Category: The power of data
Small-scale fishing − one of the world’s most important sources of food − remains one of the least digitised sectors of the global economy. The lack of data has consistently frustrated the management of small-scale fisheries and the conservation of marine life.
We believe that marine conservation can only succeed at scale when managed by those who depend on the sea. Fishing communities have the most at stake, and the most to gain from ocean recovery. Our approach to monitoring and evaluation focuses on supporting coastal communities to monitor fisheries themselves. This participatory monitoring, backed up by strong technical support, puts data in the hands of local fishers so that they are empowered to manage their fisheries.
In this blog series, we share stories from the shore about how coastal communities are taking monitoring and evaluation into their own hands to lead ocean conservation.
Embarking on a sustainable shrimp journey in Indragiri Hilir, Indonesia
Inayah joined Blue Ventures Indonesia as a Fisheries and Data Technician in June 2023. Her role involves supporting local partners with data collection, analysis, and reporting. In her first blog, she talks about how the first shrimp stock assessment carried...
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...
Meet the communities using data to transform fisheries management
Blue Ventures and partner COMRED held the first community data feedback meeting with people from Kwale County in Kenya to validate fisheries catch and landing data collected from fisheries over three months. The activity was an eye-opener on how communities...
Launching the first temporary mud crab fishery closure in Sapat, Indonesia
Community-based mud crab fisheries monitoring in Indonesia leads to sustainable practices with temporary fisheries closure.
Promoting the use of customary laws to improve community fisheries in Indonesia
This is the final piece in a three-part series on the use of customary laws known locally as sasi that seek to harness a more sustainable relationship between man and nature. Sasi is a set of customary laws currently used...
The power of data for community co-management in Tanzania
A history of invisible conflict When we started working in marine conservation in the early 2000s, we quickly realised that data is an essential tool to help us understand the state of our fisheries and marine ecosystems. We focused mainly...
Relying on local knowledge to preserve key biodiversity sites in the Comoros
the power of data and local knowledge in local fisheries management An array of colours fill my eyes when I put my head underwater – blue, red, yellow and green is what I see as the fish move over beautiful...
Going digital: collecting octopus fisheries data through mobile monitoring
Our community-based partner organisations in Indonesia are supporting communities to transition from paper-based data collection to mobile monitoring