As this is our final update on our year-long project in the wetlands of Maevatanana/Ambato-Boeny, supported by Fondation Segré through IUCN Save Our Species, we would like to share with you news on all that has been achieved. 

Komadio © Tony King, The Aspinall Foundation

The overall objective of the project was to reinforce the decreasing populations of endemic and native fish species in the project area whilst reducing the threats and pressures that threaten their survival. 

Komadio © Tony King, The Aspinall Foundation

The local communities are highly dependent on fishing for food and income, and current fishing practices are often unsustainable. In addition, the wetland habitat is under threat from poor agricultural techniques and deforestation, which lead to chemical fertilizer run-off and soil erosion, degrading the lakes and rivers.  To improve this situation, our team worked closely with the local communities on a range of activities.

Awareness-raising

Raising awareness in local communities © Mamitiana Henriette Raharimalala, The Aspinall Foundation Madagascar
 
Throughout the project, we held a series of awareness-raising meetings and events, which were attended by more than 1,000 local people. Just over 400 children attended sessions on environmental education, and more than 600 adults participated in various awareness-raising activities, including discussions on the rules and regulations regarding fishing and why using resources sustainably is so important.

New Skills for Fisher Communities

Training in report writing © Mamitiana Henriette Raharimalala, The Aspinall Foundation Madagascar

Local people have the potential to become effective managers of the natural resources they need for daily life, but often this requires training. For this project, we provided training for several key skills for fishing communities, including 90 women trained to make regulation-compliant fishing nets; 10 men trained as rangers to patrol during the closed fishing season; and 8 representatives from the fishers’ association trained to monitor activities at the fishing lakes and to conduct surveys.

These practical skills enable the fishing communities to move away from damaging activities, and empower them to protect the ecosystem that provides both the resources they need and the habitat on which wildlife depends.

Supporting Fish Populations

Fish inventory and catch monitoring © Mamitiana Henriette Raharimalala, The Aspinall Foundation Madagascar

It has become common practice for fishers to use fine microfilament nets, which result in the indiscriminate capture of small and juvenile fish. This leads to overfishing and damage to breeding populations.  During the project, 450 regulation-compliant fishing nets, made by local women, were distributed to fishers. The newly trained representatives from the fishers’ association subsequently monitored fishing activity to help ensure compliance, and the local patrollers worked during the closed fishing season.

Patrols also observed and recorded illegal activities such as the felling of trees. The loss of forest in water catchment areas causes significant damage, such as soil erosion and siltation.

Recording illegal activities © Mamitiana Henriette Raharimalala, The Aspinall Foundation Madagascar
 
One of the activities the local communities engaged with aimed to support endemic fish species by setting aside 4 lakes in the project area, providing 42.37 hectares of waterbody designated as ‘no-fishing’ areas. In addition to being protected from fishing, these lakes were populated by local fishers with endemic and native fishes they had captured as part of their by-catch.  By the end of the project, over 900 fish had been donated to the lakes from four endemic species, of which two are classified as Critically Endangered, and one native species.

Habitat Protection and Restoration

Chemical fertilizer used in agriculture leaches into lakes and rivers, causing damage to delicate freshwater ecosystems. To combat this, our team trained nearly 200 community members to make organic compost. Improving crop diversity and yields was also targeted during the project, as poor agricultural practices, changes in rainfall due to climate change, and the need to support families during the closed fishing season are all factors that drive people towards unsustainable practices. 

Market gardening skills were taught and put into practice © Mamitiana Henriette Raharimalala, The Aspinall Foundation Madagascar

In addition, forest restoration was undertaken with community tree nurseries producing over 40,000 saplings to be transplanted into degraded areas of forest. Not all the saplings had been planted out by the end of the project due to a delay in the onset of the rainy season, but they will be planted as soon as weather conditions are favourable to their survival.

Some saplings have been transplanted, and others will be planted out soon © Mamitiana Henriette Raharimalala, The Aspinall Foundation Madagascar

Gender Equality

There are many factors that our team take into account when working with local communities, such as cultural traditions and location-specific needs. One factor that is present across all projects is the need to support gender equality. Whilst certain activities, such as carrying out patrols or cooking meals, remain distinctly gender-specific, every effort is made to ensure both women and men are well represented.  For example, during this project, women were employed to make the fishing nets, took part in reforestation activities, were involved in market gardening, and represented their skills and folklore at events.

Women's association displaying folklore skills at an event in Marofototra © Mamitiana Henriette Raharimalala, The Aspinall Foundation Madagascar

Difficulties Encountered

Many projects will suffer from difficulties, and sometimes activities must be amended to reflect what is happening in the field. During this project, there were occasions when activities were delayed due to flooding following a cyclone, and some amendments were made due to security concerns following the actions of armed bandits in the area. We also found it difficult to obtain locally bred fish larvae from endemic species, and restocking of fishing lakes required the use of commercial species.

Conclusion

Despite the difficulties mentioned, we believe the project overall has met many of the targets set and where problems did occur, as with the production of fish larvae, we have gained valuable knowledge that will help us develop further projects where we hope to involve local fishers in breeding fish for release into fishing lakes. We will be looking to expand on what has been achieved and hope to bring you more news in the future. For now, we would like to end by sharing this video with you of one of the women’s associations participating in awareness-raising.

We are grateful to Fondation Segré, and IUCN, for their support with this project. IUCN Save Our Species aims to improve the long-term survival prospects of threatened species. It also focuses on supporting the species' habitats and working with the communities who share this habitat. It achieves success by funding and coordinating conservation projects into multiple initiatives across the globe.