesley Lane of
Hamilton-Fynch. It gives an account of travel and flyfishing through southern Africa, from Zambia to the Cape and the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic.
The book received acclaim amongst the flyfishing community and won the Publisher's Choice Award for its genre.
BARBERTON MAKHONJWA
GEOTRAIL GEOSITES AND VIEWPOINTS
Tony Ferrar
Christoph Heubeck
PUBLICATION
Year: 2013
ISBN: 978-0-620-56948-4
Format: 210 mm x 240 mm (Portrait)
Extent: 41 pages
Photographs /
illustrations 77
Text: ~ 18 720 words
Binding: Perfect
Imprint: Hamilton-Fynch
Classification: Geological
THE AUTHORS
Tony Ferrar — biodiversity and tourism
I am a wildlife ecologist and park planner. My career has been focused on wildlife management, research and ecotourism development throughout southern Africa. When I chose to live in Barberton in 2003, I became fascinated by the Barberton Mountains and their complex geology. Stimulated by the generosity of knowledge from researchers who visit the area year after year, I spend much of my spare time exploring the steep ridges and hidden valleys of this geological wonderland and have become committed to its proclamation as a Geological World Heritage Site.
Christoph Heubeck — Geology
I am Professor of General and Historical Geology at Jena University, Germany.
My principal research interests include deformed sedimentary basins, petroleum
reservoirs and the Precambrian. My Ph.D. work was in the Barberton Greenstone Belt (1989-1994) and, after a stint in the oil industry, I have returned to this region yearly to further my research interests. My students and I have taken a particular interest in the strata of the Moodies Group, uppermost and youngest unit of the greenstone belt.
Karl and Lesley Lane — Design and Graphics
We are a team with a career background in conservation in southern Africa.
In 1999 we established Hamilton-Fynch through which we focus on the development of interpretation media for natural history, conservation, heritage and sustainable development agencies. It has been a special privilege to work with the BATOBIC team on the development of the various geotrail media.
THE BOOK
In the entire world, South Africa is unique — not only because of its history, its culture and its people -— but because of its geology. The rocks beneath your feet date from more than three billion years ago, the infancy of our planet!
Along this trail you will discover the world’s best evidence of the impacts of ancient meteors — the bits and pieces of the solar system that came together to form the Earth — and of the giant ocean-wave tsunamis they caused. Here is our planet’s prime record of how it came to be.
These rocks also preserve telling evidence of Earth’s earliest life: layered microbe-formed deposits, which you will see along the trail, built by the exceedingly tiny microscopic fossils that they contain.
There are only two other places to look for evidence of life’s earliest stages: Greenland, where the rocks are severely pressure- cooked, and northwestern Australia, which may once have been connected to South Africa.
This scenic trail is the best place on Earth to learn about how our planet formed and how life began.
Prof. J. William Schopf
Department of Earth and Space
Sciences, UCLA.
MEMORIES OF THE LOWVELD'S ELANDS VALLEY
Paddy Davies-Webb
Year: 2009
ISBN: 978-0-620-44799-7
Format: 148 mm x 210 mm (Portrate)
Extent: 102 pages
Photographs /
illustrations 67
Text: ~ 16 981 words
Binding: Perfect
Imprint: Hamilton-Fynch
Classification: Historical
I am a relatively old resident of the Elands Valley and have known, in my younger days from 1925 onwards, most or many of the original residents who ventured into this wild valley. I am therefore grateful to be able to link some of my experiences with these many extraordinary, great and even amazing characters with those of their descendants, and to leave a simple record of what happened to these many pioneers and first
inhabitants of the Lowveld’s Elands Valley.
Sadly, almost all are now gone and I felt that if these events and characters were not recorded they would have been lost forever in the rush of progress. Today’s travellers, gliding swiftly over broad tarred roads down and through the Elands Valley on their way from Johannesburg and Pretoria to the game parks of the Lowveld and on to Maputo, will be aware of farms and huge timber plantations with giant trucks carrying timber to the pulp mills and the generally ugly impact of human “development”. They will, perhaps, be unaware of the unusual history of this very special valley which I have attempted to record in this little book; but only to the point at which the march of progress had begun to sweep away the wild beauty of the Valley.
This was the period when it was only possible to traverse it on foot or horseback and later stagecoach, wagon or steam train, a time when out-spanned oxen might have been seen grazing with wild game. For meals, these pioneers had the choice of abundant wildlife, although they were also always on the alert for dangerous game such as lion or leopard. Leopards survive even today in the wilder kloofs and mountains.
The few Swazi people who lived in or traversed this Valley were untouched by European civilisation and instead, in their picturesque “imuchwas” (traditional dress) and beadwork, carrying assegais, shields and sigelas, herded their cattle or came as impis from the Swazi King’s military kraals at Kaapsche Hoop and on the north bank of the Elands River, almost opposite today’s Ngodwana pulp mill.
This has all changed, but I hope the reader will bear with me in this exposition of a rather special valley that has changed forever, and relive with me some of the events that took place in those far off years and which paint a portrait of life in the Valley.
I would also like to acknowledge those old timers and their descendants who, during the 1980s, consented to interviews to provide much of this information.
In particular I would like to acknowledge Tony Plant, son of John Plant of Elandshoek, one of the original pioneers, and Roger Murray, son of Colonel Rory Murray D.S.O. of Ngodwana (original name Godwin River), who allowed me to use some old photographs and added spice to the events in the Valley. This story was originally written only for my family, but I was persuaded me to publish it more widely.
Paddy Davies-Webb
White River 2009
FOOTPRINT OF THE LOWVELD
Hamilton-Fynch