WIO Mariculture Forum

It was a festive mood in the Mbuo village as the villagers lead by the Ushirika Cooperative waited for the guest of honour, the District Administrative Secretary for Mtwara District Mr Lucas Kambelenje, to take the scissors to cut the ribbon officially launching the 1st modern commercial milkfish pond in Mtwara and Lindi Regions (fig. 1). This was a culmination of the first year of the Regional Programme for the Sustainable Management of the Coastal Zones of the Countries of the Indian Ocean that was won by WIOMSA and is being executed under coordination of Dr. Aviti John Mmochi of the Institute of Marine Sciences of the University of Dar es Salaam. The program has successfully trained 66 fish farmers and fisheries officers to become extension officers and provide outreach services. The Project with three stations namely Mtwara/Lindi, Pemba and Tanga, has trained 22 extension officers in each station. Continue Reading »

WIOMSA in partnership with the Institute of Marine Sciences of the University of Dar es Salaam is currently implementing milkfish farming project in Tanga and Mtwara in Tanzania mainland as well as in Pemba, Zanzibar. The project namely “SUSTAINABLE MILKFISH FARMING: COST-EFFECTIVE METHODS TO INCREASE FOOD SUPPLY, INCOMES AND EMPLOYMENT IN MTWARA/LINDI, TANGA AND PEMBA” is funded by European Union ReCoMaP Programme.

The project is a result of a “Comprehensive Mariculture Survey” conducted in 2007 that was funded by the USAID through the SUCCESS project. The survey was conducted in Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. Tanga, Mtwara and Pemba are among many sites identified as suitable for milkfish farming. The partners in the SUCCESS project participated in developing the new proposal and the same local partners are implementing it. One year later, the construction of abandoned ponds for farming milkfish is underway at Kangagani, Pemba, Mbuo, Mtwara and Machui in Tanga.

Photos; Clockwise, Nearly completed one hectare pond at Mbuo, Mtwara and a private early adopter standing at his farm

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Establishment of the research and training centre in Pemba

In Mozambique, research in the aquaculture sector is still in the early stages of development but the country is not lagging behind, as we look ahead to have a sustainable aquaculture industry that is environmental friendly and economically viable.

The establishment of a National Centre for aquaculture is a step forward in the development of sustainable marine resource development in Mozambique. The existing capacity in terms of human resources and research infrastructure has limited aquaculture development to larger projects financed by inward investment from overseas and with skilled positions mostly staffed by expatriate workers.

The Nuffield Foundation (UK) is supporting a 5 year project (2007-2011), which is collaboration between the Mozambique Ministry of Fisheries, Aquaculture Department, Instituto Nacional de Investigacao Pesqueira (IIP), University Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) and the School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University (UK). The initiative aims to enable training of Mozambicans to provide the technical expertise needed to support development of aquaculture, providing trained staff who can work in the industry and transfer that expertise to the wider community to promote uptake of aquaculture as an economic activity.

The Pemba Marine Environment Centre (Figure 1) is very substantial, newly built (inaugurated in May 2007), and as-yet unoccupied. Funding was via the World Bank, and the centre is under the responsibility of the Ministry for Environment (MICOA). It includes complete buildings infrastructure for teaching field courses with 3 lecture rooms, several laboratories, cold and freezer storage rooms, office and dormitory accommodation for up to 40 people (figure 2), as well as a boat house.

The project will establish a research and training laboratory at the Pemba Marine Environment Centre, which has been identified as an excellent location for development particularly in terms of already-built wet and dry laboratories, cold storage, teaching rooms and accommodation – and location on the beach front for access to seawater.

Initial survey of the centre has been completed to determine requirements for infrastructure adaptation/development, and progress is currently underway to complete the equipment specification and installation by the end of 2008. The initial infrastructure installation will be seawater supply, live food production area, with system for experimental larval and juvenile shrimp culture in tanks in the wet lab, with the emphasis on flexibility and multi-purpose use for other species as required. The dry lab is to be equipped with general laboratory equipment to support research/training.

In the meantime, during the first year of the project, staffs from each of the Mozambique partners are completing MSc training in the UK. In addition, further staff have attended a short course on marine aquaculture in Bangor.

Figure 1. The Pemba Marine Environment Centre

Figure 2. The dormitory accommodation for up to 40 people at CEPAM

Information from Elisa Enguane, Mozambique.

It gives us pleasure to report that Mariculture practices are picking up in our WIO region. This is evidenced by the inauguration a fish farm at Kigomeni village in Tanga District in the northern parts of Tanzania. This historical event was done by his Excellency Honorable Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete the President of the United Republic of Tanzania on 21^st July 2008,

The Foundation Stone

This farm is jointly owned by 18 members since 2006, the fish farm has 7 ponds each approximately 1 acre, currently 4 ponds have been stocked with Milkfish and harvesting is expected to be in December 2008. To start with these farmers have adopted the extensive of fish farming method, but later are aiming at semi intensive method or polyculture of Milkfish and shrimps, a method that will enable the group to earn more income. On that event the group delivered the following message to the President.

“We decided to start this business after realizing that there is a tremendous decline in fish catches from the sea and the demand for fish is also increasing. So our association is focusing on increasing income to members, provision of work and also food security. We met and discussed the issue among us and realized that fish farming is the best option. One of us volunteered his land for ponds construction. We started the work in 2006 on our own but later we asked the SEMMA Project which is implemented by ACDI/VOCA- and funded by USAID, and Tanga District Aquaculture experts to assist us on technical aspects. At the moment the work is going on well. Our main constraints are lack of access to capital and availability of fingerlings as there are no hatcheries in the country. We mostly depend on the collection of the fingerlings from the wild stock which is not reliable and sustainable”.

The President of Tanzania, Honourable Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, officially launching 7 milkfish ponds at Chongoleani, Tanga District

In his replying speech to the group His Excellency the President said

“I congratulate you very much for the hard and valuable work you have done and also realizing that there is a decline in fish catches from the sea leading to fish shortage and the best solution to this is to start fish farming. This is a great thing you have done thank you very much. This is so great guys, to support the hard work you are doing, my contribution is Tanzania shillings 2,000,000 (approximately $ 1750) to assist you”

With this support , the association will be able to buy water pump and accessories.

Lugazo Zuberi, Juzar Sachak, Bakari Mkwawa and Frida Urio

ACDIVOC/SEMMA Project

Tanzania.

As for the first time the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region establish and run its own Mariculture Network, with the aim of sharing experiences, challenges and strengths of mariculture activities within and outside the region for sustainable development of the industry. We are alarmed by the recent food riots in Haiti, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Venezuela to Senegal. Here is a challenge to consider: tonight - for just one night - go to bed without dinner; go to bed hungry. Continue Reading »

Community mariculture looks to be picking up well in Kenya in the last four years as a mangrove conservation strategy?  So what needs to given priority in terms of promoting it as a livelihood option and as a mangrove conservation strategy?

(a). Approach

(b). Scale of development

(c). Financial support

(d). Culture organisms to be included to the present ones (milkfish, mullets, mud crab, red snapper)

Mirera Oersted David: dimirera@yahoo.com

In trying to understand the state, approach and bottlenecks of community mariculture in Kenya and Tanzania’s Tanga region, a workshop was held at Kwetu training centre on 30th Nov. 2004. The report discusses the limitations of community mariculture in detail which formed a good background for kwetu’s community initiatives. In the same meeting Kwetu was proposed to house and run the Kenya Mariculture secretariete based on its approach to mariculture and the mangrove environment.

recent-experiences-in-community-mariculture-workshop-report-kenya-2004

Wondering if community mariculture (silvofisheries) has anything to do with mangrove management? The mangrove day was celebrated on 26th July 2005 with an aim of discussing how communities are empowered through mariculture to conserve mangroves. Updates and issues were presented by each participating community or organisation as detailed in the report.

mangrove-day-celebration-report-in-recoginition-of-silvofisheries-kenya-2005

Conservation of mangrove wetlands is vital for improvement of fishermen livelihoods along the East African coastline. This forms the basis under which the community mariculture (silvofisheries) initiatives have been spearheaded in the Kenyan coastline to boost the livelihood of coastal communities while empowering the local people to co-manage well the mangrove ecosystem. In the last three years community mariculture innovations in Kenya were funded by Coral Reef Degradation in the Indian Ocean (CORDIO) and implemented by Kwetu Training Centre.

Continue Reading »

This is a walkboard showing vistors observing the mud crab cultured in drive-in cages in one of the sites along the coast of Kenya. The mariculture coordinator is giving explanations of what happens in the process of culture and why the method is suitable. This is an example of a series of mud crab farming initiatives happening along the coast of Kenya to improve the livelihood of the coastal communities as they get trained on how to be custaodians of the mangroves which has wider reaching goals in maintaining biodiversity. Its with such aspects that the role of silvofisheries has been well thought in Kenya to replace the traditional systems where all the mangrove resources were being seen to be for the government and hence nobody cared what happened to them apart from the govenment officers. However the participatory approach being put in place now will ensure successful managment of the mangrove resources as core ecosystems in ensuring sustainable productivity of the marine environment now and in future.

There has been a lot of effort to develop sustainable, low tech, mariculture practices as diversified livelihood options for coastal communities. Already there are successes in seaweed farming and to a lesser extent milkfish farming, bivalve farming, prawn farming, half pearl farming and crab fattening in some of the Western Indian Ocean countries. There are a number of documents written about these developments some of which are available at http://www.crc.uri.edu/, http://www.wiomsa.org/ and http://www.iode.org/ to name but a few.

The purpose of this first discussion is to do a situation analysis and decide the way forward as far as mariculture is concerned. The first questions are on milkfish farming:

Question 1. Are we ready to take off?

Question 2. If not is the problem one of those listed below? Why? Or is there something else?

1. Technical
2. Economical
3. Extension
4. Sociological