Born Free

We have had a busy week. One team travelled north to Tanga near the border with Kenya to hold introductory meetings with Regional and District government authorities in preparation for starting turtle (and other marine) conservation activities in the area. The other group headed south to complete the judging for the primary schools’ recycling and marine conservation competition.

Just south of Tanga there is an island called Maziwe which until about 30 years ago was vegetated and which was one of Tanzania’s most important turtle nesting grounds, particularly for the green and olive ridley turtles. However, all the trees were cut and it now remains as a sandbar which is completely covered by sea during the spring tides. Turtles continue to nest there but the eggs are inundated and do not survive. We expect to work with a local group, Friends of Maziwe, and other interested parties to start closely monitoring turtle nesting activity on the island and moving eggs to mainland beaches just a few kilometers away. There are a number of popular hotels along this stretch of coast and many have already shown an interest in supporting us and local communities to initiate a successful turtle tourism programme. We plan to hold a stakeholders meeting before the end of 2008 to look at the options and discuss relevant issues.

The primary schools; competition has been a great success. All the school entries, from both students and teachers, have been collected and the final ceremony will be held this weekend to announce the winners and hand out the prizes. There will be about 200 official guests and we hope that many hundreds of local residents will also come and watch the songs, drama and artwork.

Next week we hope to conduct an aerial dugong survey in the Rufiji Delta where several live sightings have recently been made. A microlight will be used as it can fly low and slow. Fingers crossed that we will see some and that the weather is calm and clear. More on the results of that at the end of next week.

Thanks, Catharine

Hi, I’m John Mbugani, the Education Officer at Sea Sense.  Last week I got back from a 10 day trip to the Rufiji Delta, the last stronghold of the extremely rare and elusive dugong, or sea cow. The delta is amazing with small channels bordered by mangrove trees and so many birds! On the sea side, there are vast areas of seagrasses and long stretches of sandy beaches some of which are turtle nesting sites.

The reason we (me and a group of fishers and experts from other parts of Tanzania) were there was to try and make sure dugong protection and conservation is included in the management plans of recently initiated community “Beach Management Units”. These BMUs are basically groups of local fishers who want to start managing their own marine and coastal resources.

We visited 8 villages to help them think about what issues they have in their village and to draft up a management plan. Some of the problems they face are illegal fishing (dynamiting in particular), use of their fishing grounds by non-resident fishermen and destruction of the seagrasses and fishing grounds by industrial prawn trawlers.

It was a very interesting process and I’m happy to say that conservation of both dugongs and turtles were raised by 6 out of 8 villages and have been included in their plans for resource management.

In a few weeks time we will return to help them start to implement their plans.

Soon I am off to the coast south of Dar es Salaam to conduct some training with hotel staff and do an interview survey. I will be accompanied by the Sea Sense Administrator, Dot Ndunguru and 4 students from the University of Dar es Salaam.

I am Catharine Muir, Director of Sea Sense, a Tanzanian community-based NGO that I set up in 2001. Sea Sense helps to protect endangered marine life including turtles and dugongs with a view to improving the lives of local people and protecting biodiversity. My job is essentially to coordinate our dedicated team which is comprised of 3 in the office and a network of 65 local Conservation Officers who collect data and raise awareness along the coast.

 The kinds of activities Sea Sense is involved in include: protecting nesting turtles and their eggs; tagging; monitoring sightings and strandings of turtles, dugongs, dolphins, whales and whale sharks; conducting socio-economic and biological surveys to collect information on values, beliefs, perceptions and trends; and raising awareness through village meetings, competitions and distribution of educational materials. Aside from the field work, I am also responsible for fund-raising and report writing and dissemination of our work through local and international media and publications.

I work closely with John Mbugani the Education / Field Officer who is Tanzanian and who graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam in 2007 with a BSc in Marine Biology from the Faculty of Aquatic Sciences & Technology. John spends the majority of his time in the field, either in villages raising awareness, training Conservation Officers and organizing campaigns or on the beaches or at sea monitoring turtle nests, reports of dead marine animals or illegal activities.

We have just completed a dynamic primary schools’ competition centered around dugongs for World Environment Day and have many more exciting activities planned for the rest of 2008!

Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be reporting on the work of Sea Sense, I hope you enjoy reading about the work which we are so passionate about!!