World Wetland Day: it’s time for wetlands restoration

Collaborative research on wetlands in Uganda 

Uganda’s wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems in Africa. A large share of the country’s population, especially poor communities in rural and urban areas, depend either directly or indirectly on wetlands as their main source of livelihood.

Uganda was one of the first African countries to recognize the importance of wetlands, not only for biodiversity and ecosystem services, but also for people’s livelihoods and economic development. The country signed the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 1988 and approved a National Wetlands Policy in 1995, making it one of the first African countries to do so. The policy states that wetland resources form an integral part of the environment and places their management in the context of interaction between conservation and national development. The Ugandan Constitution and several other key acts and policy documents also recognize wetlands.

As a result, people in Uganda are quite aware about the importance of wetlands. Despite this, wetlands continue to be degraded, due to pressure from expanding agriculture and pollution from urban centers and industry. Implementation of the National Wetlands Policy has been a challenge: there is often tension between customary wetland management and formal policy. The increasing interest in wetland protection, management and restoration has not yet yielded sufficient results. Institutional complexity, a lack of stakeholder participation and insufficient technical know-how in wetland assessment and monitoring form constraints.

As part its efforts to restore wetlands, the Ugandan Government recently secured funding from the Green Climate Fund and the Austrian Government to restore wetlands and their catchments in 29 districts. But whether the effort is sustainable in the long run, and whether it can be expanded to include other areas, remains unclear.

To support the Ugandan government and its partners widening successful wetland restoration projects, IHE Delft and Makerere University in Kampala are collaborating in two research projects. The SURE-WET project (Scaling Up Restoration Efforts in Ugandan Wetlands) is funded by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) under its ECOPRONAT programme, and the POLKA project (Policy Learning, Local Knowledge and Advocacy) is supported by the Water and Development Partnership Programme with financing from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The projects aim to create a better understanding of what makes wetland restoration successful or ineffective. They also include a monitoring framework for community-based monitoring supported by scientific assessment. They focus on wetlands including the Lubigi wetland, a large urban wetland in Kampala, which is deteriorating because of the harvesting of plants to make crafts and animal fodder, farming, dumping of waste, car washing and the release of wastewater treatment plant effluents.

Another wetland in the project, the rural Rufuha wetland in Western Uganda, has been degraded through drainage for crop growing and cattle rearing and planting of exotic trees – the result of rural population growth. In the past, the Rufuha wetland provided water, food and other material, and served as a grazing area for livestock during the dry season.  

The SURE-WET and POLKA projects, both launched in 2022, analyse the institutional setting for wetland restoration, the impact of human activities on wetland ecosystem services, and the potential for involving local communities in wetland monitoring and management. The projects will also enable partners to strengthen their ability to assess and manage wetlands. Several MSc students from IHE Delft, Makerere University, and other organizations in Africa will conduct research under the project.