Although located hundreds of miles away in the Mozambique Channel, villages within the Velondriake Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA) felt the effects of cyclone Funso’s outer edges last week. A recent report estimated that 3,000 people within Velondriake and neighbouring areas were displaced from their houses. The cyclone’s most aggressive day happened to coincide with one of the highest tides of the year, and crashing waves pulled at the first line of houses. The flimsy homes – constructed of reed and mangrove – collapsed with ease and scattered out to sea. The bad weather also made fishing (the main source of food and income here) nearly impossible and highly dangerous. Locals reported that it was the worst storm since 2005.

Disastrous climatic events in this region actually occur relatively frequently. A recent survey from the National Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) found that nearly 30% of households in the southwest region have experienced a natural disaster over the 12 preceding months including cyclones (13.3%), flooding (5%), drought (11%) and insect invasion (3.8%); these disasters have resulted in houses and infrastructure damaged or destroyed in 23% of cases, food insecurity in 75%, and destruction of lifestyle in nearly 10%.

Storms often batter the Velondriake LMMA

The destruction of this storm, along with these other recent disasters, highlights the extreme vulnerability of coastal populations to extreme weather events. As climate change impacts continue to materialize, villages like those in Velondriake will certainly witness an increase in the frequency and intensity of these events.

Blue Ventures’ integrated activities aim to reduce this vulnerability within the villages of Velondriake. Conservation measures such as limiting destructive fishing and permanent marine reserves ensure a healthy reef, better able to protect villages against big swells and provide enough fish to feed households. Supplemental income generation through sustainable aquaculture allows families to increase their incomes, allowing them to invest in better housing or save for future food shortages. Looking in the longer term, providing access to family planning and community health further reduces vulnerability in that it allows couples to choose how many children to have and gives them the knowledge to keep their families healthy; healthy mothers can contribute to increased household income and savings. Finally, providing education to children allows them to eventually enter careers that are more stable and higher paying – not necessarily dependent on natural resource exploitation.

Cyclones like Funso, and other natural disasters, are predicted to only increase in the coming decades. Luckily, there are interventions, such as these implemented by Blue Ventures, that can build adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities.

When Ryan Walker, a biologist based at the Open University, and his team crawled on their hands and knees through 60 kilometres of clothes-shredding, hair-plucking spiny forest between Toliara and the Mangoky River, racking up 150 man-hours of surveying, they found just 96 spider tortoises, a critically endangered species found only in southwest Madagascar.

On the 30th January, however, Blue Ventures volunteers counted 99 spider tortoises in a single day and in a far smaller area — five hectares – near a fishing village south of Andavadoake, in a survey that lasted just 50 man-hours. “Mbo misy tsakafy maro ty etoy laha hoary amy ty tany sasany agny satria fady ay mihina azy,” the President of the village told me – “The tortoises are more abundant here than anywhere else, because it is taboo to eat them.”

Will the spider tortoise soon be a memory?

The spider tortoises belonged to Pyxis arachnoides brygooi, the northern subspecies of P.arachnoides, which is endemic to a 600 kilometre long sliver of spiny forest. The subspecies is extinct across 50% of its original range, and numbers may have fallen by as much as 90%. Not only is the spider tortoise the target of an international yet illegal pet trade – each tortoise, thanks to the golden spider-web like patterns on its carapace, fetches up to $10,000 – but it is also roasted alive and eaten by the Mikea, an elusive forest people. In addition, the spider tortoise’s habitat, spiny forest, has halved in area between 1970 and 2000.

Using a $5000 grant from the Turtle Conservation Fund, Blue Ventures will continue to gather information about the spider tortoises, including their age, sex, weight and carapacial dimensions, in addition to raising awareness about the plight of this unique species: spider tortoises are the only tortoises on Earth that have an anterior plastral hinge, a ‘drawbridge’ at the front of their carapaces that they can winch up.

What constitutes a duvet day for a Vezo shark fisherman? Not the threat of capsizing in seven metre waves, it turns out. Yesterday, Andava bay was peppered with pirogues en route to the Mozambique Channel – exactly where a powerful, dangerous cyclone called Funso is currently fuming. Ten kilometres out to sea, the fishermen will unravel and sink 200 metre long nets, anchoring them with heavy weights to keep them stable in the powerful currents. When the fishermen haul the nets in, there’s a distinct possibility that their pirogues will capsize and they will drown. “Rozy mivaka,” explains Thomas, an ex-shark fisherman who is now heads up Blue Ventures’ shark fishery monitoring project – “they’re terrified.”

So why do they do it? Surprisingly, it’s because the Vezo believe sharks are easier to catch during violent storms, explains Thomas. One hypothesis is that blinded by turbidity, hammerheads and guitarfish fail to see the net before it’s too late, and become hopelessly entangled. Tuna and other large pelagic species of fish are also more likely to be trapped in the nets when visibility is poor, and the smell of their blood attracts sharks (Sharks are incredibly sensitive to the smell of blood: it is said that they can detect the equivalent of one teaspoonful in an Olympic sized swimming pool).

Could sharks such as this (blacktip reef shark) be just a memory soon in Madagascar?

Despite the dangers of shark fishing in a cyclone, it certainly pays off: shark fins fetch up to $50 per kilogram, a seventh of the annual income of fishermen in these parts. Ratsimba, a fisherman from Andavadoaka, has caught seven sharks this week. “One for every day,” he jokes. Yet the plight of sharks in Madagascar is no laughing matter: exports of shark fin plummeted from almost 50 metric tons in 1992 to around 15 metric tons in 2003 — and according to Blue Ventures’ own research, over 1300 sharks were caught along a 50 km stretch of coast in Velondriake between 2006 and 2007.

Such overfishing of sharks can have unpredictable and catastrophic impacts on marine ecosystems. Sharks consume rays, skates and smaller sharks, and when their populations crash, the abundance of their prey rockets. A study published in Science in 2007 found that a decline in the abundance of eleven species of shark in the coastal, northwest Atlantic led to an explosion of cownose rays, which feed on scallops. As a result of the explosion, a century-old scallop industry in the region died out (Ransom A. Myers, et al., 2007, Science 315, 1846).

Fishermen rely on catching sharks like this hammerhead as a large of their income

The good news is that marine reserves can reverse the decline, while providing economic benefits to local fishing communities. A protected area in Mexico that is no bigger than Manhattan, and was established in 1995, saw a tenfold increase in shark biomass between 1999 and 2009 (Galland, G. et al., 2011, Coral Reefs 30, 215). Despite just 35 per cent of the reserve being ‘no take,’ very little fishing takes place because many locals have realised that working as an eco-tourism guide is far more lucrative than fishing.

If such a small reserve can have such a large impact on shark abundance, then imagine what Velondriake could accomplish…

Safe in the knowledge that I have plenty of time to write up my third year project when I get back to the UK and with my data collection occurring on a week-on, week-off basis, I’ve managed to find myself with a dream dissertation topic and the perfect way to wind down after my stressful second year exams.

The best piece of advice that I can give, is forward planning; you are really going to struggle to be over prepared out here, especially when it comes to the project itself. It is very difficult to know exactly how your project is going to be carried out before you actually arrive, due to the difficulties in communication out in the field and you never really know how everything is being completed without witnessing it yourself. The more organised you are before you leave, the better.

My mum once told me that only boring people get bored. There are too many activities to get involved with and therefore no time to be bored! Also, there is plenty to do as a non diver, you just have to be willing to join in. There’s swimming and snorkelling; you can do one on one lessons with a local BV staff member (which I would highly recommend, as I found it very rewarding). You can also join in with a lot of volunteer activities; Malagasy lessons, fish and benthic lectures, trips to see such things as the baobabs and the mangroves, and of course the odd game of volleyball with the staff, or football with the locals. The absolute highlight of my trip has to be a four day trip up the coast in a pirogue, following one of the BV workers who was collecting shark and turtle catch data. This allowed me to witness the way of life in the highly remote regions of south west Madagascar, in a way in which I didn’t feel like a herded tourist. I also got to see two juvenile whales while I was on the pirogue!

My overall aims when planning my trip were to relax after my exams, collect some useful data for my third year project and experience a completely different culture. I can safely say they have all been well and truly checked off!

It is quite extraordinary to be back in Madagascar. This is my adopted home, filled with my extended family, a place that has brought me tremendous personal and professional growth.

Madagascar was my home for five years, from 2004 to 2009. First as a Peace Corps Volunteer, then as a freelance consultant, then as project manager for the Education Development Centre, and finally as manager of an ecolodge. I came to know and love the people, culture, and nature on this island, and grew deeply devoted to its sustainable development issues and conservation challenges.

I’ve hardly been able to absorb the fact that I’ve returned! The journey back has been a long and furious one, consisting of; a 35 hour-long trip from the other side of the planet, followed by 12 hours of sleeping in the capital city, then an evening flight to the southern city of Toliara, a morning overland departure up the rural southwest coastline, a two-hour breakdown on a desolate road (because no Madagascar road-trip is complete without a breakdown!), and finally a late night arrival to the Blue Ventures headquarters at Andavadoaka. These were my first two hectic days back in Madagascar. Any bits of free time were spent reading and editing documents vital to my new position: Education and Outreach Coordinator, the first position of its kind here at Blue Ventures.

The Blue Ventures team welcomed me straight away. Many of the staff faces around the dinner table were familiar: Kame, Matt, Shawn, and Brian are also Returned Peace Corps Volunteers like me, all of whom served in Madagascar and now all working in Blue Ventures management positions.  Tom, the Peace Corps Volunteer placed in Andavadoaka, brings the count up to six and I’d like to think that the success of Blue Ventures as an organisation speaks to the success of the Peace Corps mission in Madagascar as well. The new faces here were as welcoming as the familiar ones and what an impressive crowd; marine scientists, social scientists, public health experts, conservationists, and sustainable agriculture experts, from the UK, France, Zimbabwe, the US, and Madagascar. These experts in their individual fields comprise a team that is pushing the scope of conservation and sustainable development to new and award-winning heights. I’ll have my work cut out for me just keeping up with their rigor.

I learnt more about just how hard-working everyone was over the course of the next three days at the annual Blue Ventures staff conference or ‘BV Love-In’ as it’s affectionately known; the reason for my early-August arrival. BV is responsible for a dizzying array of programmes; sustainable sea cucumber farming and seaweed farming, health and family-planning services for the coastal south-western population, research measuring local resilience to the effects of climate change, a growing network of village-based conservation associations and their Locally-Managed Marine Areas, a shark and sea turtle conservation project, and one of the world’s most successful octopus fishery management schemes, among many other activities and achievements! At the conference, staff from every aspect of BV’s work shared their achievements, challenges, and plans for the future, reinforcing the synergies that link all of BV’s activities and support its success as an organisation.

Blue Ventures team, Madagascar

As for my work for the next year, I’ll be managing a range of educational and outreach activities for BV. Blue Ventures’ existing girls’ scholarship program will be expanded to bring at least 100 new girls into the fold, covering their school fees and materials, and documenting their progress through photos and videos. The youth environmental education club here in Velondriake will be reinvigorated, and partnered with a UNICEF-funded program called the Junior Reporters’ Club; these clubs will be trained to use low-cost audio-visual technologies to spread environmental education among the local youth population. I’ll be helping to develop radio programs, short films, and a new interactive BV website to help improve education, environmental awareness, and youth-led conservation activities in the BV intervention zone. Additionally I will be overseeing the construction of our very own ‘Connected Classroom’ as part of the UNICEF Connecting Classrooms initiative – designed to improve computer skills and use innovative technology-based education throughout the island, and eventually throughout the Western Indian Ocean region.

But for the next few days at least, I’m focussing on the basics; learning my colleagues’ names, finding my way around the BV grounds, and understanding everyone’s role. I will be catching up on sleep too as after three days of intense sessions at the annual conference, my brain is exhausted. The bar has been set high, but I’m excited to take on my new role with Blue Ventures, working to improve education and access to information within a fascinating culture, a complex ecosystem, breath-taking natural surroundings, and an amazing team.

Once again I set off across the world from Madagascar to Victoria, Canada, battling with time zones and  airport transits, in order to share work experiences from southwest Madagascar’s Locally Managed Marine Area, Velondriake, with fellow conservation practitioners, converging from all corners of the world for the International Marine Conservation Congress II. The conference was held at the Victoria Conference Centre from the 14th to the 18th of May.

To my horror, before I even reached Victoria, disaster struck; a slight change in flight itinerary meant that my luggage and I had parted ways.  I was bound for Victoria and my bags were now heading on a south-easterly trajectory to Toronto!  Despite having travelled abroad several times before, I had never had to survive without luggage… Three days in unfamiliar surroundings with no personal belongings was unsettling to say the least and with my presentation looming I was getting progressively more anxious. You can therefore imagine my huge relief when my bags were finally returned to me in one piece only the day before I was due to speak.

With the luggage ordeal thankfully behind me, I was now free to thoroughly enjoy my time in Victoria! I had the chance to meet friends and colleagues that I knew from both Blue Ventures in Madagascar and NGO partners from the States, Western Indian Ocean and even Fiji. It was nice to catch up with former colleagues to talk about how our work with the local coastal communities has recently evolved, as well as about the general situation in Andavadoaka, (which is our main research site) and Madagascar. In a more formal context, many different models of marine resource management projects as well as biological and socioeconomic research were presented and discussed at the conference, in which it was really interesting to learn about different innovative techniques being employed to generate sustainable marine resource management solutions worldwide.  It was also very valuable to learn from research findings carried out in other regions of the world.

Equally, the conference provided an opportunity for me to discover yet another facet of the world. Victoria is a very beautiful place in terms of both the sea and landscapes and as a result, it is unsurprisingly, very touristy. In my spare time when I was not taking part in workshops or listening to presentations,  I made the most of my new environment by joining a small ferry expedition (only suitable for about ten people), to give me a better view of the coast.  Whilst sightseeing, we also went to visit an aquarium which is located in the inner harbour of Victoria and constitutes a large house boat structure above water level which descends into a fully-fledged aquarium with viewing windows up to 15 feet below water.  Among its many amazing features, this was the first time I had ever seen a scuba diver in an aquarium feeding fish whilst simultaneously delivering a talk to spectators.

Gildas outside the Aquarium in Victoria

From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed to me that Victoria has a diverse mixture of cultures; it’s one of my passions to learn about the different cultures that exist all over the world and how it’s possible to integrate all these different cultural backgrounds  into one society, so it was therefore very interesting to experience such a truly multicultural environment. Other than the cultural aspect, one thing that really made an impression on me during my stay was the general collective commitment to conservation efforts evident throughout the area.

Over the last week in Andavadoaka there has only been one thing on our minds – turtles! A festival to raise awareness about marine turtles and their conservation in Velondriake has kicked off in Andavadoaka with two days of presentations, films, a pirogue race and, of course, our man-sized turtle mascot. The festival slogan ‘Fano Lany, Vezo Manegny’ (if turtles disappear, the Vezo will regret) aims to build upon the RARE social marketing campaign in 2010 which used the Vezo identity as a means to create a sense of marine resource ownership amongst Vezo communities within the Velondriake Marine Protected Area.

Former shark fisherman Thomas, BV’s resident turtle expert, has spearheaded the festival and has spent the last week spreading news over the radio and around Velondriake’s 24 villages. A lovingly handmade turtle costume from Toliara has also enthralled the children and piqued  the interest of even some of the more guarded residents.

The highlight of the first day was a pirogue race that, after two changes of wind direction within an hour, eventually started from the south of Andavadoaka’s main beach. The winner hoisted his own personal flag to the top of his mast and sailed along the village coastline proclaiming his victory. A dance competition followed to keep the audience captivated until sunset and a presentation and film on turtles could be projected onto an outdoor screen in the village beneath the stars.

A children’s workshop started on the second day of festivities, in which Thomas managed the impossible – around seventy children sitting quietly intently listening to his messages on marine turtle biology and conservation – interrupted only by a simultaneous noise of ‘iieeeeee’ (yes) to show understanding by the children. A face painting frenzy followed with children adorned with multicoloured turtles.

The day ended with theatre, music and quizzes in the village. The crowd swayed and pushed with anticipation to see who could hold their breath longest in a bucket of water – a game to see who could be the best turtle. As darkness set in the quiz continued and the crowd stayed transfixed until the last question, “what do green and loggerhead turtles like to eat?” was answered correctly by a young child and the festival in Andavadoaka was officially over, bringing to an end 48 hours of discussion and celebration of Madagascar’s marine turtles.

Over the next 2 weeks the festival team will travel to another four villages in Velondriake to spread the conservation messages.

For more information about Blue Ventures’ marine turtle conservation work please:

• Visit our website
• View our recent press releases
• View our recent research papers

The group, representatives of a conservation organization called Honko (‘mangrove’ in Malagasy), travelled to Andavadoaka to learn about Velondriake’s structure, governance, and conservation initiatives. Visits like this one are important for fostering information exchange between community conservation practitioners who would not otherwise have the chance to learn from each other.

After this initial trip, I made several more field trips to parks around Madagascar. I saw a wild lemur for the first time at the Isalo national park; a ring-tailed lemur, known as ‘hira’ for the local people.  Hira in Malagasy means song, and it was such an amazing experience for me to hear him shouting and singing in freedom. ‘It’s a male calling for a female,’ explained the local guide. This male lemur’s cries completed the amazing landscape of the immense Isalo massif, etched with deep canyons, eroded over time into a variety of fantastic shapes; it was such a wonderful spectacle. Formerly, the staring eyes, haunting sounds, and nocturnal ways of some lemur species inspired early observers to think of them as ghosts or forest spirits, which explains why they were called ‘lemurs’ which is actually derived from the old Latin referring to ghosts and spirits.

That day, seeing the ring-tailed lemur in his natural habitat was unforgettable, with his black and grey coat,  slightly lighter coloured limbs and belly, and white extremities. Dark rings circled his eyes, his muzzle was black, and his tail banded black and white. After seeing that lemur, so perfect and magnificent in the wild, I thought back with horror to those kept in tiny cages in the zoo.

Ring-tailed Lemur in the wild

After completing my undergraduate degree at the National Institute of Tourism and Catering, I started a small family business as a travel agency with my father and sister. The recent political crisis in Madagascar and the rise of Internet airfare bookings now threatens this business, however, we have evolved a niche in targeting missionaries for our travel services, which has proved relatively crisis-proof for now and will allow us to survive in the short-term. Due to the recent success of e-tourism, the traditional tourism business models are failing. I want to learn about this new industry and how to develop it for application in Madagascar, where it is still very new. I am also interested in how e-tourism can be used to develop the potential of cultural tourism by creating closer and more lasting connections between tourists and local communities.

I broadened my experiences in 2009 by temporarily giving up my job in order to become an intern for the British-based marine conservation social enterprise, Blue Ventures, in Andavadoaka. In addition to scientific and SCUBA training, I gained invaluable experience working with local communities on health and family planning projects as well as natural resource conservation. I was fascinated by the wide range of activities they run including some innovative aquaculture programmes. In the same way, I have learned how vulnerable the coral reef systems are, and about the numerous pressures which are causing massive social and ecological change in the region.

I hope to build on this knowledge of scientific management and grassroots conservation through continuing to study in the United States. Since starting my studies, I have fallen even more in love with my country’s natural heritage and discovered more great potential for tourism to incentivise communities to conserve these great resources. Tourism can provide a win-win situation where local communities gain income and development opportunities whilst the lemurs and other animals gain precious habitat.

I am very keen to study Tourism Management in the US in order to pursue a career in sustainable tourism here in Madagascar. In five years, I envision myself starting a social enterprise that unites environmental conservation, women’s empowerment and economic development with an aim to ignite grass-roots change in my home town of Fianarantsoa (southeast Madagascar). In the long-term, we have decided to diversify away from our travel agency and to this end I am leading the creation of a new family business in Fianarantsoa where we will start a small bed and breakfast in the historic section of the city. I plan to have the new business up and running in the next 6 months, before starting my studies abroad. After my studies, I would like to combine my entrepreneurship interests with my passion for the environment to help struggling families by creating a social entrepreneurship organization, which will ultimately help to develop a small network of family-run bed and breakfasts along the popular tourist routes in the region. These bed and breakfasts will provide tourism income to local communities and give them an incentive to develop ecotourism activities such as forest guiding and handicrafts production with support from the organization. This will encourage them to conserve the natural heritage of the area, without sacrificing their ability to make a living.

As a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, a degree in Tourism Management will give me a greater understanding of sustainable eco-tourism while allowing me to obtain the skills I require to be successful in my chosen career path.  My goal is to learn about strategies, practices and technologies that promote sustainable patterns of consumption and production, while making efficient use of natural resources. I also want to learn about how to engage with public and private sector decision makers concerning the use of protected areas and eco-tourism to promote both conservation and human development goals.

Before embarking on this venture, however, I recognize that I need more knowledge and skills in non-profit management, tourism marketing and in natural and cultural resource management at the regional and local level. It is only through study at an American university that I can acquire the skills that I am searching for. Madagascar doesn’t offer graduate coursework specifically in tourism management. Furthermore, American universities offer much higher quality than anything available in the African region.

Joelison and Ody meet with fellow conservationists in Ranomafana

This ‘face-to-face networking and knowledge sharing’ event provides an invaluable platform for these young people to share their experiences and learn from one another.  Including young members from a diverse array of backgrounds means that all participants will be confronted with the realities of different environmental situations and challenges, which is hoped will serve to increase overall awareness of the issues as well as improve collective understanding, information-sharing and acceptance between groups and individuals.

Objectives of the meeting include the foundation of a ‘youth Malagasy framework’ consolidating ideas on best practices in galvanising peers into action on key environmental issues, as well as compilation of a ‘youth-friendly’ information package for dissemination to youth groups throughout the country.  It is also hoped that this workshop will encourage future action-planning for national-level advocacy and youth mobilization efforts around the climate change agenda.

With the aim of increasing the profile and potential of children and young adults to participate in conservation efforts throughout the country, this workshop marks an important step towards achieving a more inclusive framework for conservation.  By incorporating the views held by young conservationists such as Joelison and Ody into policy development and decision-making, management objectives can start to cater for and address their needs, thereby ensuring that any activities initiated can be as effective and beneficial possible.  It is also hoped that this workshop will further encourage this group of young people to continue their efforts and achieve even greater success in mobilising their peers around environmental issues, embracing their responsibilities as agents of social change to promote biodiversity conservation in their regions.