Authored by Brad Czerniak
Project Page

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. Nature Uganda sourced about Euros 30,000 from BirdLife International plus a matched fund from UNDP / GEF Small Grants Programme to focus on ecotourism and livelihood improvement through increased and sustained local incomes. The principle focus of the proposed project is natural resources management, local community livelihoods and local community institutional capacity building as well as improvement of the general environmental health and sanitation conditions in order to stimulate meaningful and balanced conservation and income generating initiatives. The goal is to ensure that Musambwa islands environment and natural resources are better managed for the benefit of biodiversity and the people.

Resource Type
Project
Theme
Balancing Conservation and Development
Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity Benefits
Governance and Financing
Population Dynamics, Health and the Environment
Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture Management
Organizations
BirdLife International
NatureUganda
Geography
Uganda
Lake Victoria
Goals and Objectives
  • Improve the transport facilities (good boats) that can travel back and forth from fishing to the mainland.
  • Provide training and facilities such as drying kilns for handling fish so that fishermen stay short periods of time at the islands i.e. fish dries better and quickly. A spin-off for this activity would be high quality fish that would attract higher income.
  • Establish other innovative income generating activities to diversity income of the local communities such as vegetable growing and eco-tourism. Sango bay area is being promoted at the national level as a tourist destination and provides an alternative income generating opportunity.
Status
In Progress (Funded)
Topic
Agriculture
Capacity Building
Community Empowerment
Education and Outreach
Environmental Advocacy

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