According to Manoel de Almeida (a Portuguese missionary in the early 17th century), there were 21 islands, seven to eight of which had monasteries on them "formerly large, but now much diminished." When James Bruce visited the area in the 1771, he noted that the locals counted 45 inhabited islands, but stated he believed that "the number may be about eleven." Anton Stecker, in 1881, made a detailed examination of the lake, enabling substantially accurate maps, and counted 44 islands.
According to Manoel de Almeida (a Portuguese missionary in the early 17th century), there were 21 islands, seven to eight of which had monasteries on them "formerly large, but now much diminished." When James Bruce visited the area in the 1771, he noted that the locals counted 45 inhabited islands, but stated he believed that "the number may be about eleven." Anton Stecker, in 1881, made a detailed examination of the lake, enabling substantially accurate maps, and counted 44 islands.
In the early 2000s, the local government for the first time introduced a fisheries legislation and it is hoped this will have a positive effect on the fish populations. Other serious threats are habitat destruction and pollution.
Nevertheless, in a review that compared catches in 2001 to those ten years earlier, it was found that typical sizes of both the tilapia and the catfish had significantly decreased, and populations of the Labeobarbus barbs that breed in the tributaries had significantly declined.
According to the Ethiopian Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, 1,454 tons of fish were landed in 2011 at Bahir Dar, which the department estimated was 15% of its sustainable amount.
This controls the flow to the Blue Nile Falls (Tis Abbai) and hydro-power station. In 2015, the Lake Tana region was nominated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve recognizing its national and international natural and cultural importance. ==Overview== Lake Tana was formed by volcanic activity, blocking the course of inflowing rivers in the early Pleistocene epoch, about 5 million years ago. The lake was originally much larger than it is today.
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