aquaculture training

Sustainable Livelihoods Project Update

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The rainy season is upon us here in Madagascar, and while this is still the dry, drought-riddled southwest, there was just enough rain to hinder seaweed farming operations. Once seaweed has been grown in the ocean, it must be sun-dried for about three days before it can be sold. During this drying process, it is important that fresh water avoids contact with seaweed, as it breaks down the valuable carrageenan inside the seaweed. Farmers in the Bay of Ranobe have therefore been hindered in their attempts to dry seaweed, due to the intermittent rain, and results for the months of January and February reflected this. Just over 4 tons of seaweed was sold in the first two months of the year, valuing 2.5 million MGA (745 USD).

However, we are happy to announce the completion of a large storage facility in the community of Betsibaroke, the biggest seaweed producing village in the Bay. This facility, possible with funding from program partners Fonds Regional pour le Developpement Agricole (FRDA), provides farmers with a safe and secure place to dry and store seaweed, and avoid any future disruptions due to inclement weather. The centre will also act as an aquaculture education centre, meeting place and centralized collection depot for sold seaweed. With a capacity to store 12 tons of seaweed, the centre will be officially opened in March.

construction of storage facility

building storage facilitiy

new storage facility

storage facility

 

Sea cucumber farming continued to be highly successful in the first two months of the year, with 2,587 sea cucumbers harvested, and 12 million MGA (3,642 USD) generated for the communities involved. On the back of these outstanding results, program partners Indian Ocean Trepang (IOT) have agreed to expand sea cucumber farming activities, and over the coming months we will be almost doubling the number of families involved, with additional increases scheduled throughout the year! In scaling up this sustainable, environmentally-sound method of sea cucumber farming, we can continue to reduce pressure on wild fisheries, replenish natural stocks of sea cucumbers, and provide a meaningful and reliable source of income for local communities.

February also saw the very exciting start of entrepreneurial training for communities involved in the Darwin Initiative-funded Sustainable Livelihoods programme. Farmers from the villages of Ifaty and Amboaboke attended a two-day training course at Reef Doctor on 15th & 16th February, learning basic book keeping skills, financial management and financial planning. This training program, developed by programme partners Conseil Diocesain De Developpement (CDD), provides farmers with the skills and information necessary to convert their aquaculture activities into small businesses, and therefore to maximize their income generating potential. Despite the low level of education, and high level of poverty in the Bay of Ranobe, this training programme offers communities the potential to shape their own future and manage their own marine resources – another step towards independence. Entrepreneurial training is being rolled out to all households in all the villages involved in the project over the coming months.

aquaculture training

 

Update by Project Leader Cale Golding and Comms Officer Ivana Rubino

 

partner logos

seaweed lady on beach

December Aquaculture Update

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The end of 2016 brought mixed fortunes for the farmers involved in the Darwin Initiative-funded Alternative Livelihoods programme developed by Reef Doctor in partnership with DRRHP (Regional Director of Fisheries), COPEFRITO/IOT, and FRDA. Seaweed farmers brought modest harvests for sale with Ifaty selling 780 kg, Amboaboaky selling 101 kg, and Ambolomailake selling 787 kg.  In contrast, Madriano more than quadrupled their previous harvest, with 574 kg sold, and Betsibaroke was just 21 kg shy of a record harvest, selling an impressive 2559 kg. With sales every month there will be another chance to improve on these figures soon.

The seaweed farmers of Mangily, who have not sold seaweed since August due to an infection of epiphytic filamentous algae, received confirmation that they will be able to start farming activities again in January, with deliveries of healthy seaweed propagules from Reef Doctor’s seaweed nursery, to begin soon.

Sea cucumber figures in the village of Andrevo were as impressive as ever with 510 individuals sold. Farmers in Ambolomailaky also had a little extra for New Years celebrations (New Year celebrations are much more important than Christmas celebrations in Madagascar) with 922 individuals sold. Sea cucumber farming activity generated 6.68 million Ariary in December.

The total income generated by the Alternative Livelihoods programme in December was 9.56 million Ariary.  That’s the equivalent of 2,881 USD!

2016 ended on a positive note for everyone involved in the programme. 107 new households joined the programme in 2016 and the go ahead was given for the construction of a communal storage facility and drying table in the village of Betsibaroke. The magasin is currently under construction and will house dried seaweed between harvesting and sale, which will allow the farmers to store larger volumes of seaweed, and offer protection from rain which can damage the harvest.  We are confident this positive thread will carry on running through 2017!

Report by Cale Golding & Ivana Rubino

Sea cucumber aquaculture site

Poverty and Alternative Livelihoods in the Bay of Ranobe

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The first half of 2016 has been a busy year for the Alternative Livelihoods team at Reef Doctor, with the Darwin Initiative funded project expanding into three new villages, and 120 new households joining in aquaculture activities.

The programme, designed to give impoverished turtle hunters and beach-seiners a less destructive and more sustainable source of income, provides training, start-up materials, access to markets and ongoing support so fishermen can establish seaweed and sea cucumber farms. While there is no conservation ‘silver bullet’, the tie between poverty and resource consumption means that addressing one aspect can influence the other. By transitioning fishermen from being resource consumers to resource producers, participants are empowered to manage their marine resources. As reliance on fishing declines, competition for limited resources is reduced, resulting in greater incentive to provide for long-term management. Diversification of livelihoods and productive, sustainable employment leads into the conservation of marine resources, and is achieving substantial results.

In the first four months of 2016, seaweed and sea cucumber farming across the bay have generated a combined income of over 29 million MGA (9,171 USD). This is a substantial boost to the economy of one of the poorest regions in the world, and is almost double the total income generated from these activities in 2015. Not only are more households signing up for alternative livelihoods, but existing households are embracing the activity, spending less time fishing and increasing their productivity. For the first time, households are earning above the poverty line, allowing them access to things they couldn’t have before.

“Do you see that?” asks Seraphine, a sea cucumber farmer from the village of Andrevo as she points to a roll of corrugated iron in her house. “That’s my new roof. That’s from sea cucumbers”.

For the traditionally fishing-based villages of the Bay of Ranobe, the new aquaculture industry is reducing vulnerability to environmental and social changes, and declining fishery catches.

“When I only relied on fishing I could come home with no fish”, claims Ferolle, a seaweed farmer from the village of Ifaty. “I am no longer worried about finding food… I can always expect to get something at the end of the (seaweed) growing cycle”.

This surety, that there will be a regular income every month, is almost as welcome as the income itself. The constant strain of living day-to-day, of not knowing if there will be enough food to eat, is a reality for the majority of people in this region. Productive employment in aquaculture farms is giving quality of life back to the people of the Bay of Ranobe, relieving the daily burden of living in poverty.

Poverty presents itself in many ways; as income, as health, as education, as vulnerability, as environmental capital, as quality of life. Reef Doctor’s Alternative Livelihoods project is demonstrating just how interconnected these aspects are, and how something as seemingly small as seaweed can change a life.

Story by Aquaculture Project Manager Cale Goldin; photos by Comms Officer Ivana Rubino

seaweed line maintenance

May Aquaculture Update: Record Seaweed Sales!

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Seaweed farmers across the Bay of Ranobe were busy in May, finishing upgrades to their farms
which allow an increase in productivity. As part of the on-going support Reef Doctor provides to participants in this Darwin Initiative funded programme, seaweed farmers received extra materials and training in a new method of attaching seaweed to their rope – an improvement which allows them to grow more seaweed on their existing farm. The benefits of this new technique were quickly realised, with three out of five villages engaged in the programme boasting record harvests. Combined, the villages of Ifaty, Mangily, Amboaboaky, Ambomolailaky and Betsibaroke sold 9,376 kgs of dried seaweed, an increase of 66% from the last sale in those villages.

Combined with the income generated from sea cucumber harvests (400 sea cucumbers sold from the village of Andrevo), participants in our alternative livelihoods programme received 6,355,500 MGA in May. That’s the equivalent of $2,012 USD, and a 37% increase since last month! All told, the results from May suggest that seaweed and sea cucumber farmers are embracing their new sustainable livelihood, and looking forward to a brighter future.


Continuing with our farmers’ profiles, this month we would like to introduce you to Melene, who farms seaweed with her brother Joany. Reef Doctor communications officer Ivana Rubino met with her at her home in Ambolomailaky.

Seaweed Farmers: Melene (25) and Joany (18)
Village: Ambolamailkay
Occupation: Fishermen (Fish and Octopus) and marine gleaning

Melene skilfully removes scales from a basin of fish at her feet. Around her, family and friends help with the preparation of food. They chatter back and forth in their fast-paced Vezo dialect. It is late in the afternoon and Melene’s compound is busy but relaxed with people coming back from fishing, farming and other activities. Children are playing and eating corn on the cob. A group of watchful women attend small portable stoves filled with charcoal – the only cooking fuel available in this region. The smell of frying fish permeates the air.

“I started farming seaweed because it is good for us”, Melene says. She gestures towards the basin full of large fresh fish at her feet. “To buy fish like this”. Melene’s seaweed farm helps with some of her family’s most pressing needs, like food security, but they still struggle with larger expenses. “It is not enough for now. My seaweed is like that,” Melene says, pointing to a small sack of dried seaweed, worth about 5,000 Ariary. It is a small harvest, but she is optimistic. “It is still good, my seaweed is growing well. I work in the sea three or four days a week. The problem is I don’t have a pirogue. We use someone else’s pirogue. I will find a pirogue to go there every day”.

Melene is different to many seaweed farmers in the Bay of Ranobe. The majority of farming households are comprised of husband and wife teams. Generally, the husbands look after the seaweed in the water, while women take care of the on-land activities, such as drying and preparing the seaweed for sale. While there are female seaweed technicians, water beyond the intertidal zone is still considered by many to be the working place of men. Women traditionally stick to the intertidal zone, collecting urchins, octopus, or whatever else they can find living among the rocks. The money found from gleaning the intertidal zone is small in comparison to the income that can be found fishing the deeper waters of the bay – the money that men bring into the household. For Melene however, who borrows a pirogue to brave the deeper waters, seaweed farming is an opportunity to provide for her family. “I am more respected in my household when I do this [farm seaweed]”, she says.

Particularly in the rural areas of Southwest Madagascar, a male-dominated society prevails. The Olo Be, or village elders, who settle disputes and preside over each community, is exclusively male. The opportunity for women like Melene to work and lead her household gives them a voice in public life. Melene speaks confidently while she works, clearly comfortable being the spokesperson for her family. She acknowledges that her farm is still small, and will have to grow to provide all the necessities for her family, but what strikes me is her self-assuredness. “I will find a pirogue to go there every day”, she said. Not ‘I will try’, or ‘hopefully I can find’, but ‘I will’. And I believe her.

Written by RD Comms Officer Ivana Rubino and Aquaculture Project Manger Cale Golding

seaweed lady on beach

April Aquaculture Update & Sea Cucumber Farmer Interview

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Seaweed farming continued to grow across the Bay of Ranobe in April, with record harvests in the villages of Amboaboaky and Ifaty.  The former sold a total of 382 kg, and the latter an impressive 2,837 kg of dried seaweed.  Together with farmers in Mangily, seaweed farms in the bay generated 1,723,000 MGA.

After the large sea cucumber harvests last month, sales this month were more modest in the villages of Andrevo and Ambolomailaky.  A total 688 sea cucumbers were harvested from community managed farms, with a value of 2,903,000 MGA.  The total income generated by the Darwin Initiative-funded alternative livelihoods in April was $1,468 USD, money that would not otherwise be available to these rural communities.

 

Last month, we introduced you to Ferolle and Vola, husband and wife seaweed farmers from the village of Ifaty.  This month, ReefDoctor Communications Officer Ivana Rubino travelled to the village to Ambolomalaiky, to meet to sea cucumber farmers Lera and Soahasy Raberzery.

 

Lera (58) and Soahasy (54)

Village: Ambolomailaky

Occupation: Fishermen (fish, octopus, turtles) and marine gleaning

We asked Lera what he thought of the project when it began. “Before we always dived for sea cucumbers and we knew the value of cucumbers. When the sea cucumber project came here we knew that it would be a big benefit to us”, Lera says.  “I know that the resources in the sea are decreasing now and I know that it [farming] is an alternative livelihood for us and I know that it protects our way of living in the sea”.

Lera pauses for a moment, and looks off in the direction of the sea.  His pens are not visible from his house, but one can see that his thoughts are out there in the water.  We are sitting by the house he shares with his wife Soahasy, on tihy, traditional mats made of leaves.  It is early afternoon, siesta hour, and there is a quiet stillness to the family compound.

“It would be different for me if the project was not there. I could find money but it isn’t the same.  I could buy pots if I work in the same job I had before but I could not manage to pay for something that has a big value like [improvements to] the house or anything like that”.

“We see that there is a change in our household”, Sohasy adds.  “For instance we have a vondro house and we can change it step by step to be made of corrugated metal”.  Vondro is the typical construction material for Vezo houses.  It is a form of dried reed that is relatively inexpensive, but does not last long and offers limited protection from the elements.  The income earned from sea cucumber farming allows such investments that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive.

“I can see that it helps a lot for food that we have in our household,” Soahasy continues.  We encountered Soahasy earlier this morning, maintaining her sea cucumber pens.  She talks now with the same sense of energy which with she cleaned her pens.  She is clearly happy to talk about her experiences with sea cucumbers, and list the changes in their lives since they began the project.

“Our children don’t go to the public school, they can now go to the convent school,” she says.  Public schools in the region are typically under-resourced, over-populated and provide only a basic level of education.  This low level of education makes it very difficult for people in the village to find suitable employment.  As a result, they turn to fishing as a way to eke out a livelihood.  In providing quality education, Lera and Soahasy are offering their children a future that is not entrenched in poverty.

“It changed our life a lot.”

Story by RD Comms Officer Ivana Rubino and Aquaculture Project Manger Cale Golding