Kenyan Fishermen Turn to Seaweed Farming to Avert Climate Change.
By Charles Ogallo.
The number of Kenyan fishermen and farmers turning to seaweed
farming at the Coast is alarming with scientists blaming it on adverse effects
of climate change.
Experts believe that climate change was taking toll on villagers
along the Kenyan Coast who have depended on the ocean for fishing for many
decades as fish stocks continues to dwindle.
Ali Mwajafa is a fisherman at Shimoni area of Kwale county in
Kenya. For the last 35 years Mr Mwajafa says that his family has lived
comfortably from incomes he used to get from fishing.
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| Farmers at Mkwiro Seaweed Farm , Wasini Island |
But things seem to have taken a different turn in
Mwajafa’s life as trade he claims to have inherited from his late
father Shehe Mbwana continues to fall apart.
The big catch he once boasted of during his hey days seems to be
no more. The little income he now gets from fishing can not even help him
afford a meal a day for his bloated family of 12.
“I am absolutely demoralized and ashamed of what is happening,
the sea has become rough with no fish to catch , many fishermen are speeding
long nights without getting enough catch” says the 52 year old Mwajafa as he
heads to the sea to visit one of his new found seaweed farms.
The old man still remembers how his late father who died a
decade ago from a long illness could catch large stocks of fish enough for the
market and food in one night without going deeper in the sea “I was amazed by
the big catch my father got that first day I joined him in the sea, things were
good and fish were everywhere but now no more”.
Mr.Mwajafa is among tens of fishermen and farmers in
Shimoni, Kwale county currently reverting to new fortunes as fish stocks
continues to decline over time in the changing ocean..
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| Seaweed Farm in Mkwiro, Wasini Island |
He joined
many fishermen and farmers in the area who have shifted from fishing to
potentially lucrative seaweed farming to turn around their fortunes.
“Since
we started tending and growing seaweed, our lives have slowly changed for the
better. I can now get good money,’’ said Mwajafa.
Experts
say the shrink in fish captures in ocean is due to adverse effects of Climate
change and scarcity of available natural resources in the coastal marine
ecosystem.
They have
also linked the sharp fall to the warming ocean water and turbulent conditions
on the seabed because of more extreme weather.
Kenyan
Researchers have estimated that seaweed farming could earn Kenya up to Kshs40
million a year, the commercial viability that has largely exposed a
market potential that could also put the country at par with Tanzania and
Zanzibar.
Those
spearheading research work in Seaweed farming at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries
Research Institute (KMFRI) in Mombasa say there is great potential in marine-based
farming and that it could help rejuvenate thousands of lives of a large
population especial at the Kenyan coast that depends on fisheries.
“Seaweed
farming has been identified as a good prospect for social and economic
development of coastal areas,” said KMFRI Programme Co-ordinator Betty Nyonje.
According
to her seaweed farming would diversify livelihood opportunities for poor
fishing communities whose source of income have seriously been put at risk by
diminished capture fisheries.
Seaweed
farms are generally located in shallow, calm and constantly warm waters, but
only where the bottom is sandy.
Extracts
of dried seaweed are used as thickeners, food and in the global pharmaceutical
and cosmetic industries.
The high
fibre content of the seaweed acts as a soil conditioner and the mineral content
as a fertiliser.
The first model seaweed farm was
developed at Kibuyuni, a seaside village in Shimoni Kwale with 2,500 people.
Other sites include Mkwiro in Wasini Island with 1,600 people, Funzi with 1,500
inhabitants and Gazi with 15,000 residents.
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