Amani Research Institute is a research institute located at Amani, in the Muheza District, on the Western Usambara Mountains of the northeastern region in present day Tanzania. The mountains form part of the Eastern Arc Mountains, which stretch from Kenya through Tanzania, and are covered by tropical cloud forests that have endured a long period of unique evolutionary endemism.
The forerunner of the Amani Institute was an agricultural test station at Kwai, which had been set up in the Usambara since 1896. "Although Amani was the most famous of Germany's colonial research stations, representing a 2-million-mark investment, it was only one of several German agricultural stations in the northern region. Another, named Kwai farm and located in the nearby West Usambaras, preceded Amani as the colony's chief center for agricultural and livestock experiments. Kwai lacked Amani's international reputation, but it nonetheless held a prominent place in the minds of the Africans who lived in its shadow."[1][2][3]
The Kwai experimental station soon became state owned, and was finally sold to the long-term lease-holder, Ludwig Illich.
As early as 1890, Richard Hindorf had promoted the idea of a research station in German East Africa along the models of other similar stations in British and Dutch colonies.[4]
Hindorf was also a co-founder of the Colonial Economic Committee (German: Kolonial-wirtschaftliches Komitee), which passed the resolution in June 1898, in Berlin, "to send a submission to the Reich Chancellor that there is set for... German East Africa in 1899 a sum of 100,000 Marks with the purpose of the setting up and operation of a research station for tropical cultures in Usambara." The submission was justified by the appended articles of Dr Hindorf: “A research station for tropical cultures in Usambara" and Prof. Dr. Otto Warburg: “The need for an experimental station for tropical crops in Usambara and its cost".[5]
Recommendation for a tropical research station in German East Africa 1898
With the assistance of Franz Stuhlmann, the naturalist and zoologist, the project soon got off the ground and the Amani Institute was founded in September 1902, in the East Usambara mountains situated in the hinterland of the port city of Tanga at Stuhlmann's suggestion. Work began in 1903 and was directed by the botanist, Albrecht Zimmermann, before Karl Braun took over as head, only to be succeeded again by Zimmermann. Zimmermann and his staff worked in Amani until 1920, when the British mandated government dismissed them. From 1905 to the end of 1906, Franz Stuhlmann was the director in person at Amani.
The Institute, starting out as a biological-agricultural research centre, came to be known as the Amani Biological-Agricultural Institute (German: Biologisch-Landwirtschaftliche Institut Amani).[6] It quickly expanded into other areas of research in the following years and soon became a 'tropical scientific institute superior to anything in the British colonies and protectorates and comparable with Pusa in India or the Dutch establishment at Buitenzorg in Java."[7][8]
Botanical work
Stuhlmann introduced the first systematic planting of cinchona bark trees in East Africa, which was to be used for the production of quinine against malaria. He also directed the planting of hundreds of camphor trees in the Usambara from seeds sent to him by Adolf Engler, the renowned plant taxonomist at the then Royal Botanical Museum, Berlin and a professor at the University of Berlin, who had obtained them from Japan. Adolf Engler, in 1903. provided 859 specimens of plants to the Institute, including commercially important tropical plants, and 208 specimens of other tropical plants.[9]
Stuhlmann brought Albrecht Zimmermann, who had worked in Buitenzorg since 1896, to Amani for the purpose of botanical research. He became eventually director of the Institute in 1911. Zimmermann was primarily known as a specialist in coffee cultivation and within a short time he brought the institute international recognition. It soon became the focus of botanical and agricultural research for colonial powers in Africa. Here, fertilization research was carried out in demarcated areas. Plant physiology, entomology, plant toxicology and the possibility of pest control were all part of the Imperial Institute's field of work, as was research into cultivation methods and local plant remedies. All microscopes in the institute came from Carl Zeiss in Jena, and glassware was preferred from Lauscha. Lists of the then modern laboratory equipment are still in the National Archives of Tanzania, in Dar es Salaam.
Amani was to become the largest arboretum in the world. Species were introduced from various parts of the world for agricultural trials with varied economic interests, such as medicinal plants (i.e. Cinchona spp.), fruits and spices (e.g. Garcinia spp.), valuable timber (e.g. Cedrela, Eucalyptus), cosmetics (i.e. Cananga), rubber, fibre, oil (e.g. Hevea) and ornamental plants (e.g. fan palms).[10]
In 1914 the Amani library stocked almost 4,000 books and 300 journals. Much of the literature and numerous specimens held at Amani were brought to Berlin in 1918, but in 1943, the Berlin herbarium was hit by a bomb and the material was destroyed.[11]
Medical Contributions
One of the most famous visitors to Amani was Robert Koch, the famous pathlogist, Professor of Hygiene at the University of Berlin, and Director of the newly established Institute of Hygiene (German Hygienischen Institut) and from 1891 director of the Institute for Infectious diseases (German: Instituts für Infektionskrankheiten)[12] He participated in the ongoing intensive research being carried out at the Institute, and showed that the seasonal incidence of malaria was highest during the Great Rains when, 'for a whole month masses of water lie on much of the land', thus confirming the Kiswahili saying, Hakuna masika yasiyo mbu ('There are no rains without mosquitos'). He also demonstrated an incubation period of 12 days for the illness. The elevation of the Usambara mountains was to prove crucial in his observation of the absence of malaria above an altitude of 1,300 metres. In December, 1904, Koch was sent to German East Africa to study East Coast fever of cattle and he made important observations, not only on this disease, but also on pathogenic species of Babesia and Trypanosoma and on tickborne spirochaetosis, continuing his work on these organisms when he returned home. In 1905, he won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for his investigations and discoveries in relation to tuberculosis."[13]
In 1906/7 Robert Koch and his team stayed in Amani, and later made an expedition to Uganda as part of their research into African sleeping sicknessAfrican trypanosomiasis. The western area of Tanganyika, in particular near the lakes, had been suffering from an 'epidemic' of sleeping sickness, an illness which also ravaged neighbouring Uganda. Large outbreaks of this disease had occurred in East Africa at the turn of the century (1896 -1910), and it was widely held that these were epidemics imported from West Africa or the Congo, rather than being endemic to the region. The first published description of sleeping sickness cases during the 1900-1920 'epidemic', in the British Protectorate of East Africa, now Uganda, was made at the Church Missionary Society (CMS) Hospital at Mengo in 1901. Thus it was that David Bruce and his wife reached Entebbe in March 1903, with David Nunes Nabarro. Koch came again in 1906-7, to test the drug atoxyl. Atoxyl was so named by Antoine Béchamp, who synthesised it in 1859 by reacting aniline with arsenic acid, to denote its lesser toxicity when compared to arsenic. In 1906, Paul Ehrlich(1854-1915) and Alfred Bertheim(1879-1914) had discovered the structural formula of atoxyl and Ehrlich's ' magic bullet' had raised the possibility of targeted therapy. Koch's methods have recently raised ethical questions about his trials of atoxyl, since the drug had serious side-effects, including blindness.[14]
Although the Amani Research Institute became world-famous during German colonial rule as a scientific research centre,[15] it retained its international reputation after the British received control of the territory.[16]
The Biological Institute in Amani, German East Africa.
Role in World War I
During World War I, the Amani Research Institute reinforced its international reputation in research when scientists at the centre developed various products. These included medicine and chemical products, from local material to meet war needs and those of the German settlers at a time when the colony was cut off from the rest of the world and could not import anything: "Considerable ingenuity was shown in producing in the colony manufactured goods and medical supplies normally imported from Europe. Quinine was made at the Amani Institute and at Mpwapwa....Dye-stuffs were made from native barks. In the first eighteen months of the war the Amani Agricultural Research Institute 'prepared for use from its own products 16 varieties of foodstuffs and liquors, 11 varieties of spices, 12 varieties of medicines and medicaments, 5 varieties of rubber products, 2 of soap, oils and candles, 3 of materials used in making boats, and 10 miscellaneous substances. Many of these were prepared in comparatively large quantities, e.g.15,200 bottles of whisky and other alcoholic liquors, 10,252 lb. of chocolate and cocoa, 2,652 parcels of toothpowder, 10,000 pieces of soap, 300 bottles of castor oil etc.' [17][18][19]
Post World War I activities
Following the German defeat in World War I, the British took over the administration of Tanganyika, first as mandated by the League of Nations and later as a United Nations trust territory. Although the Amani Research Institute became world-famous during German colonial rule as a scientific research centre, it retained its international reputation after the British received control of the colony. They were "impressed both with Amani's international reputation and the quality of research conducted there and continued operating it as a research institute under the British postwar government.[20]
The East Africa Commission founded in 1924 was, however, justifiably critical of the neglect of this fine institution when it reported that "this world-famous research institution is, for all practical purposes, lying derelict, its laboratories unoccupied, its costly apparatus dismantled, the living quarters deteriorating, the magnificent and priceless collection of books and scientific records and specimens unused."[21]
Eventually this led to the institution being under the charge of the East Africa Community some fifty years later in a co-operative manner.
For malarial research, the institute was transformed in 1949 into the East African Malaria Unit. The research centre served not only Tanganyika but also Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar and British Somaliland in the prevention and control of malaria and other vector-borne diseases. It became the East African Malaria Institute in 1951 and was renamed the East African Institute of Malaria and Vector Borne Diseases in 1954.
Post-independence
After the British administration of Tanganyika ended, the institute continued to play an important role as a research centre in Tanzania. In 1964, Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form the independent nation of Tanzania. In 1977, it was renamed Amani Medical Research Centre of the National Institute for Medical Research, covering a wide range of areas in medical research.
Present day
The Amani Botanical Garden now has an official area of 244 hectares. Most is occupied by the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) – but the remainder is unofficially occupied. The Botanical Garden has been subject to encroachment by human activities, mainly around Amani village, where part of NIMR is located. The Amani Botanical Garden therefore has several bodies responsible for its management – the Ministry of Agriculture, the Tanzania Forestry Research Institute (TAFORI) and the NIMR. Its library is partly located in the University of Dar es Salaam, with which the institute cooperates closely. Practically nothing is left of the old cinchona tree plantations, which were almost completely destroyed in the mid to late 1960s.
Around 3000 different species were still to be found in and around Amani in 2007. Today many of these botanical plots are derelict and show reclamation by native species. Alien species introduced by the Botanical Garden are a major conservation issue for the adjoining Amani Nature Reserve.
Other literature
Julius Schwalbe, Georg Gaffky, Eduard Pfuhl (Hrsg.): Robert Koch. Gesammelte Werke. 3 Bände. Leipzig 1912:
The modern-day African Great Lakes state of Tanzania dates formally from 1964, when it was formed out of the union of the much larger mainland territory of Tanganyika and the coastal archipelago of Zanzibar. The former was a colony and part of German East Africa from the 1880s to 1919s when, under the League of Nations, it became a British mandate. It served as a British military outpost during World War II, providing financial help, munitions, and soldiers. In 1947, Tanganyika became a United Nations Trust Territory under British administration, a status it kept until its independence in 1961. The island of Zanzibar thrived as a trading hub, successively controlled by the Portuguese, the Sultanate of Oman, and then as a British protectorate by the end of the nineteenth century.
German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozambique. GEA's area was 994,996 km2 (384,170 sq mi), which was nearly three times the area of present-day Germany and almost double the area of metropolitan Germany at the time.
Tanga is a historic city and the capital of Tanga Region. The city is the most northernly port city of Tanzania to the west of the Indian Ocean on Tanga Bay. The city has a population of 393,429 in 2022. Tanga is governed by the Tanga City Council. The city is also home to the Port of Tanga. The name Tanga means "sail" in Swahili. The city is also the capital of Tanga District.
The Central Line, formerly known as the Tanganyika Railway is the most important railway line in Tanzania, apart from TAZARA. It runs west from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika via Dodoma. A branch leads to Mwanza on Lake Victoria.
Tanga Region is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The region covers an area of 26,667 km2 (10,296 sq mi). The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of Burundi. The regional capital is the municipality of Tanga city. Located in northeast Tanzania, the region is bordered by Kenya and Kilimanjaro Region to the north; Manyara Region to the west; and Morogoro and Pwani Regions to the south. It has a coastline to the east with the Indian Ocean. According to the 2012 national census, the region had a population of 2,045,205.
The Usambara Mountains of northeastern Tanzania in tropical East Africa, comprise the easternmost ranges of the Eastern Arc Mountains. The ranges of approximately 90 kilometres (56 mi) long and about half that wide, are situated in the Lushoto District of the Tanga Region. They were formed nearly two million years ago by faulting and uplifting, and are composed of Precambrian metamorphic rocks. They are split into two sub-ranges; the West Usambaras being higher than the East Usambaras, which are nearer the coast and receive more rainfall.
The Amani Forest Reserve, officially listed as Amani Nature Forest Reserve is a protected area located the Muheza and Korogwe Districts in the Tanga Region of Tanzania. The nature reserve was established in 1997 in order to preserve the unique flora and fauna of the East Usambara Mountains. The East and West Usambara Mountains are a biodiversity hotspot. The Amani Nature Reserve includes tropical cloud forest habitats.
The Shambaa people, also called the Sambaa, Shambala, Sambala or Sambara, are a Bantu ethnic group. Their ancestral home is on the Usambara Mountains of Lushoto District, Korogwe District and Bumbuli District. They are native to the valleys and eastern Usambara Mountains of Korogwe District, Korogwe Urban District and western Muheza District of northern Tanga Region of Tanzania. The word Shamba means "farm", and these people live in one of the most fertile Tanzanian region. Shambaai in Kisambaa means "where the banana's thrive". In 2001, the Shambaa population was estimated to number 664,000.
Hoplophryne rogersi, also known as the Tanzania banana frog, Usambara banana frog, Usambara blue-bellied frog, and Roger's three-fingered frog, is a species of frog in the family Microhylidae. It is endemic to north-eastern Tanzania and known from the Usambara, Magrotto, and Nguru Mountains of Tanga Region. The specific name rogersi honours F. W. Rogers, the custodian of the Amani Research Institute at the time of the describers' visit to Usambara.
Warburgia stuhlmannii is a species of plant in the family Canellaceae. The genus is named after Dr Otto Warburg, botanist and lecturer in Berlin. and the species after Franz Stuhlmann, also a renowned botanist who directed the Amani Research Institute and its botanical garden in German East Africa. It is a rare, small, evergreen tree, reaching heights from 12 to 24 metres, and has glossy leaves. It is found in the coastal woodlands and forests of Kenya and Tanzania and is threatened by habitat loss. It is known as mkaa in Swahili.
Tanganyika was a colonial territory in East Africa which was administered by the United Kingdom in various guises from 1916 until 1961. It was initially administered under a military occupation regime. From 20 July 1922, it was formalised into a League of Nations mandate under British rule. From 1946, it was administered by the UK as a United Nations trust territory.
The Usambara Railway was the first railway to be built in German East Africa and what is today Tanzania.
Leslie Desmond Edward Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald MBE, was an Irish-born entomologist, ornithologist, conservationist, and plant collector.
The history of rail transport in Tanzania began in the late nineteenth century.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Philipp Wilhelm Albrecht Zimmermann was a German botanist. He was a Professor of Botany at several different Universities . He was a botanist and collector of fungi and spermatophytes, who worked in Indonesia and Tanzania from 1902 to 1919. He moved to Indonesia in 1896 and studied applied botany. In 1902 he moved to Africa to join the Amani Research Institute that was established that year. He returned to Germany after World War I in 1920.
Sisal production in Tanzania began in the late 19th century by the German East Africa Company. Sisal was continually produced during the German administration and the British administration and was the colony's largest export highly prized for use in cordage and carpets worldwide. At the time of independence in 1961, Tanzania was the largest exporter of Sisal in the world and the industry employed over 1 million farmers and factory workers.
Richard Hindorf was a pioneering German colonial agricultural scientist and traveller. He worked predominantly in German East Africa
Germany–Tanzania relations are the bilateral relations between Germany and Tanzania. From 1885 to 1918, Tanzania was a German colony as part of German East Africa. In the 21st century, relations are primarily characterized by the joint development cooperation.
The Ocean Road Hospital is a historical building of a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It was opened on October 1, 1897, as the Imperial Governorate Hospital for the former colony of German East Africa.
References
↑ Conte, Christopher-Allan; "Imperial Science, Tropical Ecology, and Indigenous History: Tropical Research Stations in Northeastern German East Africa, 1896 to Present," in Gregory Blue, Martin Bunton and Ralph Croizier, eds., Colonialism and the Modern World: Selected Studies, New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 2002
↑ Conte, Christopher-Allan; Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania's Usambara Mountains, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2004
↑ 'Eine Versuchsstation für Tropenkulturen in Usambara', Hindorf, Richard; Warburg, Otto Berlin: Kolonial-wirtschaftliches Komitee, 1898.
↑ Henderson, W.O.; "German East Africa 1884 – 1918," in Vincent Harlow, E.M. Chilver, Alison Smith, eds., History of East Africa, II, London: Oxford University Press, 1965
↑ Report of the East Africa Commission, Cmd. 2387 (1925), p. 86.
↑ Mwakikagile, GodfreyLife in Tanganyika in The Fifties; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2010, p.164: "The Amani Research Institute....was established by the German colonial rulers and became world-famous as a tropical research institute."
↑ Report of the East Africa Commission, Cmd. 2387 (1925), p. 86....Owing to the blockade, overseas trade came to an end....The long drawn-out conflict inflicted serious damage on the colony."
↑ W.O. Henderson, "The war economy of German East Africa, 1914 - 1917," Economic History Review, xiii, 1943.
↑ Ref. note #6: Conte, 2002, p. 246; Conte, 2004, p. 13.
↑ p 85 0f the East Africa Commission quoted in Beck, Ann. “Medicine and Society in Tanganyika, 1890-1930; A Historical Inquiry.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 67, no. 3, 1977, pp. 1–59. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1006330. Accessed 23 June 2021.
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