Blue Ventures Madagascar Fishing Revolution Expands

Image Blue Ventures at Magadascar working with local communities

Blue Ventures -organization working to rebuild fisheries with local communities is expanding after having successfully gone viral in Madagascar and obtaining funds and award recognition. 

The Thomson Reuters Foundation reported on April 16th from the grounds of Madagascar Velondriake “a remote fishing community”. 

“A quiet revolution is under way that takes marine conservation beyond saving the environment...,” the media reported. 

Blue Ventures with operations in Belize and Madagascar is no ordinary organization. Working and supported by partners which include; local communities, Universities, WWF, Conservation International, Save our Seas Foundation, Smart Fish, Madagascar National Parks, IUCN, UNDP, Google Earth Explore the Oceans, CITE, UNFPA Madagascar, National Geographic Conservation Trust, and others the organization thinks small to solve big problems and obtain large scale successful results. 

Blue Ventures analysis fishery stocks, gains insight on local communities and artisan fishermen ways and later intervenes with beneficially programs both to protect and manage the environment, safeguard fish stocks and valuable species and boost sustainable fishery production by empowering local communities. 

Blue Ventures has a special interest in collapsed overfished areas. The organization introduces local communities with successful systems and imparts knowledge as well as provides techniques and skills that stabilize local domestic food consumption and contribute to international food exports, environment, society and economy.

Blue Ventures co-founder and Executive Director Alasdair Harris explained that when he saw the rapid decline of Madagascar´s marine environment due to overfishing and climate change it became clear that his efforts had to focus on people as much as on saving endangered species.

“Our story started over a decade ago, surveying coral reefs in the Mozambique channel. Vezo communities in southern Madagascar were concerned about the decline of their fisheries, so we supported one village to experiment with closing off a small section of their octopus gleaning area for a few months, to see whether this might boost productivity,” the organization explains.

When the program ended its first season reaping huge benefits the news spread through the coast reaching fishing communities around Madagascar. Soon the program went viral in the island. 

“Crucially, this sparked interest in more ambitious coastal management efforts, leading to the creation of the country’s first Locally Managed Marine Area LMMA governed by a small network of fishing villages,” Blue Ventures stated. 

Today their revolutionary fishery program is active in 64 LLMAs. 11% of the Madagascar´s seabed is managed “by communities, for communities” inspired by Blue Ventures. They work octopus and local fish specie stocks and aquaculture such as seaweed and cucumber farming.

Blue Ventures also holds a 24-7, 365 days a year, open call for any volunteer -expert in Oceanography, ocean science or just part of the general public, to take part in expeditions in Madagascar as well as in Belize. 

“All of our volunteers complete an intensive two-week science training programme run by our field scientists at the beginning of each expedition, involving numerous snorkelling and diving excursions as well as informal lectures, small group discussions and practical exercises on coral and fish species identification,” Blue Ventures calls promising wonders.

“The experiences have guided our journey searching for new approaches to demonstrate that marine conservation can be in everyone’s interest, and that taking less from our ocean can give us much much more,” Blue Ventures states. 

Trust Organization reported that Blue Ventures was recently awarded the 1.25 million USD Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. 

Blue Ventures community-based conservation program is poised to spread through Western Indian Ocean and has taken off in other African countries, including Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya.

"Coastal communities in the tropics are very often living on the front lines of climate change, they are often living in extreme poverty and they are often living with such dependence on fishing for income that they have no alternatives economically for survival," the Executive Director of Blue Ventures Harris said.

Blue Ventures assures to “reimagine marine protection; introduce short-term closures of fishing grounds to boost catches and build enduring support for more ambitious conservation efforts led by communities, for communities”.

They say that their work is of notable importance considering that “90% of global fish stocks are either overfished or fully fished”. More than 1 billion people throughout the world rely on fish as a source of protein. Small-scale fisheries support the livelihoods of at least 500 million people worldwide. Marine ecosystems and traditional coastal livelihoods are facing unprecedented pressures from overfishing and climate change. 

Blue Ventures is now active in more than 75 communities, has 40 thousand workers engaged, 5.8 thousand square km of protected and managed ocean coast waters and promises to expand.