Authored by Brad Czerniak

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.