Mzungu the Gleaner
Farming the Sea
For Mzungu, a 31-year-old mother of four from Wasini Island, the waters of East Africa’s Coral Refuge are a vital lifeline that help her keep her family fed and clothed.
After being separated from her husband in early 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mzungu has become the sole caretaker for herself and her four children. “My husband lives on an island near here,” she says, pointing at the sea where invisible lines divide Kenya and Tanzania’s coastal islands. “He sends us some money, but it is very little. He’s very poor, like us.”
Several years ago as part of a local economic development project, Mzungu learned how to farm seaweed alongside many other women from her village. Without any other means of income, she began weaving seaweed seedlings into rope to start her own underwater farm, hoping the crop would add to the slim income she already made foraging along the shore at low tide.
Mzungu gets dressed at home before going to fetch the seaweed she left drying by the beach hours before. “It’s a difficult job because there’s a lot of process involved and the pay is very small,” she says, explaining a kilo of seaweed sells for only KES25, or about US$0.25. “It’s also a slow process”, she adds, “it takes about four to five months to get the first harvest.”
Mzungu walks through her village on her way to the shore to fetch the day’s seaweed harvest. Wasini Island, known for its majestic baobab trees, was formed thousands of years ago by a fossilized coral reef. Today, dozens of small villages like Mzungu’s are built upon that ancient reef.
Mzungu carries a bag of freshly dried seaweed back to the village to sell. “Part of what I like about seaweed farming is that it gets me out of the house -- I exercise with it!”
Dozens of small seaweed seedlings are woven onto a rope by Mzungu and a neighbor, to be planted in the sea during the next low tide.
Alternative livelihoods like seaweed farming can help diversify a community’s job opportunities, as well as relieve some fishing pressure on depleted reefs to give them time to bounce back. When new livelihood opportunities are based on natural marine resources -- like seaweed cultivation, coral reef tourism, or carbon credits for healthy mangrove forests -- it creates a tangible benefit for communities maintaining the health of their marine environment, encouraging conservation.
Mzungu carefully places lines of seedlings in shallow, nearshore water.
A new batch of seaweed is freshly harvested and ready to be laid out to dry. “In our village most of us are totally poor -- not just poor, but totally poor,” Mzungu says. “I started farming seaweed to try and make a bit of money,” extra funds that became even more important for her family during the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic.
Mzungu pokes the reef with a tool, trying to dig an octopus out. “It’s a small one, but I’ll try anyway,” she says. When the tide is low on Wasini, women and children go out to “glean” -- hunting octopus and fish to sell at market. A kilo of octopus can sell for KES180, or around US$1.80. On good days, Mzungu can catch up to four kilos. Other times, she comes away empty-handed.
In the afternoon, a pan of small fish fry in Mzungu’s kitchen as she prepares dinner for her and her four children.
She carefully folds chapati, a traditional flatbread made of flour and water, fried to a crisp.
“With the money I earn from the sea, I buy food and clothes for my children,” says Mzungu as she sits at home with her daughter. “I wish I could use it for other things, but for now, that’s all I can afford.”
Coral reefs are the most diverse and productive ecosystems in the world’s oceans. They occupy just .1% of the sea, yet are home to 25% of all marine species. East Africa’s Coral Refuge is a critical source of food and livelihoods for people like Mzungu all across Kenya and Tanzania. Let’s work together to safeguard these globally important reefs for the benefit of communities, the marine ecosystem, and the world: Join us and learn more about WCS’s coral reef conservation work .
