Republic of Mali

Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over 1,240,000 km² (nearly 479,000 square miles). The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east by Niger, to the northwest by Mauritania, to the south by Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, and to the west by Guinea and Senegal. The population of Mali is about 25 million. Its capital and largest city with is Bamako, which metropolitan area has c. four million inhabitants. The country has 13 official languages, of which Bambara is the most commonly spoken. Its northern borders reach deep into the middle of the Sahara Desert. The country’s southern part, where the majority of inhabitants live, is in the Sudanian savanna and has the Niger and Senegal rivers running through it. The country’s economy centres on agriculture and mining with its most prominent natural resources including gold (of which it is the third largest producer in Africa), uranium, phosphates and salt. Cotton is the country’s largest crop export and is exported west throughout Senegal and Ivory Coast. 80% of workers are in agriculture.

Most of the country lies in the southern Sahara Desert, which produces an extremely hot, dust-laden Sudanian savanna zone. It is mostly flat, rising to rolling northern plains covered by sand. The Adrar des Ifoghas massif lies in the northeast.

Mali lies in the torrid zone and is among the hottest countries in the world. The thermal equator, which matches the hottest spots year-round on the planet based on the mean daily annual temperature, crosses the country. Most of Mali receives negligible rainfall and droughts are very frequent. Late April to early October is the rainy season in the southernmost area. During this time, flooding of the Niger River is common, creating the Inner Niger Delta.

The Hand of Fatima – ©Timm Guenther (Timm Busshaus) CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The vast northern desert part of Mali has a hot desert climate with long, extremely hot summers and scarce rainfall which decreases northwards.

The central area has a hot semi-arid climate with very high temperatures year-round, a long, intense dry season and a brief, irregular rainy season. The southern areas have a tropical wet and dry climate. It faces numerous environmental challenges, including desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate supplies of potable water.

Birding Mali

Five terrestrial eco-regions lie within Mali’s borders: Sahelian Acacia savanna, West Sudanian savanna, Inner Niger Delta flooded savanna, South Saharan steppe and woodlands, and West Saharan montane xeric woodlands.

The vegetation zones are the Saharan, the Sahel, and the Sudan-Guinea Savanna. There is very little wild life and a few national parks in Mali. The reserve and largest national park is the Boucle du Baoulé National Park covering 7,710 km² located to the northeast of Bamako. There is hardly any wild life left in this park due to intense poaching of elephants, giraffes, buffalo, chimpanzees and lions. Monkeys are the only animals regularly seen now, is in the southeast, near the border with Niger. The Reserve de Douentza is the most interesting in terms of wildlife. Bafing National Park covering 5,000 km² is in the south west bordering with Guinea which is a dry area between Mopti and Gao; it is home for desert elephants which move with change of seasons. The other notable parks are the Wongo National Park and the Kouroufing National Park. The Bafing Biosphere Reserve covers an area of 5,215 km² and the Bafing Chimpanzee Sanctuary is exclusive to conserve chimpanzees.

Road to Timbuctu – ©Annabel Symington CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

There are 146 species of mammals although none in huge numbers. However, there are seventeen Important Bird Areas (IBAs), encompassing an area of nearly 29,000 km² (about 2.3% of the surface area of the country). Ten include wetlands, nine are in the Inner Delta of the Niger river (key bird area), four include the Sudan-Guinea ecoregion of the Savanna biome, four are in the Sahel biome, and two in the Sahara-Sindian biome. The Kulicoro Firefinch, also known as the Mali Firefinch Lagonostica virata, is the only endemic bird of Mali, found in rocky and grassy areas near Mopti and Bamako.

In these IBAs, 622 bird species have been recorded; there have been 335 resident species noted, with 202 of these breeding in Mali. Additionally, 137 species of the noted 243 migratory species are of Palaearctic origin.

The Inner Delta is also rich in waterfowl and heron species, particularly the cosmopolitan Western Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis and Great Egret Casmerodius albus, as well as the world’s largest heron; Goliath Heron Ardea goliath.