Category: Madagascar

Traditional fishers trained as certified divers

The Barren Isles is an archipelago of nine islands in the Mozambique Channel off of Madagascar’s west coast. Its ecosystem is extraordinarily diverse, comprising vast coral reefs, offshore islands, seamounts, extensive mangrove forests, estuarine marshes, and coastal dunes backed by...

/ Jun 16, 2023

What is the Fisheries Transparency Initiative and why is it so important?

In Madagascar, public authorities, fishers, and civil society organisations are working towards improving fisheries transparency and governance. Together, they want to ensure sustainable and fair management of stocks, and enhance the value of a sector that represents between five and...

/ May 24, 2023

Progress Made on Fisheries Transparency in Madagascar

In Madagascar, public authorities, fishers, and civil society organisations are working towards improving fisheries transparency and governance. Together, they want to ensure sustainable and fair management of stocks, and enhance the value of a sector that represents between five and...

/ May 17, 2023

The Barren Isles – living on the edge of the world

Supported by the Blue Action Fund (BAF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Blue Ventures and its implementing partners, the Aga Khan Foundation, Abalobi, MIHARI, and OSDRM recently began delivering a conservation and community engagement project with communities on the...

/ Feb 15, 2023
Sadify; clinic consultation; Andavadoaka; community health; Madagascar; HIV; AIDS

Improving coastal community access to essential HIV services in Madagascar

Through our close links to communities in the countries where we work, we know that HIV/Aids affects many fishing communities. Our director of Community Health, Dr. Vik Mohan, explains...

/ Dec 1, 2022

A song of change in Madagascar brings goosebumps and tears

As a marine ecologist and self-acclaimed nerd, I get excited when I see a graph, especially one charting fish abundance or coral cover. But there are myriad ways to share tales of change beyond data, especially where numbers don’t convey...

/ Oct 28, 2022

Improving community health to boost engagement in conservation

I sat down with Edith Ngunjiri, our Technical Advisor, Health-Environment Partnerships, to get her insights on the health-environment approach following the 15th anniversary of the Blue Ventures Safidy programme. The community health programme has integrated health activities within marine conservation...

/ Sep 28, 2022

Voices of young community leaders

Speaking up for change in Antsahampano village through mangrove conservation. This is the final piece in a four-part series on the voices of young community leaders from Madagascar. Joséphine Besonoa, the community mangrove management association (VOI) technician, speaks on how...

/ Jul 27, 2022

Voices of young community leaders

Encouraging youth to care more for the environment This is the third piece in a four-part series featuring the voices of young community leaders from Madagascar. Fisherwoman Yolande Soamihaja describes her journey as she inspires fellow youth to take on...

/ Jul 20, 2022

Voices of young community leaders

Changemaking through the art of ‘kabary’ speechmaking in Madagascar This post is the second of a 4-part series featuring the voices of young community leaders from Madagascar. In this second part, Landry Jaofasy, a farmer, tells us how he gradually...

/ Jul 15, 2022

Voices of young community leaders

Marie Gorettie; my public commitment to the environment as a youth leader. This post is the first of a four-part series featuring young leaders in Madagascar who are using their voices to protect their communities and the marine environment. Josephine,...

/ Jul 13, 2022

Shrimp return to the locally managed bay in northern Madagascar

By Nantenaina Ardo NIRISOA, Site Leader (Ambanja, Tsimipaika Bay, Madagascar). More than seven years ago, when I was working as a fisheries and aquaculture technician in Ambanja in Madagascar’s northwest, I set up a network of fisheries data collectors. I...

/ Jul 6, 2022

Nantenaina: Advocating for collaboration, my journey, and hope from COP26 to COP27

Madagascar is my home, and we have just lived through Cyclone Batsirai. More cyclones came after, and there are more to come. We are all affected by climate change, but coastal communities and exposed to diseases. Capping global temperature increase...

/ Feb 25, 2022

Is HIV a hidden epidemic in Madagascar?

Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV through a Health-Environment Partnerships approach I recently joined Blue Ventures as a Technical Advisor on Health-Environment matters, and I was amazed by the strides the team had made. For nearly two decades, Blue Ventures has...

/ Nov 11, 2021

Sustainable living from the sea through community-led seaweed farming.

In Madagascar, members of the community of Belo-sur-Mer – primarily women – have taken up the challenge of village aquaculture. I had no future before seaweed farming. My sons had left the village, and I could not support myself because...

/ Oct 27, 2021