The reinvention of Africa’s biggest lake

THE OLD fishermen at Cape landing site in central Uganda can remember when they first came, in the 1990s, to this sliver of rock that lies between a forest and the lake they call Nnalubaale. There were nine settlers then. Now there are more than 600: sinewy boat-hands, gleeful children and stiff-backed women drying silver fish in the sun. Yet the drinking dens and timbered houses retain an air of impermanence. A fisherman is a wanderer, they say, like a herder always seeking fresh pasture.

These waters are never still. Lake Victoria, as English-speakers know it, is Africa’s largest freshwater lake, roughly the size of Ireland. In 1960, about 9m people lived in its catchment, mostly in the riparian countries of Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya; today, more than 60m do. The twin intrusions of market and state are transforming the fish in its waters and life on its shores, bringing export revenues, violence and an ecological crisis.