In the shallow waters of the Indian Ocean off Kenya’s remote Pate Island, in the Lamu archipelago, Amina Ahmed leads a group of women in song. They are celebrating finding the lair of their prey. Small bubbles indicate the presence of an octopus, hemmed in between the rocks and coral.
With two pieces of thin, sharpened steel, Ahmed gently lifts the pebbles covering the small opening, exposing a tentacle. A few minutes later, Ahmed has her catch, an Octopus cyanea, a species found in the Indo-Pacific region, off eastern Africa and the Red Sea. This one weighs about 1kg and will fetch about 400 Kenyan shillings (£2) at the local market.
Ahmed is known as “Mama Pweza” (Mama octopus), and leads a team of women from nearby Shanga-Ishakani village who have taken to the water as a means of improving their families’ livelihoods.
Crucially, they have also been preserving stretches of the ocean from over-exploitation and coral degradation by closing off an octopus fishery – a critical source of food and income – for four months.
The women have defied the local custom that only men fish while they stay at home and look after the children. “We faced ridicule from society when we started,” says Ahmed. “The men have now accepted our new lifestyles because they know the economic benefits of octopus fishing.”
Illegal and destructive fishing methods that have over-exploited nearshore reefs and damaged nesting sites have led to a decline in fish populations, with negative impacts on local people. The women, who live within the Pate Marine Community Conservancy, are working to ensure their fishing sites remain out of bounds to those using unsustainable methods.
“We work with men to restore damaged coral so that our fishing sites can be more productive. A healthy coral means even the men will find more fish. So everybody benefits,” says Ahmed.
The Pate conservancy is part of the locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) – regions supported by the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), an umbrella body that manages several conservation projects in Kenya.
Currently, there are nine LMMAs covering 746 hectares (1,840 acres), including 484 hectares of closed zones, of which 262 hectares are octopus closures – areas set aside by the community for octopus breeding that are periodically closed off and opened for fishing – benefiting more than 160 fishers.
According to Hassan Yusuf, NRT director for the region, the establishment of the temporary octopus closures, or no-take zones, around Pate and Kiunga conservation areas alongside fishing-gear restrictions has led to an exponential increase in stocks and the restoration of marine life.
“Illegal fishing and wrong nets can easily destroy the fragile marine ecosystem,” says Yusuf. “Octopuses have a short lifespan, between 18 and 24 months. That is a small window for them to grow and be harvested,” he says. “This short period means the women can harvest them and make money quickly.”
In Pate, for example, the group experimented with two fishing closures to boost the catch of octopuses. After the first four-month closure between January and April 2019, the women caught 186kg (410lb) of relatively small octopuses over five days. The second opening between May and September 2019 yielded 868kg of octopuses over five days with each person averaging 6.5kg a day.
For every octopus sold, 30 shillings are saved by the women’s association, which has now collected enough to build a nursery school. They have also bought two fishing boats to access fishing grounds farther offshore.
“We have a male captain but our hope is to have some of our women command the boats,” Ahmed says.
“Having a female captain of the boat is something that will surprise men used to being in the driver’s seat during such fishing trips,” she laughs.
