Kilifi residents embrace sea fish farming for conservation

Residents of Kibokoni in Kiflifi are benefiting from sea fish farming after abandoning the logging of mangroves for timber, charcoal and firewood.

The community, which lives near the tail end of the Kilifi Creek to the West is now embracing proper conservation methods to protect the ecosystem.

This is contrary to the previous years when they would destroy nature for survival.

The species being farmed include the rabbit fish popularly known as 'Tafi' in Swahili and prawns, which are highly marketable to residents in the Coastal strip.

Tafi is famous due to its sweet taste and affordability.

The sea fish farming project was started by the Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute through the Mariculture Development and funded by the Western Indian Marine Association.

Journalists who toured the project together with senior officials from KMFRI found that the community has made major strides in development.

Umoja Self Help Group chairlady Christine Tsori said before the project started when they were suffering, their work entailed cutting firewood from the mangrove sites and transporting them to Kilifi.

She said since the project started, things have changed for the better because they breed a variety of fish species including prawns, which have a large market.

"Prawns have a high demand and fetch a lot of money from the market," Tsori said.

The chairlady said the rabbit fish has also been a game changer because even though they have not been harvested, there is high demand.

"We are confident that once we start selling tafi all of us shall benefit. We shall get money to educate our children and uplift our standards of living, as opposed to when we depended on selling firewood," she said.

Tsori said there were thieves stealing from the mangrove forest but that stopped immediately after the project started.

She said they have now become the watchdogs, to prevent any further destruction.

The chairlady further said they have their own nursery beds, which are financed by other organisations.

KMFRI assistant director in charge of Mariculture Development David Emirera said they started working with the Umoja Self Help Group in 2011.

He said they taught them how to produce fish, so as to move away from the mangrove destruction.

Emirera said Western Indian Marine Association offered them funding to research whether rabbit fish, which has a high demand, could be produced in fish ponds away from the ocean.

"As KMFRI, we renovated the community fish ponds. We also began working with fishermen, who looked for fish from the ocean, which is now in the ponds and being fed," he said.

The official said their research has established that rabbit fish can do well in the intertidal area and many areas can be used to breed the fish.

To him, if the community can breed fish they will be able to transform their lives.

Emirera said normally rabbit fish is found in rocks within the ocean and fishermen use basket nets to fish them as their demand is very high within the coastal region.

Previously he said communities used to breed milk fish but cannot compare it with the demand for rabbit fish.

"Rabbit fish has a good market price compared to milkfish. A kilogramme of milk fish costs Sh250 while rabbit fish can be sold at Sh350 to Sh450 per kilo, depending on where one gets the fish," Emirera said. 

The official said with time they will teach the community how to do filleting because rabbit fish has a lot of stakes.

Currently, he said the whole world is eying the blue economy and with such innovations and goodwill of the country, the communities can be able to begin exporting the fish.

Emirera said they are currently working with 45 community members in Kibokoni.

He said they also intend to set up a hatchery for farmers to get easy access to fish, as they now get them from the ocean.

With such initiatives, he said there will be no shortage of fish even during the low season, when winds are strong and fishermen are not able to go to the ocean.

The official said there is a commercial production fish pond, which is 1,200 square metres that is 40 by 30 metres wide with a capacity of breeding 1,000 fish at once.

He said one can harvest more than 300 kilogrammes of fish after five months but it can cost Sh250,000 to set up.

Emirera said smaller ones can cost Sh60,000 and are 120 square metres.

"The investment needed to set up the ponds is not huge anyone who wants to breed fish can set up and get returns," he said.

In the ocean he said there are more than 250 species of fish.

However, they started with milk fish which has low demand, forcing them to turn to ponds that have a high market.

Currently, they also breed marine tilapia, which also has a good market.

The programme coordinator for the Western Indian Marine Association Project based in Zanzibar, Mathia Iguru said the project aims at ensuring that fish such as rabbit fish can be produced in ponds and even hatched.

He said what is being done can be replicated in Tanzania, Burundi, South Africa, Somalia among other African nations.

"There are so many untapped opportunities in the Indian Ocean. With such indication, it is possible to move forward," Iguru said.

The coordinator said the entire project, which is not in Kenya alone costs 350,000 USD (Sh41,965,000).

He said a similar setup is also in Tanzania and Mozambique among other countries.

Umoja Self-help Group vice secretary Hamol Jabir said it's time the government invested more along the Kilifi Creek, for the community to benefit from such a project.

He said he joined the project in 2011 when he was a youth and has seen the benefits ever since.

To him, there is not enough fish within the creek and through such projects communities can produce them on a large scale and uplift their standards of living.

(Edited by Bilha Makokha)