Climate change is a complex subject that has always been covered from the perspective of the “Big Fish.” A Vision Group team went into the countryside, investigating the impact of this global phenomenon, and now, in an eight-part series, tells you the story from the perspective of ordinary people.

It was a bright Friday afternoon. After a 30-minutes delay, MV Kalangala engines finally rattle to life as it sets off from Nakiwogo landing site in Entebbe, on its three-and-a-half hours’ journey to Lutoboka in Kalangala island on Lake Victoria.

Arimo showing palm trees dying out due to floods.

Life on the island

On arrival at around 6:00pm, this once beautiful island with tropical high forests cover is no more. Instead, we are welcomed by oil palm plantations spread across hills, right up to the lake shores.

The only traces of surviving tropical forests are on smaller islands mainly owned by private absentee landlords.

After a quiet night at Happy Times guest house, with the waves providing a calming white noise, we start our assignment — documenting the effects of climate change from the ordinary people’s perspective.  

We notice a toddler hanging at the edge of a small wooden boat. He is playing alone. Next to him are scores of women, some of them pregnant.

Others have babies firmly strapped to their backs. They are sorting fishing nets.

The women crack jokes and giggle noisily. They are clearly enjoying their work. It is the main activity here in the morning hours at Buziga fish landing site in Mugoye sub-county, Kalangala district. 

What residents say

One of the women is Josephine Naluyima, 23, a single mother of three. She is jolly and wears a pleasant smile.

But behind that beam is a tale of a woman on her own, going through thick and thin on a meagre budget.

Naluyima is among the thousands of people displaced by floods resulting from Lake Victoria, whose waters have since October 2019 risen by 13.42 metres, beating the 1964 record of 13.41 metres.

Naluyima says her woes started in December 2020, when their home was submerged.

“It rained for days and the water levels swallowed the entire landing site. It would rain for the entire morning and again at night for hours. Our temporary structures would fill up with water. Many times, I would spend nights standing in water that would reach knee level, with my children. I suffered from swollen feet and was later diagnosed with bilharzia,” Naluyima explains.

Bilharzia is a disease caused by parasitic worms that thrive in freshwater.

Naluyima says the relentless rains swept away boats, killed livestock, destroyed houses and filled up pit-latrines, creating a sanitation catastrophe.

Vincent Kalwanyi, the Buziga landing site chairperson, says they had to borrow money to erect at least one pit-latrine to avert an epidemic.  

Due to fishing being disrupted, most fishermen migrated to other islands. But Naluyima, who refused to migrate with the father of her last-born, sarcastically says she is comfortable. 

“I chose to stay and look after my children. On a good day, I earn sh10,000 if I work in the morning and afternoon. The pay is certainly small, but is enough to sustain me and my family, including paying house rent,” she says, adding that her target is to save sh500,000 to start a small business.

The angry lake did not spare the oil palm plantations as well.

Due to the oil palm craze, owing to high prices, people planted the crop up to the shores, way beyond the 200 metres recommended buffer zone.

Oil palm replaces forests

Kalangala ecosystem has no doubt been affected by human activity that has accelerated climate change.

As a result, the once dense natural forests have almost been depleted on the main island in favour of oil palm plantations, which are now the dominant land cover.

Lying along the equator, Kalangala comprises 84 small habitable islands, covering a land area of 46,830 hectares.

Of the land area, more than half is on the main island of Buggala.

However, oil palm growing, which started on the island in 2005, has reduced the tropical forests on Buggala island from 58% to 20% since 2000.

Instead, oil palm cover has increased from 0% to 28% over the same period. A big chunk of the lake buffer zone has been encroached on by farmers to meet the growing demand for oil.

Information at the district indicates that by 2017, about 10,000 hectares of oil palm trees had been planted, with 6,500 hectares operated by Oil Palm Uganda Limited (OPUL) in the form of a nucleus estate.

The remaining 3,500 hectares belong to 1,800 individual smallholders.

But the rapid land use changes, where farmers cut forests to plant oil palm, could have accelerated biodiversity loss and caused negative impacts on the ecosystem.

Paying the price

Francis Luyinda, a farmer at Buziga, is one of those who have borne the brunt of the floods triggered by climate change.

He says he lost four of the seven-and-a-half acres of his oil palm plantation.

“In panic and frustration, I hired men to use canoes to try to harvest some of the fruits, but it later became too risky as the water levels kept rising. I have so far lost over sh15m,” Luyinda says.

Because the water reclaimed beyond the 200 meters buffer zone, all the vegetation, including the oil palms, dried up.

Dry tree trunks and falling palm trees are a testimony to the level of devastation. 

Richard Ssettuba, the speaker for Mugoye sub-county and a fisherman, says the loss to the community runs into billions because apart from oil palm and other crops that were destroyed, many of the residents also lost livestock. 

Amos Arimo, a field officer attached to Kalangala Oil Palm Growers’ Trust, who doubles as an environment and climate focal person, said up to 367 acres or 60% of their total acreage were destroyed by floods.

He said a total of 129 farmers in the district were affected.

Arimo, however, blames the farmers for ignoring technical advice. 

“We discourage farmers from encroaching on the buffer zone, but some acquire seeds from elsewhere due to the lucrative business of the oil palm crop,” Arimo says.

Worsening situation

Due to the rising water levels that disrupted fishing by destroying fish breeding grounds, leading to reduced catches and other sources of income that were disrupted, such as working in the oil palm plantations, the population has turned to charcoal burning and lumbering to survive.

As a result, there is a loss of unique forests, referred to as ‘pitadeniastrumuapaca forests’, which are said to greatly support a high diversity of birds and butterflies.

Environmentalists argue that this has threatened species like the Ssese island sitatunga or bushbuck and the Lake Victoria rat.

The destruction of forests will worsen the silting of Lake Victoria.

Joseph Byaruhanga, the senior environment officer for Kalangala district, blames the crisis on a number of factors, including encroachment on forests and wetlands.

“Wetlands store rainwater and release it slowly when needed, but many, if not all of them, were in the recent years turned into oil palm plantations. Forests also serve the same purpose. But what used to be thick forests are now plantations. Water that used to be trapped in the wetlands and forests now goes straight into the lake, partly contributing to the rising water levels,” Byaruhanga says. 

Communities

While not sparing the communities, Rajab Ssemakula, the Kalangala district chairperson, Badru Wamala, a hotel owner in Kalangala town and Dan Mwanje, a businessman also blamed environment watchdogs, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and the National Forestry Authority (NFA) for paying a blind eye while the environment is destroyed.

“Although the oil palm project brought money and improved economic status of some community members, it was at the expanse of the natural forests. Uncontrolled trade in timber and charcoal has greatly contributed to the loss of forest cover,” Wamala says.

Ssemakula says while the recent floods could have been triggered by many factors, the destruction of forests for oil palm cultivation worsened the situation. 

“We had dense forests but we cut them down at the same time and planted oil palm trees, which have smaller leaves and are not so helpful in rainfall formation compared to natural forests,” Ssemakula explains.

He says that while many private forests were converted into oil palm plantations, the Government forest reserves were not spared either.

“We have 13 forest reserves under the management of the NFA, but the leaders and the environment police, which should have protected them, are just looking on,” Ssemaula stated, adding that forests do not benefit Kalangala alone, but the entire country and should be protected. 

Like Ssemakula, Mwanje argues that oil palm trees can never be a substitute for natural forests.

In defence of oil palm trees

While agreeing with critics that cutting forests in Kalangala could have affected the environment, Amos Arimo, a field officer attached to Kalangala Oil Palm Growers’ Trust, said oil palm trees play just the same role.

“True, forests help in the formation of tropical rainfall but oil palm trees also provide green cover that almost serve the same purpose,” Arimo says.

He instead blamed the flooding on a combination of factors, including too much rainfall experienced consecutively in the last two or three years, human activity, such as indiscriminate cutting of forests for charcoal burning, encroaching on wetlands and failure to observe buffer zones.    

“As much as oil palm growing is blamed for the rapid climate change, the project has hugely changed the lives of islanders, whose income levels have gone up. We now have improved infrastructure, have access to electricity and people are generally happy with the improved quality of life,” he added.

Arimo believes regular monitoring of forest reserves to minimise harmful activities, such as indiscriminate tree cutting for charcoal burning and timber and best farming practices, among other measures, could mitigate the problem.

Dan Mwanje, a businessman, suggests that the Government should recognise the role of private landowners and give them incentives to restore the lost forests.

Joseph Byaruhanga, a senior environment officer for Kalangala district, says all human activities within the buffer zones should be stopped and the degraded lakeshores restored by planting indigenous trees.

Badru Wamala, the proprietor of Wamala Hotel Resort in Kalangala town, says together with some individuals, they have launched an afforestation campaign, where they have planted trees on 25 to 30 acres of land.

He observes that it might take them about a decade to regain about half of the degraded forest cover.

This story was produced with support from WAN-IFRA Africa Media Grant for Climate Change Reporting. However, the views are not those of the sponsors or the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.