Photographs

The Rwizi passing under the Katete bridge, Mbarara.

Katete, Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

Looking downstream from the bridge. The channel here is far narrower than it was.

Katete, Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

The crossing at Katete, one of our regular monitoring points.

Katete, Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

The Rwizi at the Katete crossing, Mbarara. The colour is silt — this reach sits below the city's discharge.

Katete, Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

The river in the dry season, running low and slow.

Katete, Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

The Katete crossing from the road. The town comes right down to the bridge on both sides.

Katete, Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

Sand deposits in the channel. Extraction upstream changes where the river puts its load.

Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

Sand and silt on the inside of a meander, with cultivation running close to the edge.

Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

Bank plants doing the job we are trying to restore elsewhere: holding soil in place.

Mbarara City. NUWAHWERA PHIONAH

The vegetated corridor either side of the channel.

Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

The Rwizi at the Katete bridge crossing, one of our monitoring points.

Katete, Mbarara City. BalukuBrian

Sand and silt deposits beside bank vegetation on the Rwizi.

Mbarara. BalukuBrian

Vegetation along the Rwizi. Where the bank is intact, this is what it looks like.

Mbarara. NUWAHWERA PHIONAH

A gully cut by run-off. This is what happens on a slope with nothing rooted holding it.

Uganda. Hillary Musundi

Plastic pulled out of a river by hand. This photograph is from the River Benue in Nigeria, not the Rwizi — the same problem, and the same response to it.

River Benue, Nigeria. Ummigarba

Digging sand from a riverbed. It is a livelihood before it is an environmental problem, which is why enforcement alone has never worked.

East Africa. Fatih Bilen

Sand extraction from a river channel. Lowering the bed steepens the banks either side and undercuts vegetation that was stable. Photographed on the River Niger, not the Rwizi.

Onitsha, Nigeria. Ngostary2k

A wetland inside a grazing farm in western Uganda.

Western Uganda. RUTH BABIRYE

Cape buffalo in Lake Mburo National Park, downstream on the Rwizi system.

Lake Mburo National Park. Diego Delso

Defassa waterbuck at Lake Mburo. The lake is fed by the Rwizi.

Lake Mburo National Park. Diego Delso

Warthog, Lake Mburo National Park.

Lake Mburo National Park. Diego Delso

Tantalus monkey in the woodland fringe at Lake Mburo.

Lake Mburo National Park. Diego Delso

Defassa waterbuck at Lake Mburo, which the Rwizi feeds.

Lake Mburo National Park. Diego Delso

Waterbuck at Lake Mburo National Park.

Lake Mburo National Park. Diego Delso

Great blue turaco. Forest species in the catchment depend on the headwater woodland at Buhweju.

Uganda. Rod Waddington from Kergunyah, Australia

Birds on a Ugandan wetland. The Rwizi system feeds two Ramsar-listed sites.

Uganda. Jameswasswa

Wetland birdlife. Habitat quality downstream depends on what happens upstream.

Uganda. Jameswasswa

A wetland pool. Papyrus systems store water through the wet season and release it slowly through the dry one.

Uganda. Timothy Akolamazima

A fish eagle. The lakes downstream of the Rwizi support substantial birdlife.

Uganda. Greenourworld2002

Tending seedlings in a nursery. This is where every planting day starts.

Uganda. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Smallholder farming in the region. Most households here farm what they eat.

East Africa. Kate Holt/AusAID

Working a plot by hand.

East Africa. Kate Holt/AusAID

A community trainer demonstrating a technique. Sessions run early morning or late afternoon, around farming hours.

Uganda. Vmusika

A rural classroom block. Our schools programme trains the school's own teachers rather than sending our staff.

Uganda. SuSanA Secretariat

Mbarara high street. Roughly 200,000 people live in the city.

Mbarara City. B722N

Ankole longhorn cattle. Watering points concentrate grazing damage on short stretches of bank.

Uganda. Jgdb500

Cattle in a kraal. Watering points concentrate damage on short stretches of bank.

Uganda. Sandra Aceng

Rwebikona, on the northern side of Mbarara City.

Rwebikona, Mbarara City. B722N

Mbarara high street. Around 200,000 people live in the city and all of them drink from this river.

Mbarara City. B722N

Mbaguta Street, Mbarara City. The city takes its drinking water from the Rwizi.

Mbarara City. B722N

Biharwe hill, on the eastern edge of Mbarara City. Our office sits below it.

Biharwe, Mbarara City. Alvinategyeka

Cattle in a kraal. Cattle keeping here is bound up with land tenure and inheritance, not only income.

Uganda. Sandra Aceng