Save the Seahorses of Mozambique

The fisheries council of Mangalisse village is finalizing plans with the government to roll out its LMMA - locally managed marine reserve - to protect seahorses. In June a guilty verdict was reached in the trial of the Chinese resident of Vilankulo that was caught with 8 kg of seahorses. This shows strong awareness and will on the part of the government to protect seahorses by enforcing biodiversity laws and bodes well for collaboration between the government and the local community on the evolving LMMA.

Other accomplishments of the council:

• Led seahorse safaris for several groups of tourists bringing in around $750 for fishing families encouraging them to protect rather than poach seahorses. While well below pre-covid levels, this trickle of tourism is welcome.
• Completed construction of their meeting space which will also function as a reception center for seahorse tourism.
• The "ecopoint” project provided alternatives incomes buying 4 tons of recyclable plastic from casual waste pickers in Mangalisse.
• Celebrated the 50th beach cleanup clearing another 5 tons of litter from Vilankulo south beach.
• In May Ilidio and Amancio completed one year of monthly seahorse monitoring for scientific study in collaboration with Dr. Louw Claassens.

Activities and capacity building was coordinated by Ilidio with support from the Save the Seahorses of Mozambique campaign.

Links:

• ParCo Website
• ParCo featured in IUCN article