GVI Kenya

Nyuli Community Conservation Group is a new group of villagers from Mkwiro village, who are interested to establishing a community marine protected area off Nyuli Reef, which is close to Wasini Island. They are going to have 10 rangers, who are going to be patrolling the area to stop illegal fishing (mainly ring nets and spear gun-fishing) and 22 tour guides, who will take tourist to snorkel on the pristine coral reef of Nyuli or on dolphin-watching tours to see the different species of dolphins and whales.

 Amber and Cody during the “interacting with tourists” lecture
GVI met with the group to know how we could help them and they asked GVI to educate them on the importance of conservation and also to train them on working with tourists. And last Friday GVI volunteers and staff gave lectures on marine conservation as a whole, whales and dolphins (their behavior, morphology and diversity), as well as mangroves.  We were very happy to see their high level of enthusiasm and interest. The main message we tried to get across was for them not to overfish or use illegal fishing techniques, and I am pleased to say they understand the importance of these issues and how they relate to conservation.

 Ebrahim acting as a tour guide, and Cody as a tourist
 

On Monday we gave lectures on sea turtles and reef fish which I think was quite intense, so when a lecture on “Interacting with tourists” followed the class got involved and they were laughing at each other role playing at being tour guides. Other than being entertaining, I honestly believe that they will make brilliant tour guides. At the end of the week they will have an exam on what we taught them so fingers crossed!!!

Sarah Watson explaining the different families of reef fish

This past Wednesday found the GVI marine team travelling from Wasini Island to Funzi Island for two days of training with the Funzi Bay Turtle Club, a local community effort to save endangered sea turtles.  Currently there are about 30 members in the club, 20 of which, including the chair, are females from this traditional Muslim community on the island.

Since we usually spend our days on the water monitoring local and migratory marine species, to have two full days on dry land was quite a change of routine.

 Douglas explaining the importance of sea turtle conservation

Upon arrival, we were met by one of the club members and taken to our house, where we met up with KESCOM volunteers Sonya and Avidad from Sweden, here for three months.  KESCOM (Kenya Sea Turtle Conservation Committee) currently supports many grass-root turtle conservation efforts along the Kenyan coastline.  This support comes in the form of monetary donations, grant writing, providing volunteers, management and contacts with other local organizations.  Douglas is the KESCOM Funzi Island representative.

 Jennifer LeClair giving the presentatoin about whales and dolphins

After our introductions we proceeded to the village for a tour and to the mangrove forest for a planting session.  Since mangroves are among the fastest disappearing ecosystems in the world, each tree really counts!  The turtle club also runs a shop with some very unique gifts made by local community members, and we all spend some time and money there.

Following a fabulous meal cooked by the ladies of the turtle club (one of many such delicious meals) we began our training with the group.  Our goal was to help the club members learn to interact with tourists and to give them information that tourists would like to hear, in addition to giving them important information about habitat conservation.  We showed a number of PowerPoint presentations to the group and with the help of Douglas on the Swahili translation, gave them information about ocean conservation, sea turtle identification and morphology, and local whale and dolphin species.  Club members were extremely interested in learning and asked a number of thought provoking questions following each presentation.

 Mangroves

One of the most common questions asked by the community members was how to explain to the other islanders (100% of which are fishermen) topics regarding conservation of the ocean environment.  We were able to provide some examples, but in the end had to explain that changing people’s minds is a very slow process.  Since entanglement in discarded fishing nets is one of the biggest threats to marine animals, we suggested that this was a good issue to start with in the community.  We were very impressed with the concern of the club members about the welfare of the ocean habitats and animals, especially in an area of the country where ecosystem destruction and human disturbance is prevalent.

Overall, both sides seemed very pleased with the progress made during the first day of training.  The volunteers of GVI would like to thank KESCOM and the Funzi Bay Turtle Club for there generous hospitality and delicious traditional food.

Mangroves of Funzi Island

My name is Aaron. I am a conservation student from England. I have joined Global Vision International (GVI) as a conservation intern to gain experience in the marine biology field. I have been with GVI for 9 weeks with a further 11 weeks to go.
This week on Marine represented a new opportunity to expand GVI’s research in Kenya. The majority of GVI’s marine research has concentrated on monitoring tourist and fishing activity against dolphin behavior and abundance. Whilst this research has been, and continues to provide essential data to Kenya Wildlife Service, it is only focused on the effects to cetaceans.

Setting up the survey 

This week we were able to begin monitoring reef fish abundance, with the intention of creating a long term data capture, similar to that of the dolphin surveys. This means that not only will we be able to see effects of tourism and fishing on dolphins, but we will also be able to see the effects on not only reef fish, but also coral reef habitats as the abundance of reef fish can indicate the health of reef habitats, which also act as feeding grounds for dolphins.

The way reef fish surveys are done is by sampling 5 random sections of coral reef habitats. Reef fish species and size are noted down. This gives a snapshot of the reef fish abundance at any one point in time and provides data on an exciting and important aspect of the marine ecology of Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Protected Area. It’s an honour to help set up this research and I am proud to be contributing to something that can make a real difference.

Survey training underway