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WWF And Swatch Form Timely Conservation Partnership For Island Wildlife In Mozambique Channel



Dugongs and Sustainable Development A Journalist's Briefing by WWF

March 17, 1998
(En Françe)
(In German)

Bazaruto Archipelago
Location: Mozambique Channel 500 Km north of Maputo, 20 Km east of Vilanculos
Size: 5 islands, largest 42 kilometres long
Wildlife: Over 2,000 fish species, More than 180 bird species,3 species whales,4 species dolphins, dugong ( threatened), crocodiles, red duiker, red squirrels, samango monkeys, four-toed elephant shrew, snakes
WWF: Active in islands since 1989
Goal: National Park status for  all islands, and co-management with local communities
Pristine for most of this century, the five islands that comprise the Bazaruto Archipelago are ecological gems in the azure waters of the Indian Ocean.  Renowned for their diverse animal and plant populations, they are havens for  humpback whales, sea turtles, and the highly-threatened sea cow, or  dugong.  And for nearly a decade WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature has worked to keep it that way.  With the Mozambican Wildlife Department and other conservation groups such as the Endangered Wildlife Trust, WWF is working to manage  tourism development, encourage sustainable fishing, and promote the entire island chain as a National Park, successfully weaving traditional activities by developing a collaborative management scheme by local stakeholders together with park authorities.

WWF in Bazaruto
Since 1989, WWF has worked with local government agencies and other conservation organizations, boosting staff on-site and promoting programmes to help local Tsonga communities manage resources sustainably.  As part of this, nature guards hired from nearby villages monitor protected reefs and spread conservation messages. Local communities themselves  now protect female turtles and eggs and crocodile nests.

A conservation management plan provides guidelines for tourist development, sustainable fishing and farming, and forges the tools necessary for achieving our ultimate goal--protection of  entire island chain as a National Park.    The three most southern islands, Benguera, Magaruque and Bangue already merit park status as the  Parque Nacional do Bazaruto.  The islands of Bazaruto and Santa Carolina remain only "Zones of Surveillance," which offer  less than adequate legislative protection.

Crown Jewels of the Western Indian Ocean
The five sandy islands that make up the Bazaruto Archipelago are located in the Mozambique Channel, 500 kilometres north of Maputo and about 20 kilometres east of Vilanculos.  The largest, Bazaruto, is 42 kilometres long and about four kilometres wide.  All the islands support a bounty of diverse wildlife, the most astounding of which is seen in the sapphire-blue waters that lap at their shores. 

The 2,000 species of fishes in the archipelago represent more than 80 percent of all marine families of the Indo-Pacific region. Sailfish, three species of marlin, sharks and migratory tuna are common in the deeper waters off the continental shelf.  Marine mammals are also abundant. Spinner, bottlenose, common and humpback dolphins are common. Residents whales include minke and right, and from September to November, humpback whales pass the islands on their annual migration to Madagascar.  Green loggerhead and leatherback turtles nest on the sandy shores.

Dugongs are the islands' most threatened inhabitants.  And their numbers seem to be decreasing rapidly, primarily as a result of entanglement in gill nets used in nearby fisheries. These slow-moving relatives to the manatee are verging on extinction in the Indo-Pacific and the Persian Gulf regions.  The approximately 110 animals that graze on sea grasses along Bazaruto's islands are thought to be the last  viable population on the entire east coast of Africa. 

The Challenges
When WWF first arrived on the scene,  Mozambique's decades-long civil war raged, surging the islands' population to more than double its size with civilians from the mainland in search of security.  Refugees cultivated the islands using slash-and-burn methods, and introduced sheep and goats which further destroyed natural vegetation. A 1992 peace accord and good rains encouraged many mainlanders to return home and the population now hovers at around 2,700, but the illegal and/or unsustainable practices are firmly entrenched. 

At the outset of WWF's involvement, Bazaruto was also fast becoming a hotspot for  "eco" adventurers eager for more remote destinations--a burgeoning resort industry and commensurate development was in the offing.   Local fishers who for several centuries had trolled the seas using traditional methods were adopting more modern, damaging methods including gill nets, which are virtually impossible to monitor or prevent  without  legislation.

Today, huge commercial fishing trawlers and long-liners pass through the area and take enormous quantities of fish. Their nets also tangle and kill the endangered dugongs and turtles.  Semi-industrial fishers catch resident fish from the reefs; others spear huge quantities of reef fish; while yet others come to collect or buy sea cucumbers to sell to Asian markets. 

The Solutions: For the People, By the People
The approach in Bazaruto is people based.  Local communities, totally dependent on artisanal activities and the surrounding seas to provide daily food requirements and basic needs, are the key to success--and are the primary benefactors of  conservation.  Today conservation in Bazaruto is:

  • Working to protect  archipelago resources through sustainable use by island communities
  • Providing fishers with new nets of legal mesh size via a conservation project credit scheme  which swaps old nets for new, less damaging nets
  • Giving boat builders better tools for boat construction and maintenance in exchange for carpentry work in local schools
  • Teaching groups how to manage and protect their marine resources from outsiders
  • Giving women, the farmers in these communities, better seed varieties and assistance for improving soils, in exchange for limiting the size of their fields
  • Channelling tourist levies to the communities who decide themselves how the money should be spent:  for buying blankets and maize meal, and for schools and  health clinics
  • Providing assistance with schooling and health services, including a new school and environmental programmes. Parque Nacional do Bazaruto Arquipealgo

How will declaring the islands as a National Park add to the conservation already taking place?  It will provide the legislative basis to curb or eliminate detrimental fishing practices, and to manage the Park collectively.  Park status will also ensure the archipelago retains its natural beauty and attraction as an exclusive tourist destination, and its natural resources on which the people of Bazaruto depend.