Diving Deep; a Firsthand Look at an Overfished Reef

Posted on 28 July 2015

Sun rays dance through the water to tickle the fishermen’s legs as they dive. They are muscular legs. Legs that seem to hint at what it really means to live here. Auguste, a fishermen and local fishery surveyor, motions from below for me to follow. Already feeling the salt in my throat, I try to calm my lungs into diving just a few more meters towards the pale coral floor. From where I am, the reef appears naked. But as I dive closer, I see there is life six metres below.

© WWF Madagascar / Navarana Smith

Sun rays dance through the water to tickle the fishermen’s legs as they dive. They are muscular legs. Legs that seem to hint at what it really means to live here. Auguste, a fisherman and local fishery surveyor, motions from below for me to follow. Already feeling the salt in my throat, I try to calm my lungs into diving just a few more meters towards the pale coral floor. From where I am, the reef appears naked. But as I dive closer, I see there is life six metres below.

There! There's a flurry of long, lace-like, white tentacles spinning, grasping, confused, fighting and wrapping around Auguste’s arm. The first wild horita (or octopus) of my life, puffing a purple exhaust. Beautiful, but now dead. It, along with the three other horita we would see in the next thirty minutes, dies at the end of a long spear. Though we were only diving to get a sense of the reef, how could we leave food behind? The octopi will be brought back to shore with us. As it was explained to me; when those on land wait hungry, how could we, throw out food?

Auguste
© WWF Madagascar / Marlies Volckaert

This is Beheloke, a rural fishing community in Southwest Madagascar. Under a hot, unrelenting sun, the village is woven with scenes of drying blue nets, drying fish, drying pirogues (dugout canoes), and drying bricks that the villagers use to build artificial octopus habitats. Lunch or dinner almost always white, sticky rice with a side of dried, fried, or smoked fish, squid, or octopus. Nothing is wasted. Here, in the last two years, it has rained a rumored total of five days—five days—and the arid sandy soils threaten the community’s agricultural food security. While zebu (cattle with pronounced ‘grizzly-bear’ humps) and other livestock maintain an important cultural role, the question is: how does one maintain a herd when grazing and fresh water is scarce to none? When there isn’t enough potable water?

Back in the water, we are just 10m away from where the octopus was speared. I am resting beside the boat when I see bubbles surface. I stick my mask—already half-filled with salty sea—in the turquoise water and watch six marine biologists trace the coral shelf. This is the last day of a 23 day survey of these coasts by WWF and the College des Oceanographes Université à Toliara (COUT) that is done every three years to document key indicators of health and resilience on coral reefs in this part of Madagascar.

© WWF Madagascar / Marlies Volckaert

Today’s dive was short, and the divers come up shaking their heads. Jean-Claude, a fish biologist, motions to a pirogue beside us, where a father and two young boys are grasping a turquoise fishing net. I recognize the net as the same fine mesh used in city hotel rooms for malaria control. This net,with its small, narrow, unforgiving holes, will take with it all sizes of fish, from adult to juvenile. Mosquito net fishing is a heavily destructive process, wiping out the young fish needed to produce next seasons catch. It may be a big part of the reason Jean-Claude’s dive was so fast; why there was so little diversity of fish on the reef for him to document. Perhaps in the end, this net is what has brought us to Beheloke as volunteers, too.

As we come back to shore, two volunteers cook a beautiful lunch, made out of food that we had brought with us from the city. We are lucky. We have oil and we have some vegetables (although ants and rats do threaten our small supply). But as I look at our omelet for six people, made with two eggs, I long for a whole egg to myself. How many times in my life have I taken this for granted? What do I know about hunger? About not being able to feed your family? About not having the luxury of simply watching an octopus swim by?

There is a local legend that if a fisherman cleans or washes a horita at sea, it is disrespectful to the ocean; the ocean will become angry, threatening the fishermen’s ability to head out to sea for up to a week. The loss of a week of fishing could be disastrous for the community, so there are strong taboos on preparing octopi on the water. Here, there are connections to the environment and connections to one another that I’ve rarely seen in the other places I’ve lived my life. While outsiders are quick to point to Beheloke as an example of overfishing, I can’t help but feel that the international community has so much to learn from Beheloke, too.
I ask Jean-Claude one final question; I ask him if he is still optimistic despite today’s disappointing dive and others like it.

“Yes,” he replies. “We have information and a vision on how to provide alternative employment, and ensure there is conservation during key breeding times. We have research in order to track biodiversity changes. And—perhaps most importantly—the community recognizes the way the reef has changed, and why it has.”
The industry of seaweed agriculture has been introduced to Beheloke as a way for people to make money to buy food. The seaweed is exported for use in international cosmetic products. But how does one justify the time it takes to wade out and maintain the lines of seaweed, when money will come only during harvest and, until then, there is no food for this evening? The sea has changed, too. It is warmer, higher. The remnants of straw houses, now just soggy husks above the high tide line, match the stories the villagers tell of extreme weather over the past two years. For the community’s residents, fishing continues to be the only way to get by, with the reef acting as the community’s refrigerator.

© WWF Madagascar / Marlies Volckaert

As one of six WWF volunteers living in Beheloke, I wear a blue T-Shirt that says “Arovy ny riake”: protect the ocean. But it does not seem like the residents of Beheloke need to be informed about the importance of protecting the ocean or managing fisheries in a sustainable way. Facilitated by WWF, the community has set up management committees, and elected six men who, like Auguste my octopus hunting companion, are employed to try and record what is coming out of the water. There is incredible organization and agreement on the need for management measures, including periodic closures of select fishing areas. But the most pressing problem remains: what is the option for tonight’s meal?