Eleven years ago, an NGO arrived in Mwandamu village in Kwale county and established seaweed farming for the very first time.
Like with many NGOs, ACT's time working with the community of the South Coast Kenya elapsed and it moved out. It has never returned.
Fortunately, the seed that it planted lives on. Over time, the community has learnt to embrace seaweed farming, and they are happy.
Shangani Amani group was the pioneer group established in 2011. Back then, it had a membership of 20, but fast-forward to 2022, the membership has grown to 30.
The group is dominated by women: out of 30 members, 24 are women.
Besides growing membership, the group has learnt to live on its own. It has also diversified and incorporated mangrove conservation.
While the group practises seaweed farming purely for money, it plants and conserves mangrove forests for nature's sake, although the effort also earns them money sometimes.
Bakari Nguvu has been the chairperson since its inception. Concerning the future of their endeavour, he spoke with confidence and hope, going down memory lane and recalling the heights they have reached.
"I have educated my children, bought livestock and I’m currently building a permanent house," Nguvu says.
Sometimes we make soaps and cakes and sell them locally, at better prices than when we sell the seaweed
SOURCE OF SUCCESS
The father of seven is also a seasoned fisherman in the ocean waters of Kwale. He attributes his success mainly to seaweed farming.
Together with his group members, he goes to the sea in the morning hours, when the waters have gone away from the shores. They use ropes and wooden pegs to plant seaweed seeds in single files in a given place on the floor of the ocean near the shores.
After 45 days, the plant is ready for harvesting and they go down to reap.
Nguvu says 250g of seaweed seeds yield a harvest of at least 2kg. To avoid running into conflict with other sea users, such as fishermen and other seaweed farmers, the group has agreements on who uses a particular place of sea and for how long.
Luckily, for the Shangani-Amani group, their territory is already marked as they were the first group to begin this practice.
The group sells their product to companies from neighbouring Tanzania, who come to Kwale to ship out the raw material.
With time, the group has also learnt to add value to their product.
"Sometimes we make soaps and cakes and sell them locally, at better prices than when we sell the seaweed," Nguvu says.
Seaweeds have been cultivated and utilised directly as food for humans or as feed to produce food indirectly for human consumption since ancient times.
The plant is also used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Generally, seaweeds are a potential source of revenue. In 2009, total seaweed hydrocolloid sales worldwide amounted to $1 billion (about Sh100 billion).
WAVES OF CHALLENGE
When Shangani-Amani started in 2011, they used to sell a kilogramme of ready seaweed at Sh19. The price was later reviewed to Sh30 and most recently to Sh50.
Mwanasiti Ali, the vice-chairperson of the group, says their bumper harvest comes in times of the rainy season.
However, since last year, the Coast region has experienced little rainfall, and, therefore, poor yields.
"The drought period affected us a lot. We hardly harvested anything," Ali said.
Alex Kimathi, a marine scientist at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), says environmental conditions, directly and indirectly, influence seaweed distributional patterns at a variety of scales.
Consequently, changes in the environment result in changes in seaweed distributions.
"Increased temperature is generally thought to have negative effects on seaweed spore production, termination, recruitment and sporophyte growth. Ocean warming has also been linked to the mortality of spores, gametophytes, eggs and sporophytes," Kimathi says.
Fishermen, Nguvu says, sometimes interfere and uproot the wooden pegs at sea.
The illegal fishing gear, he believes, is the one that contributes to the highest destruction. Fishers sometimes deliberately target the seaweed 'farms', because they are believed to harbour a large fish reserve.
The county government of Kwale has helped the group with the special gumboots to facilitate the planting and harvesting of seaweed.
The group now says they need more drying facilities, shades at the coast, and a harvesting boat.
"During the rainy season, we harvest as much as 10 tonnes of seaweed a day. Unfortunately, we incur losses when the harvested seaweed gets rained on," Nguvu says.
The members use traditional means of transport to move the harvest from the sea to the drying facility, which is housed in a Kwale county market room.
"We carry the seaweed on our heads from the ocean to a rented storage facility. It's hectic. We are planning to get wheelbarrows to transport the harvest," Ali said.
MANGROVES CONSERVATION
In 2017, the group started planting mangroves at the coastline. The members have planted more than 30,000 mangroves.
In addition, the members have mangrove nurseries, and they plant more nurseries every Thursday and Friday weekly.
"We plant mangroves because we know their importance to our lives. If we don't, the waves will destroy the coastlines and come inland. That will also bring a bad smell to our homes," Nguvu says.
As a fisherman, Nguvu adds that mangroves are vital to fish breeding grounds. Sometimes the group sells the seedlings to organisations and companies such as Base Titanium, an Australian mining company in Kwale.
Dr Emmanuel Mbaru, a senior research scientist at KMFRI, says mangrove coverage is declining in Kenya, with most of the losses observed in Kilifi and Tana River counties.
"The losses and degradation of mangrove forests stem from overexploitation of wood and non-wood products, and conversion of mangroves areas to other land uses."
Dr Mbaru suggests forming customary rules among communities to curb further deforestation.
He also advocates empowering communities through the formation of Community Forest Associations (CFAs). These would collaborate with the government to manage mangroves.
The scientist said puts mangrove coverage in Kenya at about 61,271 ha, with Lamu county accounting for more than 60 per cent of the total cover, followed by Kilifi, Kwale, Mombasa and Tana River.
The total forested mangrove area in Kilifi county is about (8,536 ha), which accounts for 14 per cent of the total cover nationally.
Recently, Coastal and Marine Resource Development (Comred), a registered non-profit organisation based in Mombasa, partnered with the group in a project titled Eco-credit.
In the partnership, Comred gives grants to the group. Once the money gets into the group's account, it becomes a revolving fund.
The group members are loaned the money at an interest rate of between 5 and 20 per cent, payable after three months.
The purpose of this project is to improve the group members' economic growth and promote environmental conservation.
For one to qualify for the loan, they must be active members of the group in environment conservation.
"We shall soon bring environment experts to them to educate them on the best practices of seaweed farming and mangrove conservation, among other practices," says Dr Patrick Kimani, a co-director at Comred and leader of the Eco-credit programme.
