Ondago Swamp National Sanctuary

The size and boundaries of the wetland are defined by the land plan for Kogweno Oriang registration section where it is registered as L.R. 881 in the name of South Nyanza County Council and gazetted in 1997 as a N. Sanctuary owned by Kendu Bay Urban Council (now Kendu Bay Town Council) with the technical assistance from Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) (Ref: A letter from the Kendu Bay Town Council dated 15/10/12 Ref: TC/12/1/1/26)

Features Ondago Swamp National Sanctuary

1. The wetland strides two administrative boundaries of Kogweno Oriang’ East and Kogweno Oriang’ West, in Kogweno Oriang Location.
2. A total of 30 clans live as riparian community around Ondago wetland, and have co-existed since time immemorial.
3. These clans are related in many ways including intermarriage, sharing market places, religion, social amenities and domestic water points, cattle grazing and salt lick areas and attending funerals together.
4. The original size and boundaries of the wetland was estimated to be 45 Ha.
5. No major conflicts have been experienced with regard to the use of the wetland as a common resource, other than the rush to overgraze the wetland.  It should be noted that, the adjacent plots of the surrounding community are demarcated and subdivided with parcel numbers.
6. The capacity of the wetland to hold large volumes of water during rainy seasons has been reducing drastically over the past 10-20 years.
7. The major benefit that the community derives from the wetland in its current state is pastures and salt lick sites.
8. the  most commonly experienced problems by the  neighbouring  household with regard to the  existence of wetland are: malaria incidences  resulting from mosquito bites; over flow and flooding of the riparian farm lands during heavy rains;
9. There is no wetland-based enterprise currently practised by the riparian community.

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