One of the interesting (and less well known) features of the landscape here are the Papyrus swamps- the most common type of freshwater wetland in East and Central Africa. The papyrus is tall enough for elephants to hide in, and provides a whole host of goods and services: materials for construction and crafts, filtered drinking water, reduced sedimentation, flood prevention, not to mention providing habitat for lots of different kinds of wildlife. It even does a little bit of climate regulation and carbon sequestration. Unfortunately, while these benefits accrue over time to everyone in the community, rapid population growth has led to people desperate for land, the collapse of community land management (ie “effective common property enforcement”) and
depletion of the swamps. While it’s technically illegal to cut/drain the swamps, once it’s done, there’s no way to prosecute the responsible party or turn it back to swamp, so the papyrus gets smaller and smaller. Several times we’ve come across places where swamps have been cut down or drained to grow vegetable crops, pasture, or eucalyptus.
depletion of the swamps. While it’s technically illegal to cut/drain the swamps, once it’s done, there’s no way to prosecute the responsible party or turn it back to swamp, so the papyrus gets smaller and smaller. Several times we’ve come across places where swamps have been cut down or drained to grow vegetable crops, pasture, or eucalyptus.
Our friend, neighbor and photographer Ronan (http://www.ronandonovan.com/) took us (and his enormous camera) out a couple times to look for some of the endemic bird species in a nearby swamp, like the Papyrus Gonolek, White-winged Warbler, Papyrus Yellow Warbler, and Papyrus Canary. We got a lot of strange looks from the Ugandans walking by as we stared into the reeds, but managed to see a couple of the rare birds and Ronan’s gotten some amazing pictures of them. Hopefully they’ll be around for a little longer...