A living laboratory
One site, many disciplines: a working landscape built for applied research and partnership.
Research at Kijiko
Forest, lakeshore, nursery, working farm and biochar production on one site, with on-site accommodation for field teams, established community relationships, and more than a decade of records and species inventories. It makes Kijiko an unusually complete place to run applied environmental and agricultural research.
What we can offer a research partner: a real working landscape rather than a plot, long-term records, local knowledge, and the logistics to host teams in the field.
Records and publications
Every survey carried out at Kijiko is written up and published in full, so the record is open to anyone working on this lakeshore. Each volume states what was counted, when it was counted and how, so that a later survey can be measured against it.
Trees of Kijiko Lakeside Forest
The 98 tree species recorded in the May 2016 botanical survey, one to a page, each with photographs of the trunk, the slash and the leaf arrangement. Three are protected tree species carrying a national or international threat rating. This is the founding ecological record for the site.
In preparationBirds of Kijiko Lakeside Forest
The December 2020 fauna survey recorded more than ninety bird species on the same ground, among them the grey parrot, which is Endangered worldwide. The volume is drafted and in review, and will be published here once the record is complete.
Expected later in 2026
SINTEF Energi: biochar & bioenergy
A NOREC-supported exchange project with SINTEF Energi (Trondheim, Norway) on biochar and bioenergy, launching at the Kijiko site in August 2026. It pairs Kijiko’s field capacity with SINTEF’s energy-research expertise to develop biochar, charged bio-fertilizer and clean-burning briquettes.
Ntakye Farm
Ntakye Farm at Busoke is one of Kijiko’s affiliate agribusinesses, with shared ownership and personnel. Its projects, from solar-powered milking machines to solar knapsack sprayers, remain credited to Ntakye and now sit within the Kijiko portfolio. Read how the two organisations fit together →