MWAZARO BEACH, Kenya, Mar 08 (IPS) – Because the world celebrates Worldwide Girls’s Day, IPS brings a narrative of ladies who’re each creating financial alternatives for themselves and serving to to scale back the impression of local weather change.Almost two kilometers into the Indian Ocean from the Mwazaro seashore shoreline in Lunga Lunga Sub-County, Kwale County, girls might be noticed seated within the shallow ocean waters or tying strings to erected poles parallel to the waves. It’s a fascinating sight to see rows of seaweed farms within the Indian Ocean.
Seaweeds are a gaggle of algae present in seawater and are available inexperienced, crimson, and brown species. The seaweed farms are a predominantly female-dominated type of aquaculture and their house owners can solely be noticed throughout low tide, particularly within the morning. As soon as the tide is available in, the ladies will start their journey again to the shores because the waters slowly rise.
Saumu Hamadi tells IPS that in 2016, residents of Mwambao village alongside the Mwazaro seashore shoreline began a community-led, community-driven initiative to preserve mangroves, shield the setting, and restore their fisheries, which had been destroyed by vital mangrove forest degradation.
“We realized that the extra our mangroves disappeared, the fish ran away and so did the fishermen. We depend on fish for meals and cash. Males promote the large fish, such because the kingfish, shark, and rayfish, to the seashore inns, and ladies promote crabs and prawns by the roadside or in small village markets. The state of affairs was threatening our every day bread and we determined to volunteer as a neighborhood to revive and shield our mangroves,” Hamadi explains.
“There have been too many individuals slicing down mangrove timber, destroying the locations that the fish we rely on name dwelling. There was additionally a whole lot of soil erosion and the water flowing alongside the River Hamisi that pours into the Indian Ocean inside this village’s shoreline carried the soil into the ocean, polluting it. We shaped two neighborhood teams: Mwambao Mkuyuni Youth and Bati Seashore Mwambao. Girls make up 80 p.c of the members in each teams.”
Abdalla Bidii Lewa, a neighborhood coordinator on mangrove restoration in Pongwe Kikoneni ward the place Mwambao village is positioned and chair of Bati Seaweed Farmers, tells IPS, “Mangroves have protected our villages and surrounding areas from excessive climate and disasters akin to people who affected giant components of the coastal area throughout the heavy floods in November and early December 2023. The place homes had been swept away and farmlands destroyed, we had been protected from the catastrophe.”
Analysis reveals mangroves considerably stop the development of local weather change whereas additionally enjoying a serious function in limiting its impression. That is important as temperatures rise dangerously, sea stage shoots to alarming ranges, and coastal climate-induced disasters turn into frequent, intense, and extreme, with catastrophic outcomes.
To avert coastal local weather hazards and safe mangrove-related advantages for current and future generations, the neighborhood undertook mangrove conservation and restoration actions in earnest.
Then, in 2017, a scientist conducting analysis into seaweed farming utilizing the off-bottom seaweed farming methodology—tying algal fonds or seaweed seeds to ropes hooked up between picket pegs pushed into the ocean sediment—approached girls in the neighborhood.
“Of the 2 seaweed strains that develop on Kenya’s south coast, cottonii and spinosum, the scientist really helpful that we plant spinosum and gave us the seeds. Seaweeds don’t want one thing to develop on. We erect sticks into the bottom contained in the ocean water throughout low tides and plant seaweed seeds by tying them to strings fixed on these sticks. We harvest each 45 days. We’ve to tie the strings and place the sticks correctly in order that they aren’t swept away throughout excessive tides,” says Rehema Abdalla, a seaweed farmer in Mwambao village.
On considerations that aquaculture may kind the entry level for mangrove degradation, Hamadi says, “It isn’t the case with seaweed. The mangroves are vital to the survival of our seaweeds by guaranteeing that now we have regular, protected tides and waves. When seaweeds are swept away, they keep trapped inside the roots of the mangroves and we gather them from there. It’s uncommon, however from time to time, the tides might be very sturdy.”
Lewa says seaweed farming is rising as a brand new and sustainable local weather change mitigation technique whereas providing communities adjoining to mangroves and coastlines an alternate livelihood, lowering dependency on fishing and pure sources inside mangrove forests and the oceans. Seaweeds are superfoods, extremely nutritious, can be utilized in sushi, soups, salads, and smoothies, and are an asset within the feed trade, cosmetics, and prescription drugs.
“The quantity of seaweed harvested is determined by the quantity planted and each 45 days, you’ll get a harvest. In the intervening time, one kilogram of seaweed goes for USD 22 (Ksh 35). I’m at present concentrating on making USD 467 (Ksh 75,000) each 45 days from seaweed. We additionally promote seaweed seeds to different girls doing mangrove conservation, akin to Imani Gazi and the Gazi Girls Mangrove Restoration Group, from inside Kwale County,” Hamadi says.
Seaweeds praise mangroves by absorbing vitamins akin to nitrogen, phosphorous, and carbon dioxide. They don’t require soil, fertilizer, freshwater, or pesticides, and so they considerably enhance the setting during which they develop. Seaweeds effectively take in carbon dioxide, utilizing it to develop and even when harvested, the carbon stays within the ocean.
Analysis reveals that seaweed can pull extra greenhouse gases from the water in comparison with seagrass, salt marshes, and mangroves primarily based on biomass. Mwazaro’s seashore neighborhood is on observe so as to add seaweed as a part of their blue carbon sink, setting the tempo for different coastal communities.
All the identical, the ladies are going through challenges akin to a scarcity of mortar boats to assist transport their harvest to the shore. At present, they use a tedious course of whereby they tie sacks of seaweed on their waste and look ahead to the onset of excessive tide within the early afternoon to push them from the seaweed farms to the shore. They’re additionally struggling to entry a bigger market, at present counting on one main large-scale purchaser and small patrons inside the village and different mangrove conservation teams from neighboring villages.
IPS UN Bureau Report
This function is revealed with the help of Open Society Foundations.
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