Our ocean is one of planet Earth’s greatest and most important resources. It provides food for four out of 10 people in the world. It protects us from even more dangerous effects of climate change, and it provides an income for billions of people.
Humans need a healthy ocean to survive and yet, we keep polluting, exhausting, and destroying this valuable resource.
We need to save our ocean before it’s too late, but who decides how we best take care of it? Who decides how many resources we should take from it now, or how they should be harvested? Who can be relied upon to make decisions that benefit the entire ecosystem, rather than the people of one nation, city, or village?
These are the questions that communities along the coasts of all continents face, and together they must work towards common answers.
Together, the stories of three coastal communities in India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Peru illustrate the global challenge that all people and nations share. As these populations adopt sustainable practices, they also point the way towards a healthier, more verdant, and more prosperous future.
India is the second-largest producer of fish in the world. About 20 million people living on India’s coastline rely on the sea and its rich biodiversity for food and income.
But the fish catch in India is declining. In Sindhudurg, a major fishing region situated on one of the most biodiverse coastlines in the world, destructive fishing practices and pollution are crippling the ecosystem, leaving fishermen with empty nets and pockets. Now, members of these small communities on India’s western coast are learning the methods that will preserve the local environment and provide them with a sustainable living.
Since 2012, local men and women have started farming mangrove crabs. Instead of spearing individual crabs to cook or take to market, villagers are practicing organized marine farming, rearing crabs in muddy hatcheries for months before finally harvesting.
Not only are these crabbers preserving the natural habitat — they’re earning higher incomes. With demand for crabs and oysters on the rise worldwide, the community’s profits are growing, as India’s total exports of mangrove crabs were valued at 13 million USD in 2015.
Mangrove Crab Fisherwoman
“Earlier men did everything, but now women can also do this crab cultivation. Despite all the mud, they can do it with their own hands. And so now women are not behind in anything. I am very proud of this.”
Thousands of people in the Sindhudurg region rely on the ocean to make a living, and many in the area still struggle economically. Through her mangrove farming, Samiksha Gopal Gawker has been contributing directly to an effort to sustain not only her family, but her entire community. She is a member of what is called a self-help group in India, collectives of men or women who band together to support one another by pooling their income. “After opening an account in the bank, every month we started depositing Rs 100 per person,” she recalls. “If anybody was in need of some money, we use this account and give it to them.”
But the strongest communal bonds have been formed between women in the farming collective. “Coming from mumbai, I had no idea of how I should be working in mud. We had a lot of difficulties, but it was fun doing it with everybody,” says Gawker. “For example, if somebody fell, nobody made fun, but took care of them. If somebody was unable to do something, we would tell them do it only for a bit, and then rest — the entire team was very supportive.”
Fishing is also vital work for the residents of Muanda, a small town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on the Atlantic coast of Africa. But in the last four years, pollution, erosion, and the arrival of fishing boats from China have decreased catch levels and depressed the local economy.
The DRC is connected to the sea by a sliver of 40 kilometres of coastline. Limited access to marine resources makes it particularly vulnerable to the rising sea levels and erosion affecting coastal nations around the globe. And the process is happening much faster than anyone expected: over the past 10 years the coastline has already been reduced by 15 metres.
Luckily, a new project aims to equip the people of the DRC’s coastal towns with the knowledge and resources they need to protect themselves against the threat of climate change.
Efforts are underway to develop and implement a monitoring system that will help communities track the effects of coastal erosion and warn at-risk residents of any imminent danger. The program will also help local governments plan future development projects that anticipate likely effects of climate change, as well as teach fishermen in the area more sustainable practices that will preserve Muanda’s local ecosystem and, by extension, its economy.
Fisherman
“Nowadays we are used to fishing all the way out into the high seas, because that is where we find a little more fish. When we leave the shore we have no way of knowing if there will be a storm or even rain — sometimes people die at sea because of accidents. We look forward to the project’s implementation in our village, including the ponds that will allow the fish of the sea to multiply.”
It’s no wonder that Emmanuel Nzau feels personally invested in the project’s success. Nzau has been fishing for almost forty years, and now supports six children who are still in school.
“In the village not everyone is a fisherman,” he claims. “Our mothers and wives grow cassava and onions in the gardens. But what helps us make a living is fishing.”
As the ocean creeps up the world’s shores, however, Nzau is beginning to see the very resource he depends on for survival threaten his livelihood in two direct ways: as the seas rapidly approach the land and threaten his community, he must also go deeper into the ocean in search of a good catch, leaving him more vulnerable to unpredictable weather. “In my childhood, the ocean was 100m from the village after a descent, and there was no offshore drilling as we see now,” Nzau remembers. “Today it is the ocean that advances towards the village!”
A continent away, the marine environments of South America are also experiencing rapid change. Situated off the coast of Peru and Chile, the Humboldt Current Large Marine Ecosystem (HCLME) is one of the most productive Large Marine Ecosystems in the world and accounts for as much as 20% of the global fish catch. Overexploitation of the Humboldt Current’s fisheries has had cascading effects on the entire LME — including its seaweed population.
Working to protect and preserve it is a coalition of of five organizations like the Fisherman’s Association of Alto Puno, cooperating to rehabilitate a diverse array of marine environments within the HCLME. The environmental importance of marine plant life can scarcely be overstated — it provides more than 50% of the oxygen we consume. Seaweed in particular has also been a valuable commodity for Peruvian fisheries, but as it becomes more scarce, acquiring it has become a more complicated process than simply collecting what washes up on the shore.
This federation of local Social Organizations of Artisanal Fishermen is currently seeding, extracting and collecting seaweeds in the Paracas Bay inside a concessioned area of 34 hectares. They have come together to establish more sustainable practices, and with the technical and financial support of ALGAEX (formerly ACUISUR) and the UNDP, they’ve seen yields rise by more than 30% for their divers after years of decline. Their methods rely on the unique biological properties of the macroalgaes to reproduce in laboratory settings, and their replanting efforts will sustain the local seaweed fields for years to come.
President of the Fishermen's Association of Alto Puno
"The Gigartina Chamisoi seaweed used to just wash up and we didn’t have to dive to collect it, but back then there was more of it. Due to the current and other phenomena, the situation is changing and now we have to go diving."
Gutierrez and his fellow fishermen have learned to take advantage of the seaweed’s natural tendency to reproduce in a laboratory. Using this lab-grown seaweed, they’ve repopulated the 25 acres of ocean dedicated to the project, engendering highly efficient and sustainable cultivation practices in a community that had previously over-harvested. Gutierrez proudly explains, “We have developed a pilot plan that works. We — the five associations — are now dedicated exclusively to this type of work.”
The seaweed industry provides a variety of products for direct and indirect human uses worldwide, and have an estimated total value of 10 billion USD per year. It’s Gutierrez’s goal to sustain this industry independent of the government, securing an income for him and his fellow fishermen. “We want to add value to the product, but we also want to improve our quality of life and tell the government that the fishing communities will not mismanage the seaweed fields. We want to repopulate the seaweed to make a living with it because we are dedicated to this product,” he says.
