International Womens Day, 2024 – Inside Women Dominated Seaweed Farms in Kenyas Indian Ocean Waters — Global Issues

by Joyce Chimbi (mwazaro seashore, kenya)Friday, March 08, 2024Inter Press Service

Seaweeds are a bunch of algae present in seawater and are available in inexperienced, pink, and brown species. The seaweed farms are a predominantly female-dominated type of aquaculture and their homeowners 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, defend the atmosphere, 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 lodges, and ladies promote crabs and prawns by the roadside or in small village markets. The scenario was threatening our day by day bread and we determined to volunteer as a neighborhood to revive and defend our mangroves,” Hamadi explains.

“There have been too many individuals reducing down mangrove timber, destroying the locations that the fish we rely on name dwelling. There was additionally a number 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 fashioned two neighborhood teams: Mwambao Mkuyuni Youth and Bati Seaside Mwambao. Ladies make up 80 % of the members in each teams.”

Abdalla Bidii Lewa, a neighborhood coordinator on mangrove restoration in Pongwe Kikoneni ward the place Mwambao village is situated and chair of Bati Seaweed Farmers, tells IPS, “Mangroves have protected our villages and surrounding areas from excessive climate and disasters akin to those who affected massive components of the coastal area throughout the heavy floods in November and early December 2023. The place homes have been swept away and farmlands destroyed, we have been secure from the catastrophe.”

Analysis reveals mangroves considerably forestall the development of local weather change whereas additionally enjoying a serious function in limiting its impression. That is essential 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 technique—tying algal fonds or seaweed seeds to ropes connected 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 useful 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 have now to tie the strings and place the sticks correctly in order that they don’t seem to be swept away throughout excessive tides,” says Rehema Abdalla, a seaweed farmer in Mwambao village.

On considerations that aquaculture may type the entry level for mangrove degradation, Hamadi says, “It’s not the case with seaweed. The mangroves are vital to the survival of our seaweeds by making certain that we now have regular, secure tides and waves. When seaweeds are swept away, they keep trapped throughout the roots of the mangroves and we gather them from there. It’s uncommon, however now and again, 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 another livelihood, decreasing dependency on fishing and pure assets 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 business, cosmetics, and prescribed drugs.

“The quantity of seaweed harvested relies on 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 presently 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 Ladies 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, they usually considerably enhance the atmosphere wherein 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 based mostly 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 an absence of mortar boats to assist transport their harvest to the shore. At the moment, they use a tedious course of whereby they tie sacks of seaweed on their waste and watch for 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, presently counting on one main large-scale purchaser and small consumers throughout the village and different mangrove conservation teams from neighboring villages.

IPS UN Bureau Report

This characteristic is printed with the help of Open Society Foundations.

© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal supply: Inter Press Service

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