JANET WERE OBONDA, 60, has lived on Musoma Island in western Kenya’s Yala Swamp, a complex of wetlands in the Yala River Delta, her whole life, supporting her family as a fisherwoman and cook. But in March 2020, a massive flood engulfed the island. The water was knee-deep in Were Obonda’s new house, rendering it uninhabitable. Family members across the community separated as they sought temporary shelter. She moved to Khumwanda, an informal camp located on higher ground on Musoma, where she shares space, under a tarpaulin sheet held up by wooden sticks, with her husband and six grandchildren. Khumwanda is mere minutes away from her previous home, and she’s often flooded with memories of her former life. Few people could bear such circumstances for even a night. This has been Were Obonda’s reality for almost two years now.

All 22 villages … scattered across Yala Swamp have experienced varying degrees of flooding since 2020.

Musoma Island remains inundated today. What were once footpaths across the island now require boats for navigation. The local marketplace was abandoned when the water levels rose by several meters. Already under-resourced schools remain closed from lasting flood damage; children have relocated their studies to less-affected islands. And it’s not just Musoma that has been impacted. All 22 villages and their 3,000 inhabitants scattered across Yala Swamp have experienced varying degrees of flooding since 2020.

Today, four villages remain fully flooded and eight partially flooded. Nearly 300 people living in what used to be seasonally inundated zones have been displaced by permanent floodwaters and now live alongside Were Obonda under 74 tents in Khumwanda. Hundreds more have migrated to congested urban centers in mainland cities like Kisumu in search of work and a new life, determined to leave their paludal past behind.

Were Obonda herself dreams of reaching the mainland to attempt a fresh start. “I have no hope of going back,” she says about her lost house on Musoma Island. “I want to go somewhere where I can settle on higher grounds.”

But the decision about whether to leave can be complex. Some simply don’t have the money to move. For others, deep ancestral connections to the wetland and enduring traditional belief systems make the concept of leaving unthinkable. At the same time, like other wetlands around the world — an estimated 60 percent of which have been lost over the past 100 years — Yala has been facing mounting threats from agricultural development and climate change. Wetland reclamation and increasing rainfall in recent decades have altered the swamp’s local ecology, making floods here more persistent. As a result, the swamp — which has been a place of belonging and source of sustenance to thousands of marginalized families for generations — is becoming even more treacherous.

IT’S LATE AFTERNOON on the northeastern banks of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest freshwater basin and chief reservoir of the Nile River. Fishermen untangle their nets in the softening apricot-tinted light as heavy waves lap the shore. Locals gather water for drinking and cooking. A young girl washes her hair while her sister scrubs a stack of cooking pots. Farther down, a band of men methodically shovel sand into a truck, waiting to haul the load to nearby Kisumu for glass production. No matter where one looks, water is the ruling element.

Yala Swamp extends from these shores inland into the Yala River Delta. Stretching some 6,783 hectares across Kenya’s Siaya and Busia counties, the swamp is Kenya’s largest freshwater wetland. It is dominated by papyrus plants and provides habitat to a wide range of animals, including the critically endangered semi-aquatic sitatunga antelope, the cichlid fish, which has been extirpated from Lake Victoria, the vervet monkey, and more than 170 species of birds. The wetland is internationally recognized as a Key Biodiversity Area, and as an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area by BirdLife International. Locals are also pushing to have Yala recognized as a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention, which provides a framework for international cooperation on wetland conservation.

Beyond supporting a variety of wildlife, Yala Swamp plays a vital regulatory environmental role. It helps maintain the region’s climate, including local temperatures and precipitation, and filters water flowing from the Yala River to Lake Victoria. Like all swamps, Yala is a significant carbon sink: Wetland vegetation absorbs carbon dioxide via photosynthesis and converts it into cellular and woody material. They then store that carbon in organic sediments that have accumulated over centuries’ worth of vegetation growth and decay. Research has shown that Yala’s remaining papyrus swamps store close to 15 million tons of carbon.

Swamps — defined as forested wetlands in transitional zones between water and land — have been both idealized and demonized across societies and throughout history as repositories of unique ecosystems and cultures and as purposeless places of pestilence. They have supported the development of civilized communities in the fertile floodplain environments of the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates Rivers, among others, yet modern policies to expand agricultural production and address malaria have spelled their demise. Since 1971, when representatives of 18 nations adopted the Ramsar Convention, more than 35 percent of the world’s wetlands have been drained.

Where wetlands prevail, many people continue to rely on them for food and make them their homes. An estimated 250,000 people depend on Yala for fishing and subsistence-farming livelihoods. That includes the Luo people in Bunyala, a settlement in Busia county along the western fringe of the swamp, not far from Uganda. Residents here call themselves swampdwellers — jok ma odak e thidhia in the local Luo language, abandu bamenya esaa in Banyala/Kibanyala dialect. Over generations, families in Bunyala have adapted to living in the wetlands and are accustomed to heavy rainfall that causes periodic floods. Their environment provides them with everything they need: wild pigs, birds, and even hippos for hunting; wild greens like enderema (Ceylon spinach) for nourishment and medicine; wood for constructing beehives; an abundance of fish, which they catch in woven papyrus basket traps; and mud for construction and ceremonial purposes.

But even for these adaptive swamp dwellers, worsening floods bring new challenges and encroach on more than just their land.

Swamps have been both idealized and demonized across societies and throughout history.

That’s the case for 32-year-old Christine Awino, a resident of a tiny swamp inlet known as Kholohongo. A member of the Indigenous Luhya tribe, Awino believes that the physical world one inhabits directly affects incorporeal elements. One’s thoughts, perceptions, ambitions, values, and visions of the ideal are rooted in one’s environment. Strongly held cultural beliefs are keeping her tied to a land that is slowly but steadily disappearing under water. “I cannot leave,” she says, taking a seat in a tiny chair next to a framed portrait of her late husband mounted on the wall of her home.

Daniel B. Lang’o is one of the few researchers who has examined the belief systems of Yala swamp communities. In his 1997 thesis as an anthropology student at the University of Nairobi, Lang’o wrote that swamp dwellers build their homesteads in ways that crystallize “the vision people have of the ideal life.”

The study found that in both Luo and Luhya communities, the design of each household structure, the dala, contributes to the proper functioning of these tribal societies. The spatial layout of dalas — typically circular, evincing Luo belief that a circle represents the center of being — is based on traditional customs that reflect their worldview. Orientation portrays relations between family members, restricting or permitting certain behaviors and interactions.

Similarly, for both the Luo and Luhya, the location of a house relative to the graves of loved ones preserves the bond between the living and the dead. That’s why, for Awino, whose husband died of throat cancer in 2018 at age 37, leaving is unthinkable despite the challenge of raising three young children in this demanding environment. She says that their sleeping mats have been getting damp regularly as water levels ebb and flow.

“This is the reason why I’m still here,” she says, gesturing towards the mound in the scorching red earth beyond the door, which covers the remains of her deceased spouse. As is common tribal belief in Kenya, Awino says her husband communicates with her. “He has spoken to me in dreams and warned me against taking the children away from here,” she said.

NO DETAILED PHOTOGRAPHIC evidence of Yala Swamp’s condition exists before 1984 when the first high-resolution satellite imagery of the region was taken. But images from 1984 onward give a glimpse into the significant changes that have occurred over the last 40-plus years. Vegetative cover has decreased, revealing more of the floodplain where the Yala River meets the swamp. The southeastern plain above Lake Kanyaboli, an ox-bow lake in the swamp, appears as partially reclaimed and cultivated. Retention and cut-off dykes can be seen, although these had fallen into disuse by the 1980s.

Yala Swamp-dwellers build their homesteads in ways that crystallize “the vision people have of the ideal life.”

The first attempt to drain Yala Swamp dates back to 1954 when the British colonial government appointed an engineer to investigate the potential of wetland reclamation in the Kenyan portion of the Nile basin, including in the upper Yala Swamp. The land was determined to be fertile. In the late-1960s the Kenyan government, with funding from the Food and Agriculture Organization, drained 2,300 hectares of the swamp for agricultural use, using a system of dykes and diversion canals. Later recommendations to reclaim additional sections of the swamp were never implemented — at least not by the government.

But the high agricultural potential of Yala Swamp — with its nutrient-rich soils and copious water — attracted private investments. One of those outside commercial interests was the United States-based Dominion Farms, which became a major player in the region after commencing operations on a 25-year lease in the swamp in 2003. Spearheaded by billionaire investor and missionary Calvin Burgess, the company originally obtained a permit to cultivate rice on 6,900 hectares of land, according to figures by the county governments of Busia and Siaya. But Dominion went far beyond the intended scope of this permit and carried out significant additional agricultural and development activities in Yala: the construction of irrigation dykes, a road, and an airstrip, and the establishment of large aquaculture ventures, from farms to fish-milling factories. A massive cross built on the edge of the upper Yala still looms across the wetlands today, a conspicuous reminder of the enterprise’s Christian underpinnings and lasting influence.

Dominion described its programs as positive markers of development; supporters point to the jobs it brought to the impoverished. (More than 80 percent of the people living in and around the wetlands survive on less than $1 a day, according to Nature Kenya, Africa’s oldest environmental conservation society.) But the company has been criticized for bringing an outdated neocolonialist lens to its projects. “The private developer [owned] the biggest part of the swamp,” says Kenyan ornithologist and honorary warden Ibrahim Onyango.

The company’s landscape-level alterations have also caused major problems, from reclaiming arable swampland traditionally used for subsistence floodplain farming, to clearing forests used for hunting and gathering by nearby communities, to contributing to backflow on community land, all without compensating local residents. Dominion also indiscriminately cleared pristine papyrus habitat crucial to nutrient cycling. “The reclamation was geared towards putting more land under production, maximizing profits while draining even the most sensitive and fragile areas that should be left undisturbed given the critical ecological functions they provide,” says Emily Mateche, a policy and advocacy manager who supervises the implementation of Nature Kenya’s site-based activities in Yala, adding that the company serves as an example of the damage done when environmental laws are evaded.

Dominion’s agricultural activities, particularly engineering works that manipulated the original course of the Yala River, also contributed to flooding in previously dry areas of the swamp, submerging islands, displacing residents, destroying property and infrastructure, and polluting the region with heavy agricultural chemicals.

The company — which pulled out of the region in 2018, citing an unfavorable business environment — did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

Despite its lasting legacy, Dominion was only one contributor to changing conditions in the swamp. Growing populations around Yala have led to increased local reliance on the wetland for fishing and reclaiming of land for small-scale farming: In 2014, while Dominion had about 9.5 percent of the swamp under cultivation, local communities were cultivating another 11.5 percent. And as the number of people living around Yala Swamp grows — the populations in Busia and Siaya counties are increasing at rates of 3.1 and 1.7 percent respectively — the need for local food production will also rise.

Even under a more balanced management approach, swampland may continue to be reclaimed for agricultural use.

The flooding is also linked to climate change. Parts of East Africa — from Lake Tanganyika along the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania to Lake Naivasha and Lake Victoria in Kenya — have experienced a stunning rise in rainfall over the past decade, upwards of 30 percent. The increase has been linked to warmer sea temperatures in the western Indian Ocean. This increased rainfall has contributed to worsening flooding in the swamp — which is fed by rainfall, river inflow from the Yala River, seepage from River Nzoia, and backflow from Lake Victoria, whose water levels had risen to a record high in 2020.

Those living in and around Yala aren’t the only ones impacted by the changing local climate. In 2021, the Kenyan government estimated that 37,000 families — about a third of them from Busia and Siaya — have been displaced by persistent flooding linked to increased water levels in Lake Victoria.

EVEN BEFORE DOMINION surrendered its Yala swamp holdings in 2018, locals had been rethinking management of the wetland – most of which is held in trust by the Siaya and Busia governments. Central to this effort has been the creation of the Yala Land Use Plan, first created in 2014. The plan was developed in consultation with local communities involved with the Yala Planning Advisory Committee (which constitutes representatives of all swamp users) in partnership with the county governments, and it received financial support from Nature Kenya and technical backing from the Inter-Ministerial Technical Committee.

The spirit behind the land use plan is to balance corporate interests in the swamp with habitat conservation while improving the livelihoods of local communities. The plan recognizes the complex tradeoffs involved in development, yet prioritizes protecting sensitive swamp areas, maximizing local employment, and providing food, water, and housing for locals ahead of agricultural development for international markets. Under the preferred option outlined in a draft copy, ecologically sensitive areas of the wetland would be protected, while farming would be permitted in all areas with high agricultural potential.

Among other goals, the draft mentions that the “need to regulate flooding was an important consideration in the development” of the land use plan. Lessening the impact of flooding on local communities is another. To that end, the plan discourages further settlement within the swamp due to the increased risk of flooding. It also recommends the relocation of those living in the swamp to higher ground in surrounding areas. The plan was endorsed by Busia and Siaya counties in 2019 but has yet to be adopted as county policy.

“Development of this complexity requires a multi-sectoral approach … The plan aspires to balance different interests without compromising the integrity of the environment,” Mateche says. “If implemented correctly, there’s evidence that there will be benefits for people, biodiversity, and the agriculture industry.”

Another source of hope for locals comes from a recent court decision. In November 2021, Siaya High Court barred Kenya’s National Land Commission from handing Dominion’s lease over to Lake Agro Limited, an India-based agricultural company that is eyeing the wetland. Opposition to Land Agro’s move was spearheaded by local activists who want the wetland returned to the community, as well as by Nature Kenya.

“I’m realistic but optimistic,” Mateche says following the ruling. “All the effort and time we’ve put in is finally paying off to save wetlands from being lost. It will also help when people realize the great value [that wetlands have] to the economy.”

David Marenya Ogoma, the secretary-general of Yala Ecosystem Site Support Group, an umbrella group of over 30 environmental organizations working on the ground in Yala, agrees that the court decision was a significant step forward. He says the Siaya and Busia counties should now fast-track passage of the land use plan in their respective assemblies.

The prospect of the land use plan and the recent court victory provide hope for more sustainable management of Yala swamp. But even under a more balanced management approach, swampland may continue to be reclaimed for agricultural use as populations burgeon, leaving open questions as to how Yala’s swamp dwellers will forge ahead with the challenges of life in the wetland.

“Realistically, Yala cannot be left alone because communities need food. We need to progress in terms of development and contribute to the national and county development agendas,” says Mateche. “But most importantly, we cannot kill the very environment that provides these goods and services that we enjoy. That would be catastrophic.”