Descending into the cool turquoise water below, I am overcome with that well-known sense of utter peace that accompanies the stillness and weightlessness of being underwater. After a few days of not being able to dive due to the wild, unpredictable Malagasy winds the temperature is perfect, the visibility has improved and our spirits are high. Before us the reef has come alive with pairs of butterfly fish chasing each other like flirtatious lovers, curious crescent wrasse darting around like energizer bunnies and tiny nudibranchs showing off a spectacularly mismatched array of colours that no human could pull off with half as much dignity.

the cresent wrasse are energetic little blighters

Having passed our benthic test we can now identify the elegantly swaying soft corals, the grape-like hard coral massive bubble and the lacy gorgonian fans. Knowing what we see makes the dive so much more rewarding, for now instead of saying ‘oh wow did you see that funny looking blob thing that looks like it arrived on a spaceship’ we can say ‘those tunicates were amazing!’. Time flies when doing PITs (Point Intersect Transects) and before we know it the time has come to return to the boat. Dive tales are exchanged over the sound of a sputtering engine as we bounce back our way to shore. And right on time, little Papose is waiting for us with a basket full of fresh fish samosa and spicy mofosakay. Her age changes from day to day according to her mood, so sometimes she will tell you she is eight years old while other days she is thirteen, which we have taken to mean she is about ten. We satisfy our post-dive munchies with Paposie’s fried snacks and thank her with a grateful ‘misaotra’ which is silently returned by one of her adorable shy smiles.

Sea fans (in the foreground) add to the beauty of madagascar's reefs

We now have some free time before lunch, which can be filled with a nap in a hammock or volleyball on our private Half Moon beach. And you really do know life is good when the hardest choice you have to make is deciding between samosa or mofosakay and hammock napping or beach volleyball!

Time for a nap in the shade?

B for Belize: country that has become our home for 6 weeks. B is for a beautiful and rich culture, scenic nature and a deep history. The country that has the second-longest barrier reef in the world. This is the place to be if you are looking for either a relaxing holiday or an exciting adventure. It may sound cheesy but it’s true!

A for Azul: the proud name of our boat that brought us diving every day. The boat that bravely fought the waves to bring us every day to our diving sites. One time, at 6 o’clock in the morning, when the water was very rough, Captain Samos sang to enchant the sea, calming it. He sang a sea shanty about the sea and love; a unique experience.

C for Camp: cast away in a remote place somewhere at the end of the world; well, at least at the end of Belize. We lived there, we sunbathed there, we dove, we laughed, we partied and we did our scientific research. There is a big wooden log in the middle of the beach camp where I carved my name. With this, I’ll be always there.

A for Advance Open Water – yes, I did my course and got another diving level cert. If you’ve never been diving before or if you want to do a dive master course, the Belizean coral reef is the perfect place. You will be amazed with the abundance of life and with its beauty. You will always want to return there!

L for Lionfish: a bad, bad fish! You’ll learn a lot about this invasive specie that has arrived in the Caribbean only a few years ago. It’s a threat to many other fish and it the upsets the ecological balance of the coral reef. However, the meat of the lionfish is so tasty. Yum!

A for Atmosphere: you have to feel it yourself. The sun, the beach, the people, the community, integrating, learning fish and coral species, diving, making jokes… unforgettable!

R for Rum: yes, we did drink some alcohol but never before diving! Coconut rum ought to be consumed at the party that takes place at the end of each week; enough so that it makes people happy and bonds them strongly.

The camp - not a bad place to live!

 C for Common Room: self explanatory. The heart of the camp: our dining room, the game room and the class room. We spent a lot of time there, day and night.

H for Heroes & Villains: everyone wants to be a hero but who wants to be a villain? You simply get a nomination from the group! If you do something awesome you get to win the hero title, and if you do something unacceptable you become a villain. An example of the latter: shooting friends with a water gun or not knowing how to get from point A to point B.

I for Invertebrates: Defined as an animal without a backbone. For us, we go diving and look around for these animals: lobsters, conch, sea urchins, flamingo tongue (snail specie) and others. Every animal you notice you write down on your diving slate. After the dive you have to enter your data into a spreadsheet. All of the data will soon be compiled by Blue Venture for the annual report of the MBRS (Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System.)

C for Circle of Love: don’t be deceived by the name! This in an important part of the buddy check just before diving. For safety reasons you need to close down (shut down?) the scuba tank before you get on a boat.

O for Orange Tang: you always find this drink on the table at every meal.

We surveyed inverts, like this lobster

D for Diving: who doesn’t love it?! One of the main reasons we all came to Belize. This is a hobby, this is a passion, this is a path to follow…

I for Inspiring: what inspires you? Who motivates you? People who take studies in marine biology and dedicate their work to make the marine world a better place? People who take a break from work or school and spend their spare time to monitor the health of a reef? You could be one of us.

V for Volunteer: me and others, all of us together, the group of volunteers working together to understand how important the oceans are, how important the coral reef is for the local community and the country. Volunteers gather data about the coral reef and support the local community with its effort to protect it. The satisfaction of this work… I’m telling you!

I for Insects: let’s be honest, there is always a downside about every place, even in a paradise such as our dive camp. In this case, insects are it; annoying mosquitoes and sand flies craving your blood.

N for Nachos: the snack made of fried corn tortillas covered with melted cheddar cheese and pickled jalapeño peppers. Watch out! The jalapeño peppers can be really, really spicy.

G for Generator: it has the vital role of providing us with the 3hours of electricity daily. You think it’s not enough? It’s plenty of time to charge your underwater camera and iPod. Otherwise you spend most of the time under the sun or moonlight.

Diving! (that is me on the left)

C for Coconut: you just go to a palm tree and pick up a coconut. Then cut a hole with a machete and taste the fresh coconut water straight out of the fruit. Refreshing indeed!

A for Activities: you can enjoy plenty of them in you spare time. There is volleyball, snorkelling, yoga, working out, raking the beach, helping in the kitchen, reading a book, playing cards with friends, sleeping in a hammock… have I missed anything?

M for Megafauna: who doesn’t dream to see a shark, a manatee, a sting ray or an endangered turtle in their natural environment? Or maybe you fancy playing with dolphins? If you do – just go to BCDC!

P for Paulina: my name. I’m Polish and I’m happy I embarked on the amazing adventure with Blue Venture on Expedition 16. Thanks for everything! The rest is history!

This manatee is just one the megafauna species you can see at BCDC

If the village of Antanimanimbo had a street, they’d be dancing in it. The annual migration of patsa (Acetes erythraeus for you sciency types), a tiny shrimp sometimes referred to as “paste shrimp”, has found its way to this fishing village of a few hundred people in western Madagascar, and in a big way.

“It was a tough year for us here, and this is Zanahary’s* way of saving us,” said Jean-Francois grinning from ear-to-ear during a brief break from the action. And with that he’s back at it, carved features and sinewy frame, etched from a lifetime on the sea, gliding up and down the beach. He sporadically barks orders to his sons about how to position the net around the swarming shrimp and tending to his neatly kept, and ever-growing, pile of slimy crustaceans on the beach.

The fishers looking at their haul

The patsa have been here for about a week now, with teams bringing in up to 50kg (110lbs) in a day. After being dried, the shrimp fetch around $0.60 per kilo, with local entrepreneurs scrambling to buy up as much as they can for sale in the regional market in Morondava. For these usually subsistence fishers, a good turnout of patsa can bring in more than a month’s earnings in the course of a few days. This rare infusion of cash is often used for big-ticket items like obtaining a new canoe, purchasing some new nets, or mending houses.

No one is left out of the fun, with men, women and children all flocking to the beach to take part in the harvest. Your faithful author declined, citing fear of ruining his expensive camera as an excuse, but the real reason being that I just couldn’t see where the darn things were for the life of me.

Everyone was joining in the fun

Me (hopeless white guy): “Where are they?”
Vezo Fisher: “Right there, you see them?”
HWG (unconvincingly): “Uhh… yeah”
VF (skeptical): “So where are they now?”
HWG (even less convincingly): “Umm… there?” (pointing)
VF (incredulous): “Wow, how are you not seeing them?”

The weapon of choice is a 3-4 meter length of mosquito netting – anything made with a wider mesh would only serve as a speed-bump for the tiny buggers, providing the holders of the net with precious little more than a wet pair of shorts for their troubles. A loop on the bottom corner is hooked around one’s big toe, and the top of the net held by hand as teams of two in chest-deep water, just beyond the breaking waves, work the nets into place, gradually closing them around the swarm and pulling in their prize.

The fishers use mosquito nets to catch the patsa

A few weeks ago I was on a site development trip to a small village near Mahajanga, roughly 800km north of Antanimanimbo, where I was speaking with some fishers about what species they catch in their mangroves. They mentioned patsa as well, noting that they tend to catch small amounts here and there throughout the year but that the species was mysteriously absent around the months of February through April. Right around the time they bombard the southwest coast.

Now I’m no marine scientist (as any of the marine scientists who have had the pleasure of working with me will undoubtedly attest to), but could it be that these northern mangroves are the source for this annual migration, making its way down to Toliara in the southwest, covering over 1,200 kilometres of coast?

With the patsa catch local people can buy luxuries they couldn't buy otherwise

Researchers and those generally in-the-know on such matters speak much of connectivity, and how “islands” of conservation aren’t sufficient, making the case for networks of Marine Protected Areas, representing all key habitats. The reason they say, is that many important species cover large geographic ranges and utilise multiple habitats throughout their life cycle. A localised reserve may only afford such a species protection for one period in their life cycle. The roving schools of patsa, the Vezo’s proverbial bumper crop and Jean Francois’ new roof, may provide a perfect example of just how true this is.

* Zanahary is the creator in traditional Malagasy beliefs & mythology.

We are two weeks into our expedition here in Belize and so far have already experienced one of the best celebrations in Sarteneja – the Easter Regatta. To celebrate the regatta we had a stall in the town alongside SACD (Sarteneja Alliance for Conservation and Development) to promote the work that Blue Ventures does to help the local community and conserve the reef. The stall ran two activities aimed at children; the first, a workshop showing how to make kites out of recycled newspaper and palm tree leaves; the second, a game that involved throwing rubbish picked up from the area into a hoop. Many children came to have a go and a lot of the locals took great interest in us and what the organisation does.

The jetty at Sarteneja

After our first week in Sarteneja doing lectures and learning about the reef and conservation methods we were ready to leave our homestays and head off to the Bacalar Chico dive camp. Due to the number of us we had to make two boat trips to get everyone there, the first leaving in the morning and the second early afternoon. The first boat trip went well and they managed to arrive on time to set up camp. The second boat trip was not as uneventful due the engine breaking down in the middle of the sea. The coast guard were then called from the satellite phone and within half an hour they were with the boat ready to begin the tow. Eventually after a much prolonged trip everyone made it to the dive camp just after sunset and we all spent the first night of many in our new beds – after coconut rum!

Diving on the Belize Barrier Reef

Luckily despite the boat being in need of repair we were still able to dive with the help of a local dive shop who supplied us with a boat and two brilliant skippers: Bradley and Fito. The first few dives have been amazing, so far we have seen barracuda, loggerhead turtles, groupers and much more. However, there are unfortunately quite a few lionfish around which we have seen on many dives. Other than the awesome diving and snorkelling the food is great, the weather is hot and the boat is fixed. Tonight is party night!

Sunset at camp - its a hard life!

Human migration can be influenced by a number of factors – political, social, economic, physical, and even cultural. In southwest Madagascar, where Blue Ventures works, migration is an important factor to consider when working with local communities; for example, our messages about sustainable marine conservation and healthy families are difficult to deliver to people who are not resident. Here, many of the local sea-faring Vezo people lead semi-nomadic lives, moving along the coast throughout much of the year in search of high-value sea products such as shark fin and sea cucumbers.

We recently conducted a short survey with 161 fishers across 10 villages within the Velondriake locally managed marine area, in which we asked several questions about migration patterns. Of those we surveyed, over 1/3 were identified as seasonal migrants who travel an average of 6 months out of the year; over 3/4 were men. We also asked about the their parents, and whether they migrated as well to see if there was any familial trend: sure enough, migrant fishers were nearly 6 times more likely to have had migrant parents. Importantly, roughly 1/3 travel to Belo sur Mer, a town about 200k to the north, while about a half of the migrants we surveyed said they travel to Maintirano, a town even farther to the north (see map below).

Map showing Andavaoaka, Belo-sur-Mer and Maintirano

Blue Ventures has recognised the importance of working with these migrant fishers along the entire west coast of Madagascar. In 2009, Blue Ventures began working in Belo sur Mer, continuing to support community led conservation efforts and focusing on temporary mangrove closures to increase incomes. And just last year, Blue Ventures opened a third site in Maintirano. In union, these three sites can target a difficult to reach population of stakeholders, proving support to sustainable local fisheries management.

For further information about migration in Madagascar, please read this Blue Ventures report

Dr Vik Mohan, Director of the Blue Ventures Sexual & Reproductive Health programme, joined John Williams  and David Lopez-Carr (both from the University of California)  to speak (via a live weblink) at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington D.C on February 29th, 2012. The topic of discussion was ‘Hotspots: Population Growth in Areas of High Biodiversity’ and the speakers were promoting the idea that in order to better protect the world’s biodiversity, conservationists need to incorporate health & livelihood services into their schemes, to target growing populations nearby.

All three speakers spoke from first hand experience, and discussed the complex nature of conserving biodiversity where population growth rates are high.

For the full article on the event please click here

The two weeks I have been volunteering in Andavadoaka have flown by and we have managed to do so much already!

In our first couple of days we traveled via pirogue to Lamboara. We spent the day counting spider tortoises as part of one of the conservation projects. It was amazing, specially when me and my group found a 36 years old tortoise, the oldest ever recorded in the region.

Cara getting friendly with some of the 'locals'

After Lamboara we started diving. In a few days I had done confined and open water dives, achieving my first diving qualification.

Whenever the weather isn’t ideal to dive, the staff prepares alternative activities, which are also very exciting. We’ve already been to the iconic Baobab Forest and snorkeled at the nearby islands.

The whole expedition is turning out to be a great experience and I’m looking forward to the next 4 weeks.

By Maria Ranohatra, Blue Ventures Indopacific Scholar, Madagascar

I am delighted that I had the opportunity to join an expedition with Blue Ventures. As a Malagasy, I was able to discover more about my own country and the communities who live in this area. I was touched by the friendliness of the people, while becoming more familiar with conservation and economic development issues. Indeed, it is encouraging to see increased environmental education and other incentives that Blue Ventures has been able to facilitate here. The community-based sea cucumber farming incentive is particularly a memorable experience to me as I could spend some time with the farmers and share their excitement as they were harvesting.

Maria at the sea cucumber pens

Introduction: This blog is written by Blue Ventures scholar, Paubert Mahatante, who was chosen to participate on a Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems (ASCLME) research cruise, whose aim was to do an ecosystem assessment of the Mozambique Channel. Paubert is a Ph.D student at the IHSM in Toliara and is one of our Roger Samba and J. Paul Getty Scholarship recipients – his doctorate is looking at climate change adaption in Southern Madagascar. To have been chosen for this prestigious expedition is an important achievement for any student and so for Paubert, who not so long ago was struggling to finance his studies, this is a tremendous accomplishment. Paubert received training in the relevant survey methods and then went onto help with the surveys themselves.

Map showing the EEZs of the countries that were visited during the cruise (Source: ASCLME, 2012)

The ASCLME Project undertook a Regional Alliance Cruise onboard the RV Algoa in January to March this year, in order to conduct an ecosystem assessment of the Mozambique Channel, East Madagascar current and the Mozambique Channel. At the same time, LOCO, Atlas and UTR moorings were serviced and Argo floats and satellite drifters deployed to collect a variety of data. Dozens of scientists were onboard and 3 Malagasy PhD Candidates participated in the first leg (Durban – Pemba – Toliara), as can be seen in the map above.

Paubert MAHATANTE on the right side of the Vassel (Cruise in 2010)

Information was then recorded via satellites and transferred to computers. A combination of data taken from 1992 to 2000 allowed us to establish the map, below, showing the variation of sea currents around the south tip of Madagascar.

Replacement of batteries of physical instruments [Paubert in the left & Dany in the right

Variation of the sea currents in the deep southern Madagascar (Source: e-WOCE database/data treated with ODV – Ocean Data View, 2012

If you want to learn more about ASCLME please use this link: http://www.asclme.org/

The Blue Forests and Coastal Communities (BFCC) team is currently in transit on the long (>2500km!) road trip back to Toliara after a month long reconnaissance mission in northern Madagascar.

We’ve been surveying various mangrove-adjacent communities in the Ambaro bay region, at the opposite end of the country to our office base in Toliara. The days were long and mostly incredibly hot, with temperatures reaching 39 Celsius/101 Fahrenheit. The going was tough and slow, through mud which reached the depth of one’s waist; through jungle gym arrays of buttress roots often sporting near razor sharp shells; through dense scrub forest which was home to dangling wasp nests who made it quite clear with their stings that our presence was not welcome. The sunburn, rashes and stings were cooled and soothed at times by torrential rains associated with a series of cyclones and tropical storms; however, the rain, a welcome break from the heat, was so heavy at times that all work ground to a halt.

The BFCC team hard at work

Despite the slow going, we successfully and thoroughly inventoried over 20 hectares of mangroves, establishing over 100 field plots to capture the variability in mangrove ecosystem types based on aspects of species dominance, canopy cover, tree density, frequency of tidal inundation and various other ecological attributes. In addition, we documented observed levels of degradation and deforestation.

A preliminary summary of the status of these mangrove ecosystems based on our observations and interviews leads us to believe that degradation and in places wholesale deforestation is prevalent. The stories are different but similar, and the primary reason for over-exploitation is charcoal production. Enormous, near industrial-scale charcoal production operations were witnessed in numerous locations. Our initial interviews indicate that much of the extraction and charcoal production is carried out by migrants taking the forest products back to towns around the island of Nosy Be, which, due to the limited extent of its own mangroves and upland forests, lacks the resources necessary to derive this currently essential forest product. However in some communities, it is the residents themselves who have turned to over-exploitation for a variety of reasons, such as around a former sapphire mining boom town, where residents and now unemployed former miners now have no other option to make a living.

These forests are being cleared for charocal

Our presence was overall welcomed, except in migrant charcoal production camps where it was feared (of course wrongly) that we were there to shut down operations.

Locals have a variety of concerns, including deforestation reaching a level where the current mangrove buffers are no longer intact and tidal waters will inundate communities, and observable rapid declines in crab populations.

While the level of exploitation is certainly not welcome news and we have only scratched the surface of what is going in the region, it is clear that the situation warrants further investigation by the BFCC team. In April, after having used the data we collected on this reconnaissance mission to make a map of the different mangrove types and surrounding land-cover types from satellite imagery. Also after having targeted particularly vulnerable communities, the BFCC team will return to the region to implement a biomass inventory, socio-economic research and social impact assessment. Through these activities, we can quantify the carbon stocks in these forests and model their dynamics, and reach a more concrete understanding of the agents, drivers and underlying causes of degradation and deforestation. In addition, we can begin to thoroughly understand the role that mangroves play in the lives of these coastal communities, and how alterations to this role might impact stakeholders, including migrants.

A cleared mangrove forest - what a sorry sight

This is of course no small feat, but our current team of three full time staff will be growing later this month (and for our next campaign) by a full time socio-economic researcher, a full time remote sensing scientist, a visiting graduate student working on social impact assessment and a mangrove expert from Kenya! In tandem with the local expertise offered through our community hosts who have lived their entire lives in and around these ecosystems, the BFCC team is poised to bring back a wealth of information from their next field mission, all of which works towards assessing the feasibility of payments for ecosystem services (PES) and carbon financing mechanisms.

In the meantime, we will work our way back towards Toliara, let our wounds heal and prepare for the next phase…

• If you want to know more about our work with mangrove forests and blue carbon in Madagascar please use this link: http://blueventures.org/conservation/blue-carbon.html
• We have just received a Darwin Initiative grant to further our work with Blue Carbon and mangroves – to read the press released please click here
• For the latest factsheet about our Blue Carbon work click here 
• Watch our mangrove video on You Tube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajKh2V9cNJQ

On a recent trip to the south of Toliara I seem to have confirmed the stupidity of domestic livestock. Drive past a herd of grazing zebu and they may look up with a nonchalant glance and give a casual flick of their tail if you are lucky. Drive past a herd of goats and they will run as fast as their legs and the foliage will allow them away from the road. Drive past a flock of sheep however, and they will scatter randomly in all directions including onto the road in a wild state of panic even when the car passes a good 20m from their actual location.

Excited kids with the BV car in Andrahava

The foliage and road surface seems to change every kilometre as we travel from Toliara to Ambohibola, but one thing that has been consistent is the welcome we receive in every village. Children and adults alike are drawn to the arrival of the BV car and gather around staring at everything we produce and listening intently to everything we say. We are frequently offered coffee and bok bok by people earning less a day than the average cost of a single coffee in the developed world, and our offers of a small token of appreciation are very grudgingly accepted if at all.

BV team with our octopus data collector in Maromena

We were travelling south of Toliara to collect participatory mapping info in an attempt to document and develop maps of the extent of the octopus fishing sites throughout the region. Working with our local data collectors we gathered a small group of active fishers, ideally one old, one young, one male and one female and went through the lengthy process each time of helping them to visualise their village and reef sites on the printed out satellite photo we presented them with. On occasion this proved a little challenging, but everyone grasped it in the end and we now have hand sketched octopus fishing site maps which we can process in Toliara to project fishing site areas onto Google Earth. We successfully conducted mapping in 14 out of 15 villages where monitoring occurs to the south of Toliara. In the final village, Lanirano we were in danger of being cut off by the tide so had to forgo the mapping in return for not being stranded there for the night which is mildly ironic given its name loosely translated in my best vezo means ‘the water is gone’!

BV team with fishers working through maps in Itampolo and Lanivato

Travelling as a vazaha woman with a car load of gasy boys can, on occasion, highlight some stark differences. For example, our accommodation on the first night was perfectly acceptable, apart from the lack of any kind of toilet and the fact that I had to wait until nightfall before showering in front of a broken window with no shutter! And then we arrived in Itampolo, battered and weary after a successful day of mapping 5 villages and a long day on the road, to quite possibly the most idyllic hotel location I have ever seen. We stayed in beach bungalows with small en suite buckets of well water which felt incredibly luxurious after the previous nights accommodation. Octopus fishing is targeted over the spring tide periods when the tide is at its most extreme and there are a few hours each day when the intertidal reef flat is fully exposed. This also coincides with the full moon, and the moonlit view from our huts was quite spectacular, surpassed only by the sunrise the next morning.

Moonlit view from my hut in Itampolo (on a very long exposure!)