It is crucial to the economy and biodiversity of northern Zambia, and to the birdlife of a much larger region, and faces environmental stress and conservation issues.

His last expedition a few years later foundered in the swamps and their maze of shifting channels as he struggled to discover the rivers draining in and out of the lake.

The first Christian missions in Bangweulu were founded in the early 1900s under the authority of Bishop Joseph Dupont of the Catholic White Fathers who was based north of Kasama.

The area of the lake is inhabited by the Bisa in Chilubi and Mpika, the Bemba in Luwingu, the Unga in Lunga, the Kabende in Samfya, the Ngumbo in Lubwe, the BenaMukulu in Chungu and affiliated tribes who all speak Chibemba.

In 1989 the average annual catch was estimated at 11,900 tonnes, caught by 10,300 people using 5305 dugout canoes, 114 plank and fibreglass boats, and only 54 outboard motors.

In 2000 the catch was 13,500 t.[10] In early 2004 a private European natural gas company finished preliminary plans to lay a pipeline which would cut directly through the Southeast portion of the Lake.

After much court-wrangling and lengthy hearings on the project, the plan was disposed of by the European company as they built a detour for their pipeline in the surrounding province.

[11] Only the western side of the lake and some of the islands have a well defined shore, with sandy beaches in places especially around Samfya, though even there, some of the bays and inlets are swampy.

[5][12] It was found that infection with Schistosoma haematobium on the western shores of Lake Bangweulu, Zambia, is higher than previously reported.

[5][6] The swamps act as a check on annual flooding downstream in the Luapula by releasing water slowly through many lagoons and channels.

The lake is connected to these rivers, and they to each other, by a complex mass of channels through the swamps that may become choked by vegetation and change their course; there is no easy navigation between them.

Since colonial times attempts have been made to improve navigation and alter drainage patterns by cutting channels through the swamp.

Large grassy floodplains with an area of about 3,000 km2 lie mainly south of the swamps, but also in the north-north-east, acting as an extension of the region in the wet season.