Uganda

This project was completed as part of the Conservation Leadership Programme's (CLP) internship program. CLP supports projects that develop the skills of early career conservationists working to conserve the planet's most threatened species and habitats. This project allowed an intern to acquire the skills and knowledge required to be well-positioned to take a lead role in developing the capacities of local communities to sustainably manage and benefit from their natural resources.

Luzira Wetland (the lower part of Nakivubo Swamp) is a mixed papyrus-miscanthus swamp that is part of the greater network of wetlands in the Lake Victoria Basin. Although not a designated site of international importance under The Ramsar Convention, the wetland has been proposed for protection as a conservation area because of its water purification role. The wetland constitutes a critical buffer zone between the run-off from Kampala City and Lake Victoria the biggest water body in Africa.

The Lake Edward and Lake Albert Basin (LEAB) area in DRC and Uganda is endowed with rich surface water fisheries resources that are important for economic growth and social development in the region. More than 12 million people live in this basin, and 73 percent of them (8.7 million people) depend on fisheries for their livelihoods.

Lake Victoria Basin covers an area of 250,000 km² with the lake taking 68,000 km². The basin has a population of 35 - 40 million people, with rapidly growing secondary towns, which has resulted in unplanned, sponteneous and unsustainable growth, run-down and non-existent basic infrastructure and services and significant negative impacts on the environment and fragile ecosystem of the lake.

Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake and the world's second largest. It is also a key resource for the people of East Africa. It has the largest freshwater fisheries producing 700,000 to 800,000 tonnes of fish annually, worth between US$350 and 400 million at the landings and US$250 million in export. Additionally there is an important untapped potential to expand both the tourism and transportation industries across the lake. Approximately 30 million people live along its shores and the lake currently provides employment for three to four million people.

The Kagera Basin, which lies within the four countries of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, is characterized by low-production subsistence agriculture and widespread poverty. Severe land degradation in the area is linked to loss of soil fertility caused by population pressure and primitive farming methods. The basin countries rank among the world's poorest countries. Land cover depletion including deforestation is wide-spread with almost total absence of reforestation activities.

Water management needs in the Great Lakes region of Africa are critical, with inadequate institutions, policies and implementation capacity for effective watershed management. As part of a larger Regional Dialogue to Improve Transboundary Water Resources Governance in Africa, United Nations University - Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) undertook a comparative study of management approaches by lake commissions in the African Great Lakes and Laurentian Great Lakes in North America.

Dansk Ornitologisk Forening (DOF) and BirdLife partners in the South (Nature Kenya, Nature Uganda and Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN)), are running a three-year project that began in 2015. The project places a strong emphasis on promoting equality of women and their access to programme benefits and participation, addressing inclusion of indigenous and other marginalised groups, networking and strengthened influence of local civil society groups_and advocacy within the national contexts of programme partner countries.

Farm Forestry (FF) presents opportunities for the improvement of rural livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in Uganda. In a recently implemented project (Integrating FF and Biodiversity Conservation), a multiplicity of grown trees presented great potential, but also constraints when it came to sustaining FF for biodiversity conservation_projects. The constraints can present major setbacks if actual values of crops and trees components on people's farm lands do not explicitly translate into economic values.

Model households are a key aspect of the Health of People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB), an integrated Population, Health_and Environment (PHE) project with sites in Kenya and Uganda. Model households are trained in multiple project activities to illustrate behaviors that allow families to thrive without taking a toll on their environment and natural resources.

Bussi Island is located in the Wakiso district, which suffers a deforestation rate of 86.7 percent. The leading cause of deforestation is the increased demand for agricultural land, charcoal and fuel wood by a rapidly growing population. The majority of villagers often cook using the three-brick/stone method, which requires massive consumption of firewood, increases carbon emissions and has serious consequences for people's health. Over time, women that use this method of cooking may suffer blurred vision and lung disease.

The Health of People & Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB) is a 3-year project in rural areas of the Lake Victoria Basin in Uganda and Kenya that aims to provide underserved families and communities with knowledge and skills to improve reproductive health, reduce levels of poverty through livelihoods_and sustainably manage local natural resources. In 2012, HoPE-LVB conducted a baseline study to inform project design and determine baseline values for key outcome indicators.

People living in the Lake Victoria Basin face urgent health, environmental, and economic challenges. They need the power to access sexual and reproductive health services and manage their natural resources sustainably. In two districts in Uganda and two counties in Kenya, the Health of People and Environment in Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB) Project is making sure they can.

Integrating women smallholder farmers into the mainstream economy is key in order to increase their productivity, improve the quality of their commodities, gain a voice in decision-making around all aspects of the agriculture value chain and build adaptive capacity to mitigate climate change. NEPAD recognises the impact that climate change will have on African agriculture, especially African women farmers, and designed the five-year Gender, Climate Change and Agriculture Support Project (GCCASP) with support from the Norwegian government.

Over 800 million people are malnourished and the global population is growing, and at the current trend 9 out of 10 children living in poverty in 2030 will be from Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Zero hunger and the SDG Life below water'promote the conservation and sustainable use of aquatic resources for sustainable development.

The fishery activities in Lake Edward are among the major economic activities sustaining livelihoods for the large majority of local communities. In spite of their importance, the conservation and management of critical aquatic habitats is still neglected, leading to alarming rates of decline in fisheries productivity. Growing populations, rapid industrialization and oil exploitation in the region are predicted to exacerbate the pressure on freshwater ecosystems. This requires that appropriate action should be taken for sustainable management of the fishery resources.

BirdLife Partners from Kenya (NatureKenya), Uganda (NatureUganda), Rwanda (Association pour la Conservation de la Nature au Rwanda) and Burundi (Association Burundaise pour la Protection des Oiseaux) are implementing a project in the Lake Victoria Basin which aims to empower local organizations so that they are better equipped to address the linked challenges of poverty and biodiversity loss. Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake, and the largest tropical lake in the world. The swamps, forests and islands in and around Lake Victoria are important for a diversity of wildlife.

A recent expert review of the ecological risks of net pen aquaculture in the North American Great Lakes made a number of recommendations for Best Management Practices (BMPs) that should be applied to establishment of net pen farms. Based on that_study, researchers identified nine generic BMPs that could be applied to all Global Great Lakes.

Earth system models are the only scientific tools yet developed that are capable of integrating the multitude of physical, chemical and biological processes that determine past, present and future climate. Researchers here use the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to generate depictions of environmental futures under climate change specifically to serve stakeholder needs for each of the major Great Lake watersheds.

In an effort to address the escalating pollution of Lake Victoria, the GEF Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP) supported a project implemented by Environmental Women in Action for Development (EWAD) aimed at improving the ecosystems of Lake Victoria. This project restored degraded sand mining areas, promoted the use of energy efficient fish smoking kilns and introduced environmentally friendly Eco san toilet facilities in Kigungu, Entebbe Sub district.