No more famine: How one man led efforts to restore eight square kilometres of Nyakambu swamp in Sheema District, Western Uganda

Greetings, listeners, and welcome to the program. My name is ____. Today we will be talking about Nature-based Solutions, or NbS.

These are innovative yet essential tools to fight climate change. They merge indigenous viewpoints and ecosystem-based solutions to tackle climate adaptation efforts. If appropriately implemented, NbS can expedite progress towards a low-carbon, equitable, gender-inclusive, greener, and positive future. This can mean increased food production while fighting climate change at the same time.

Wetland restoration, as a Nature-based Solution, was used by farmers in Nyakambu in Sheema district, western Uganda, led by a one James Tumwebaze. He sought to regenerate the Nyakambu papyrus swamp after many years of unproductive agriculture, shortage of water for domestic use, and droughts.

Today, farmers in Nyakambu know the benefits of conserving a swamp because their source of mulching materials, basket and mat-making materials, and mudfish is back after years of depravation.

Many farmers report an increase in crop yields, better soil fertility due to availability of mulch, increased soil moisture, and a cooler environment to live in. The restored swamp has rejuvenated the incomes of people that sell mulch, basket making materials and mudfish.

Hear from a few farmers in Masheruka sub county, Sheema district to learn about NbS and how the farmers restored eight square kilometres of papyrus swamp by pushing out the farmers that had taken it over, closing the draining channels that the encroachers had dug, and letting the swamp regenerate. First, we will hear from James Tumwebaze, the man that led efforts to restore Nyakambu papyrus swamp.

Signature tune up and out

MOTORVEHICLE APPROACHES AND STOPS AWAY FROM MIC

(CLOSE TO MIC) I am happy to receive you my visitors. Please comes and sit here.

(MOVING TOWARDS MIC) Thank you, so much. Like we talked on the phone, I am here to learn about Nature-based Solutions.

I am glad that you came, eventually. We have talked a long time on the phone about this. What would you like to know?

Is it true that you restore the swamp we just passed through?

Well, it is not just me. The whole community worked together. My job was to mobilize them and tells them that we could have our swamp back.

Why did you think the swamp needed restoring in the first place?

Well, I was a Local Council 3 Councillor when I first decided that the swamp needed to be restored. As a representative of the people of Nyakambu ward in Masheruka Town Council, I had seen the environmental quandary that my people were suffering since the destruction of Nyakambu swamp.

What do you mean?

In the absence of the swamp, droughts were longer and more frequent, water for home use became hard to find, and crops were failing due to pests, diseases and drought. Poverty and hunger were the order of the day.

How could you be so sure that all these were a result of the destruction of the swamp?

Because I was here before the swamp was destroyed and afterwards. Anyone could tell that the swamp’s destruction was causing so many problems. For instance, we no longer had a source of mulching materials and because of that, our bananas were failing and it was impossible to grow vegetables like tomatoes that need mulching.

You talked about a lack of water for domestic use. Please explain that.

The swamp had been drained. People that encroached on it had dug trenches and channels to drain the water and leave dry ground for farming. Because of that, all the water in the swamp was gone. But remember, the swamp was the source of water for domestic work. So we started importing water from Buhweju, the neighboring village.

So how did the swamp get destroyed to begin with?

In 1999, a certain powerful man (former military) immigrated into Nyakambu village. The land that he bought was right next to the swamp. By coincidence, there was a very long drought the same year he migrated here. The water in the swamp reduced so much that it was easy for cows to walk into the swamp without sinking. The new resident took advantage of the long drought of 1999 to clear a large tract of land in the centre of the swamp for his cows.

When the drought ended, the man dug channels and trenches and drained the water from the cleared area into the river in the centre of the swamp. No one really knew for many years that the man was clearing the swamp. The longer he got away with it, the more swamp he cleared.

: So the swamp was actually cleared by one person?

: No. Over the years, more and more people found out that the new entrant was taking over the swamp. When they complained, he sweet-talked them to also clear their part and own it. Those people realised it was possible to take over new land and make it their own. So they also started clearing the swamp until the swamp was completely gone.

By 2010, locals on both sides of the river, on the Mbarara side and on the Sheema side (because the river in the swamp is the boundary), they cleared the swamp and planted boundary markers to claim swampland as theirs.

Wow! That was terrible.

Terrible. By 2011 when I was elected councillor, it was impossible for any outsider to look at the Nyakambu valley and imagine that there had ever been a swamp in the area. It was now a green meadow full of cows in some sections and crops in other sections.

It sounds like clearing the swamp had its benefits after all. Or am I wrong?

You are wrong, indeed. Those people that had invaded the swamp were experiencing bumper harvests while the rest of the population were experiencing the opposite. The Nyakamba papyrus swamp needed to be restored and fast.

So what was the first thing you did in efforts to mobilize people?

First of all, the swamp (or the lack of it) was a constant point of discussion in the Town Council. But there seemed to be no political will on the part of the local government to restore it and chase out the invaders.

Why did you care so much about the Nyakambu swamp?

As a child, I fetched water from Nyakambu for my mother. As a teenager, I rummaged in its muddy undergrowth for mudfish. As an adult, I cut mulch from it for my farms. Seeing the swamp destroyed made me sad. I felt like I was failing my children. And now that I was a leader, I decided to do everything in my power to see that the swamp was restored.

So how did you go about motivating the community to restore the swamp?

I just told people that if we united, the politicians would have a change of heart. But as more and more people got convinced that we needed the swamp back, the encroachers started fighting back. Those that had reaped the benefits of a destroyed swamp, those whose cows were fattened by the green meadows that had replaced the swamp, and those who had harvested ten-fold after planting in the drained swamp were not happy with me. I was loved and hated in equal measure. So I stopped moving at night.

So a section of people wanted to restore the swamp while another section didn’t want to.

Exactly. So, by the end of 2013, I figured that the next step would be to involve the right body of government. I had been begging the local council, telling them that the people wanted the swamp to be restored in vain. To make matters worse, the vice chairperson of the council was one of the invaders of the swamp.

So to create interest around the matter, I travelled to the National Environmental Management Authority in Mbarara and reported the offending leader. NEMA wrote to Sheema district and to Masheruka Sub County directing that the offending person should be removed from office.

NEMA is the National Environmental Management Authority. How did it feel to report your boss to higher authorities?

At this point I didn’t care. I was tired of begging her to do the right this. On the same day I went to NEMA, I told them that the community had decided that the invaders must leave. NEMA wrote to Sheema district about the matter. An official was sent to Masheruka on the day of council meeting. He gave me and my community the mandate to start confiscating all the cows of those that couldn’t remove them peacefully. That mandate was recorded in the council meeting. That is when the restoration of the swamp was truly born.

You and the community started confiscating animals from the swamp?

Yes. All those who refused to get their animals out would pick their animals from the police, after paying a heavy fine for each animal: fifty thousand (50,000) Ugandan shillings ($13.55 US) for each cow.

The government joined your cause, finally…

Yeah. We had been approaching the wrong body of government, I guess.

Amazing. What happened next?

After a few confiscations, all the cattle farmers left the swamp and later the crop farmers left too. To streamline the restoration work, NEMA advised us to create a management committee. So at the beginning of 2014, we created Nyakambu Wetland Management Committee, with the main aim being restoring the swamp. More and more people started joining us. Now we were more than the invaders.

How many members were you in the committee?

We were twenty-five (25) people.

So after the invaders left, what decisions did the committee make to restore the swamp?

As soon as all the invaders were out, the next step was to plug all the trenches and channels so that the water stopped draining from the land. The committee invited community members to help cover up the trenches. At some point, NEMA sent prisoners to Nyakambu to help in this very undertaking.

And how long did that take to accomplish?

It took us about six months. And when it rained, the swamp started sprouting. Because now the water was not draining out of the swamp.

How long did it take for the swamp to fully sprout?

Close to two years. By mid-2015, almost two years after the restoration work began, the swamp was all sprouting. The villagers were sensitized and now the remaining job of the committee was to protect the swamp from re-encroachment.

(NARRATION) It is now nine years since 2015. We needed to hear from someone else how the restored swamp has benefited the community and compare it with how things were before. So we drove through tiny footpaths through banana plantations and cassava farms to Rweicumu village, two hills away from Tumwebaze’s home. We found Mrs. Agnes Tukahiirwa drying papyrus shreds in the sun which she would use later to make baskets.

(CLOSE TO MIC) You are welcome, my visitors. Glad to receive you.

(MOVING TOWARDS MIC) Thank you, Tukahiirwa. We are here to talk to you about Nyakambu swamp and here you are drying papyrus shreds for making baskets.

Sure.

You must be a big basket maker to need all this.

Not really, I don’t need all this. I will use some and sell the rest.

Great. Is it a good source of income?

It is alright. When you do this job, you can’t sleep hungry.

So what did you do when the swamp was no more?

I slept hungry. Hahaha. On a serious note, when the swamp was destroyed we had nowhere else to get these papyrus shreds. So there was nothing to sell or to make baskets with.

And I was serious when I said we slept hungry. Droughts became so intense that our crops died more often than not. My husband would ride a bicycle to Buhweju to go and buy some potatoes and beans several times a week because our crops were no longer productive.

At some point, we had started buying water from Buhweju. We paid five hundred (500) shillings (0.14 US) for a jerry can of water. This was something we had never done. It was so bad. But now we are okay. Our swamp is back, our water is back, and we are not so badly off like then.

So what are other challenges the people faced as a result of the disappearance of the swamp?

In the absence of the swamp, we had nothing to mulch our farms with. The swamp had always been our source of mulch and without it, our crops died. All that is no more now.

So how is the community making sure that the swamp doesn’t get destroyed again?

There is a committee of one-hundred twenty-five (125) people that most of us belong to. Our job is to keep an eye on the swamp and ensure that no one encroaches on it again. We make decisions on how to safely get all these materials without destroying the swamp.

FADE OUT

(NARRATION) We drove to the district headquarters some twenty (20) kilometres away from Nyakambu, to meet Mr. Pascal Tugume, head of natural resources in Sheema district. We needed to hear his expert perspective on this matter. He welcomed us into his office and sat down to talk to us.

What would you like to know about Nyakambu swamp?

I guess a good place to start is how bad was the destruction?

Oh, it was bad. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you that by the time I arrived at this office in 2011 it looked like Nyakambu would not recover. There was no sign of swamp anywhere.

So what was your first step to restore it?

I don’t want to take credit that isn’t mine. But there is a local councillor called Tumwebaze. He is the one that led his fellow Nyakambu residents to restore the swamp.

Compared to other communities, the people of Nyakambu are very awake. They kept calling me and everyone who is involved in the protection of the environment. When they called us 2011, we said that, yeah, this is the kind of community that we needed to keep strengthening and mobilizing so that the wetland would be recovered.

Why is it important to restore swamps?

Wetlands are very important and other people need to emulate the people of Nyakambu and protect their swamps. Swamps provide natural products for mat and basket making, natural water quality improvement, flood protection, they are a source of fish, all this at no cost. And this is what I told the people of Nyakambu.

How do you feel now that has been restored?

I am so proud of those people. In my work as an environmentalist, I have never seen a restoration as successful as the Nyakambu one. I am happy that the wetland has recovered from total destruction.At some point, crime was very high in Nyakambu because the young people that used to spend their free time fishing and making a living out of the fish were turning to robbing people. All these problems have been eliminated.

There you have it. It can be done. Wetlands that have been invaded for farming and other human activities can be regenerated. All it takes is one person willing to highlight the long-term consequences of not having a wetland and compare that with the benefits of a thriving wetland, and high chances are that the community will wake up and restore it. Wetlands, especially swamps, are a source of raw materials for basketry, mat-making and thatch, they are a source of free water and mulch, and many other benefits. Let’s restore the swamps we grew up with, and let’s keep our environment flourishing. Good bye.