Bugala, Uganda Island Stories

Blanketed in jungle, fringed by beaches.

Bugala Island is the biggest in Uganda's Ssese Archipelago

in Lake Victoria.

For Ugandans, Ssese used to be a shorthand for remoteness.

Today, Bugala's abandoned forests

and thriving waters are drawing people to its glittering shore.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that we are in the middle of an ocean,

and it's the sheer size of this lake that makes the island so remote.

But it is also what has sustained the people of Bugala.

In the forests, there is life on every branch,

and an income in each tree-trunk.

Jude Kagame became the boat builder to put himself through school.

-TRANSLATION:

-The boats we build are used for transporting people,

food and animals, and for fishing.

Some of the wood we get from here on the island,

and some comes from Congo.

The trees we use are getting more and more scarce,

which is why we look to other countries.

Much of the forest has been cut down for palm trees.

Palm oil is in demand around the world.

Growing it can bring wealth, but it comes at a cost.

Precise rows of palm encroach on what was once wild jungle.

And it's not just the landscape.

Islanders' livelihoods are visibly changing.

He tells me five years ago there were no more than four cars on the island.

Now, he will repair more than 10 cars a week.

And you'd need one to traverse the new roads

which carve through the island.

But look around, and it's a world of water.

Every morning, fishing boats arrive at the Nakatiba landing site,

owned and run by the formidable Mama Sylvia.

As a young woman, she'd fish in a small boat without an engine.

Now, she presides over an empire.

She came to Bugala in the '80s, and things were different then.

-TRANSLATION:

-The reason I was attracted to this place

was because, where we were, the stock had completely vanished.

And this place was teeming with fish.

When we came here, there was no electricity.

But we have started getting piped water,

and roads are being constructed.

In the coming years, Bugala is going to be so much better

than it is now, because everything has been put in place.

This community is an example of what it means to persevere

patiently through tough times.

Once considered distant and mysterious,

Bugala is a place that a growing number of people

are now calling home.

The island is bursting with potential.

But its resources aren't infinite.

For now, though, Bugala continues to hold promise, and to provide.