Agriculture

Building on BirdLife sediment fingerprinting study on the impacts of climate change in the Lakes Kivu and Tanganyika basins, this project will enhance the resilience of communities within the Sebeya and Ruhwa catchments through agroforestry and sustainable agriculture, building capacity for climate change adaptation and disseminating best practices in the African Great Lakes Region. This project is implemented in partnership with ABN – Burundi, NaFIRRI and BirdLife.

The Nakasongola District Climate Change Pilot Project documented and shared indigenous knowledge on climate change and contributed to the ongoing debates on how best to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the Nakasongola district in Uganda, while also informing practitioners' understanding of climate change causes, manifestations and effects at local levels. By creating awareness among local landowners and farmers on the value of indigenous tree species adapted to the harsh environment, the project decreased land clearing and persuaded farmers to preserve trees.

Musambwa Islands are some of the smallest islands located in Lake Victoria in the Rakai District. Despite their size, they support large populations of African breeding birds like the Grey Headed Gull, Greater Cormorant, Little Egret and the Long-tailed Cormorant. Due to their importance to birds of global significance, the islands have been recognized as an Important Bird Area. The islands are known to be the largest breeding site in Africa for Grey Headed Gulls.

The Mara River basin covers a surface of 13,325 km², of which approximately 65 percent is located in Kenya and 35 percent in Tanzania. From its sources in the Mau Escarpment, the river flows for about 400 km and drains into Lake Victoria. The basin is among the most important river basins in East Africa as it traverses the world-famous Maasai Mara Serengeti ecosystem recently declared one of the new seven natural wonders of the world.

This project contributed to poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation by training communities around the Malagarazi Wetland complex in Burundi on sustainable fisheries and agriculture pratices. Some development activities, such as good fishing practices, can be undertaken without a negative impact. However, many fishermen in the region use inappropriate equipment such as mosquito nets and toxic products. Such practices kill all of the young fish, eventually leading to widespread decline in fish stocks.

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.

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.

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.

This project will facilitate APRN/BEPB staff to organize a meeting with local authorities and organization members at Mutumba Commune for discussing new implementation of the organization plan. It will also facilitate identification and purchase of one hectare of land of for the center's site research. This land will host an agropastoral experimentation, the core of sustainable development for the community.

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.

The project aims to support 720 households in 24 cooperatives with 6 cooperatives per hill. It will provide vegetable material from the cultivation of sweet potatoes and market gardening crops (cabbage, egg plant, amaranth and tomatoes). The project will also support co-operatives on agricultural techniques adapted to climate change. The cooperative approach will facilitate project monitoring and sustainability.

In order to increase productivity and combat food insecurity, a goat breeding project was initiated. These goats allowed 46 indigenous households to have manure for soil improvement and thus increase their agricultural productivity.

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.

This project sought to respond to increased to increased environmental pressures from climate change, and to create and expand incentives to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services in the South Kivu and Rusizi River cathments.

Yala wetland is a biodiversity rich and diverse ecosystem comprised of the Yala River, Yala swamp and numerous satellite lakes which serve as habitat for birds, haplochromines and cichlid fish species that long disappeared in Lake Victoria and numerous other species. The wetland faces anthropogenic threats such as reclamation of wetlands for farming, burning and over-harvesting for papyrus crafts and cooking fuel, fishing grounds, accessibility paths and sand harvesting.

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.

Malagarasi-Muyovozi Ramsar Site is the largest wetland ecosystem in Tanzania. Since its establishment in 2000, there have been several studies on the biodiversity of the area. Some of these studies have noted a high deforestation rate and overdependence on wetland resources. Unfortunately, findings and recommendations of previous studies have not been shared with the communities.