Mr Billy Musoke is a community volunteer at the Mabamba Wetland Tourist Centre.
His work involves co-ordinating all the activities at the site like selling crafts and souvenirs to tourists who visit for bird watching and tracking. “I make sure that visitors’ property like cars are safe when they are away watching birds,” he says.
Uganda safari tour Before getting the job, he was a boda boda rider. He says he does his former job only to supplement his income.
The Mabamba Bay Wetland was designated as a Ramsar Site (Wetland of International Importance) in the year 2006. Being a new protected area, control of human activities and winning community support and participation is both a challenge and an urgent need.
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Officials of Environmental Alert, a local environment protection civil society organisation said they went in to protect the wetland because it is home to rare and globally threatened bird species like the Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex), the Blue Swallow (Hirundo atrocaerulea) and Papyrus Yellow Warbler, the Sitatunga plus other birds of global conservation concern. Apart from Murchison Falls National Park, Mabamba Wetland is the only place and site where the elusive Shoebill can be spotted at any one time of the day.
It is located in Mabamba, Kasanje Sub-county in Wakiso District, about 50 kilometres southwest of Kampala. Some community members view the designation of the wetland as a lost opportunity from uncontrolled hunting and gathering of wild animals and eggs, charcoal burning, wetland edge agriculture among others.
It is globally recognised and is protected under the Ramsar Convention. This Convention on wetlands signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty which provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.
There are presently 158 contracting parties to the convention, with 1,822 wetland sites, totaling to 168 million hectares, designated for inclusion in the Ramsar list of wetlands of international importance.
Other Ramsar sites in Uganda are Lake Mburo-Nakivale Wetland System, Lake Bisina in Katakwi District, Lake Mburo-Nakivale Wetland System in Mbarara District, Lake Nakuwa in Pallisa District, Lake Opeta in Nakapiripirit District; Lutembe Bay Wetland System in Wakiso District; Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Wetland System in Masindi District, Nabajjuzi Wetland System in Masaka District and Sango Bay-Musambwa Island-Kagera Wetland System in Rakai District.
Mr Amani Ivan Bazaakabona, Environmental Alert’s programme officer-environment and natural resources said members of the community were mobilised and made to realise the numerous values of the wetland. “These people depend on it for their survival in terms of water, medicines, fish, construction material and others,” he said, adding. “If we allow them to deplete it, they will be in trouble in future.”
Mr Polinali Kaweesa who has lived in the area since he was born 72 years ago, said increased encroachment of the wetland had led to wild animals like kobs, lions and leopards migrating to safer sanctuaries miles away.
Under the Mabamba Wetland Eco-system Association (Mweba), 44 residents promote sustainable wetland and management practices.
Ms Ida Katende who is the chairperson of the group said they are equipped with wetland conservation knowledge, and have succeeded in convincing residents against wetland encroachment. “The community is responding. It is amazing that people who make papyrus mats only go for the ripe papyrus. In the past, even immature ones would be cut,” she said.
She said before Environment Alert’s intervention, people in the area believed that their land was no longer productive.
“It was ignorance; because we are now able to grow bananas, sweet potatoes, vanilla and other commercial crops,” she said, adding that about 3,000 people who survived on the wetland were running it down.
She said residents are now the people who alert forest and wetland inspectors whenever encroachers surface. Several community members are now trained bird guides to tourists who visit the area for bird watching.
Others, mainly women, are engaged in handcraft making and other hospitality services to tourists who visit for mainly bird watching and other environmentally-friendly production activities like bee-keeping.
“I used to spend nights in the forest bordering the wetland, burning charcoal, but now I’m the first person to alert local leaders whenever tree thieves try to ferry trees from a nearby government-owned artificial forest,” Ms Harriet Kakooza said.
She however said ever since she stopped encroaching on the wetland forest, she has become a reasonable commercial farmer selling sweet potatoes, mangoes, oranges and pigs and uses the money to pay tuition for her daughter who is pursing a Bachelor’s Degree in Eeducation at Makerere University.
“The participation of the community in conservation programmes is important, and ensures sustainability of interventions put in place because these people can takeover and sustain the programmes even after we have left,” Mr Bazaakabona said.
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