evidence: The dispute arose in 2012 when Malawi awarded an exploration licence to a British company, Surestream, for the possible exploitation of oil and gas reserves in Lake Malawi (known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Mozambique). The furore that erupted following this announcement resurrected a decades-old dispute between the two countries over the demarcation of their border traversing the lake. Malawi’s assertion is that it presides over the entire lake up to the Tanzanian shoreline, as stipulated by the 1890 Heligoland Treaty; while Tanzania’s position is that in accordance with international norms and practice, the border ought to be demarcated in the centre of the lake. Tanzania proclaims that this is in fact the case with the demarcation of the Malawi-Mozambique border on Lake Malawi. A key tenet of Malawi’s counter-claim is, however, that the Portuguese rulers of pre-independent Mozambique bartered a portion of Mozambican territory in the 1950s in exchange for a piece of the lake. This, in their view reinforces the validity of the Heligoland Treaty. [...] At a bilateral level, both Malawi and Tanzania would do well to consider less absolutist solutions to the dispute. Regardless of the border demarcation, two million families from some of the most vulnerable countries in the world depend on the lake for food, shelter, water and income. A resource management solution that takes into account the sustainability of the livelihoods of these communities will ultimately be in the interest of both countries and the region as a whole.