The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had developed buffer zones around each of these marshes.

[10] Clay is extracted from the Kabuyenge marsh by some households to make bricks for construction.

[11] A 2005 report stated that recent drought had forced the local people to use swampy areas for crops such as rice, sorghum, bananas and colocasia.

There were rice crops upstream and downstream in the Kabanga and Kabuyenge marshes.

The buffer zone of the Kabuyenge marsh was being destroyed over a length of about 100 metres (330 ft).