Language: contains essays in both English and French
From the preface:
"A meeting of the Working Group on African Limnology held in December 1979 in Nairobi under the aegis of SIL end UNEP provided an opportunity for ichthyologists working in Africa to meet and exchange ideas.
The Working Group expressed their anxiety about the increasing human impact on natural aquatic ecosystems, which takes the form of dam construction on rivers (interrupting fish migration), pollution (mainly with insecticides), the introduction of alien species into many basins, etc. These perturbations are a danger to the indigenous fish species, many of which are already subject to intensive fisheries due to an increasing demand for protein.
The Working Group recommended that international initiatives such as the CLOFFA Project, which aims to synthesize all information available on the systematics and distribution of African freshwater fish, should be encouraged.
The Group also recommended that a synthesis of our knowledge of the biology and ecology of African freshwater fishes should appear as a logical addition to CLOFFA and as a necessary tool for all scientists involved in aquatic resource management. A proposal to prepare a book was approved by the Working Group and appeared as one of the final recommendations of the conference.
It was, of course, impossible to compile an exhaustive review of all information available. We therefore selected a number of themes and requested various specialists to write different chapters. The aim was to synthesize the main results obtained and to draw a number of general conclusions. At the same time it was possible to determine the state of our knowledge in different fields and to identify gaps for future investigations.
This book should therefore be of interest to both specialists and students who will find in it a wealth of information.
We chose to combine in the same volume English and French texts written in the mother language of the author. These two languages are, in fact, very widely used on the African continent and we decided not to place more importance on one or the other. This bilingual presentation also aims to promote a better integration of information from different linguistic or regional origins. [...]"