Lake Opeta is a lake with an extensive wetland system in Uganda. The wetland lies south of the

Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve The Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve is a conservation area in the Karamoja subregion of northeastern Uganda. It is the second largest conservation protected area in Uganda. Location Pian Upe is located in the North Eastern part of Uganda in Nakapiri ...

and serves as a dry-season refuge for both wildlife from the park and domestic cattle of the surrounding Karamajong and Pokot people.

Hydrology

Lake Opeta is primarily fed by rainfall on

Mount Elgon Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya, north of Kisumu and west of Kitale. The mountain's highest point, named "Wagagai", is located entirely within Uganda.

and drains into

Lake Kyoga Lake Kyoga (literally 'the place of bathing' in Runyoro language) is a large shallow lake in Uganda, about in area and at an elevation of 1,033 metres. The Victoria Nile flows through the lake on its way from Lake Victoria to Lake Albert. The mai ...

via

Lake Bisina Lake Bisina, also known as Lake Salisbury, is a freshwater lake in eastern Uganda. It is a satellite lake of Lake Kyoga, which it drains into, and the two are to some extent directly connected by papyrus swamps. During the high-water rainy season, ...

. It is surrounded by an extensive swamp and floodplain.

Conservation

Lake Opeta is one of Uganda's 33

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

s and since 2006 a

Ramsar Ramsar may refer to: * Places so named: ** Ramsar, Mazandaran, city in Iran ** Ramsar, Rajasthan, village in India * Eponyms of the Iranian city: ** Ramsar Convention concerning wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran ** Ramsar site, wetland listed in a ...

-listed wetland of international importance. A Biodiversity and Eco-Tourism Centre funded by the

Global Environmental Facility The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a multilateral environmental fund that provides grants and blended finance for projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, persistent organic pollutants (POPs ...

and

UNDP The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

serves the lake. Lake Opeta and its surrounding swamps are located in eastern Uganda, 25km north-east of Kumi town. The Ramsar site stands 1,050 m above sea level and covers an area of 68,913 hectares. The wetland system represents the easternmost part of the Lake Kyoga basin. It occupies an extensive floodplain between the Lake Bisina Ramsar Site (which it drains towards Lake Kyoga) to the west and the base of Mount Elgon, a massive extinct volcanic massif, to the south-east. The Lake Opeta wetlands marks the southern limits of the vast, arid region of Karamoja which extends along Uganda’s eastern flank between Mount Elgon and the distant Sudan border, nearly 300km to the north.

Birds

Fox's weaver, Uganda's only

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

bird species, is known to inhabit the wetland, as do the globally threatened vulnerable

shoebill The shoebill (''Balaeniceps rex'') also known as the whalebill, whale-headed stork or shoe-billed stork, is a very large long-legged wading bird. It derives its name from its enormous shoe-shaped bill. It has a somewhat stork-like overall form ...

, near-threatened

papyrus gonolek The papyrus gonolek (''Laniarius mufumbiri'') is a species of bird in the family Malaconotidae. It is found in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. It has specialised habitat requirements, being restr ...

, and 160 other species.

References

Opeta Ramsar sites in Uganda Important Bird Areas of Uganda {{Uganda-geo-stub