Bukoba has a rugged mountainous landscape of alternating rocky hills and valleys. These valleys have permanent or seasonal rivers and streams. In addition, these valleys have natural forests with many species of tropical trees, shrubs, herbs, moss, and fungi, which have continuously been degraded by deforestation and unauthorized farming. At different times in history, these forests were home to large and small wildlife including large cats such as leopards. Much of this wildlife has disappeared with environmental degradation and hunting, except for primates such as baboons. Baboons and mongoose remain in these areas largely due to their ability to survive under the pressure of human settlement by foraging for fruit, nuts, potatoes, and other tubers in the farmers’ fields.
Within this complicated landscape are soils of varying depth and fertility, which describes the nature of human settlement in this area. Villages are mostly found on fertile or semi-fertile pockets of non-rocky areas on the valleys or plateaus. Alternating banana- and coffee-based villages separated by non-fertile grassland characterize traditional human settlements in Bukoba. Infertile grassland was traditionally used for annual crops such as peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) locally knows as groundnuts, finger millet (Eleusine coracana), and Bambara nuts (Vigna subterranean), and short-term root tubers, especially cassava and yams. In recent years, grasslands that were traditionally used for free-range communal grazing of cattle, goats, and sheep are increasingly been replaced with pine and Eucalyptus tree woodlots.
Pictured: Typical Bukoba Haya villages featuring a blend of banana as a staple food, coffee, native forest trees, fruit trees (oranges, tangerine, mango, papaya), and family homes. Beans and maize (corn) is widely planted under the banana canopy during rainy seasons.
Pictured: Sunset behind the banana trees in a typical Bukoba village