The Rift

The Rift
is a book project celebrating the worlds greatest geological formation in a large format book project.
It is a stunning conversation piece and an ideal gift for anyone who shares a love of Africa, its ecosystems, our origins and its people’s.
Below are the various chapters covered in the project.

A Geological Fissure
Between 6 – 8mil years ago, the Rift Valley underwent a dramatic transformation. It created a mosaic of environments, setting the stage for the evolution of hominins, our earliest ancestors…
Prof. Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo. Co-director of paleoanthropological projects at the Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.

An Origin Story
On November 24, 1974, I spotted the first fossil of the skeleton that would be soon be nicknamed “Lucy,” We suspect Africa’s Great Rift Valley has many more secrets to reveal, and perhaps we are entering a new Golden Age of Paleoanthropology.
Valerie Browning AO, has lived among the Afar nomads for more than 31 years and has worked tirelessly to improve their lives.

Societies
The Danakil Depression in the northern part of the Afar Desert, famed for its sulphur lakes, salt flats and the active Ert’Ale volcano, is a stunning marker of the Rift Valley. The Afar lineage and oral traditions stretch back to the time of the pharaohs….
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Valerie Browning AO

An Ecological Home
The literal and symbolic Rift is a story of seeming contradictions… It is the push and pull between cultural persistence and continuity couched within the forward progress of human ingenuity and adaptation.
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Carla Handley. Anthropologist of evolutionary and socio-ecological drivers of cooperation and conflict in Rift Valley societies

An Infinite Wonder of Biodiversity
South of the mighty Zambezi River, Gorongosa National Park marks the terminus of the Great African Rift before it plunges in the depths of the Indian Ocean.
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Teeming with wildlife in 1960s, Charles Duke, one of the astronauts from the Apollo 16 mission visited the park and commented that visiting Gorongosa was as thrilling as landing on the moon!
Marc Stalmans. Director of Science for the Gorongosa National Park.

Rifts In The Anthropocene
In 1999, the biodiversity hot spot of Gorongosa had more “landmines than animals”. Fortunately good intervention arrived and today this park now flourishes with life.
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Shem Compion. Photographer, author of the Rift.
