Lamu fishermen use live Octopus for fishing Lobsters to prevent Coral destruction
Ken Wekesa
kentywes@gmail.com
Lobster fishing is one of the most lucrative businesses for fishermen in the Mokowe Island in Lamu on the shows of the Indian Ocean in Kenya.
A kilo of lobster in the market varies from USD 85 – USD 135 and records from the department of fisheries in Kenya indicate that 75% of the lobsters found in the Kenyan market are from Lamu, with a big share being exported to Europe and China.
The market value of lobsters look lucrative yet over 1200 fisher men in lamu are living in abject poverty and isolation.
There is high demand of Lobster across the globe which has resulted to overfishing, research conducted by worldwide fund WWF indicates that dependence on fish is high and continues to increase, about 90% of our oceans are already overfished or fished to their limits.
Irresponsible practices have resulted in the degradation of aquatic ecosystems and food resources across the globe.
Lamu fishermen are no exception to this harsh reality, for the last 11 years fishermen in Lamu have been gripping to meet the internationally accepted fishing policies that protect the marine ecosystem and coral reefs.
Lamu Fishermen community representative Mohammed Samu says that they have been struggling to acquire the international certification to enable them access the biggest Lobster Market in America and some parts of Europe.
“Lamu was selected to acquire international certification for lobster although we have been facing numerous challenges currently our fishing practices and equipments does not meet the required standards” Said Somu
He says sustainable fishing standard is what they have to meet before being accorded the certification which many for the fishermen in the area are looking forward to enable them sale their lobsters in Americas.
On the shows of the Pate Island in Lamu I meet Ali Ally Awadh a fisherman who discloses to me that he is exporting live Lobsters to Asia and HongKong although he is not certified with what the sale fetches.
“We go through a lot to harvest Lobsters the profits cannot even feed my families most of us fishermen cannot afford equipments for fishing and storage required” said Awadh
He further says that most of their fishing methods and equipments were deemed not suitable by the ministry of agriculture Livestock and fisheries because they were major contributors to marine ecosystem distractions and pollution in the region.
“ Most of our equipment are made of wood and nails and are smeared with a mixer of paint and shark liver yet the department of fisheries had certified the use fibber boat which are painted” Said Awadh with Shark
He reveals that fishing methods like Monofilament and scope nets were also banned because they were destroying the coral reefs.
The new regulations put in place and the fishermen quest to have Lamu fishing area certified for lobster fishing internationally forced them to revert to traditional methods of fishing that were environmental friendly.
Somu says the fishermen discovered that Octopus feed on Lobsters and that their area of fishing had so many octopuses.
“We harvested live Octopus and fishermen would dive deep in the sea with octopus to the corals and cover the habitants of the Lobsters with scope nets and release the Octopus on the other side, this forces Lobsters to escape ending up in the scope net” Somu said.
He reveals that the method ensured sustainable fishing, the lobsters harvested were in good condition and corals were not destroyed in the process.
Furthermore the fishermen noted that this fishing method was not easily approved by the government and marine experts who were working on the certification process who cautioned the use of Octopus.
“The big question that were being asked was what if we fish Octopus how will we get Lobsters but we managed to convince the experts after a research was done by WFF on the availability of octopus in the region and
