The dramatic and, in some cases, damaging environmental changes sweeping Africa’s lakes are brought into sharp focus in a new atlas. Produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Atlas of African Lakes was launched the past 31 October 2005 at the 11th World Lake Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. This Atlas assesses the strength of legal agreements between countries sharing the Continent’s major water systems. The report concludes that, in order to reduce tensions between nations, much more needs to be done to beef up shared agreements and treaties to avoid instability in the future.