Stage 1 of the No Reef – No Fish – No Food Campaign

Stage 1 of our No Reef No Fish No Food campaign started on 8th September and ran throughout the month. The Kwanini Foundation team, including our Local Liaison Officer Abdulrahim, and Gender Relations Officers Rabia and Asha, travelled to villages and schools showing an “Introduction to Coral Reefs” video. The campaign will consist of multiple stages; however, Stage 1 encompassed the two Shehias of Makangale and Tondooni, involving three primary and one secondary school, and 11 villages including Mnarani, Kijijini, Makangale and others. The Pamoja flyer was distributed, and the team were on hand to provide further information and answer questions. A competition was also launched, giving people a chance to participate through answering a question about coral reef conservation, to help us with measuring understanding of the messaging delivered. During the campaign some villagers made suggestions and requests to the Kwanini Foundation, the most common being to expand the No Reef No Fish No Food campaign beyond the Shehias of Makangale and Tondooni to the whole Pemba Island and Zanzibar if possible. We are very keen to do this in the future!

Twenty people per village were given the chance to participate in the competition, with five winners to be announced very soon. At least 85% of people responded positively, showing excellent understanding of the importance of coral reefs, both in terms of conservation and through benefits to the communities such as fisheries and tourism. For adults there was a choice of two questions:

What does the Kwanini Marine Protected Area mean to you?

What should the community do to ensure the environmental sustainability of Pemba for the future generations?

Depending on their age, the school children were asked to draw their favourite sea creature from the video, draw a design for a Kwanini Foundation banner for future campaigns or answer one of three questions. We are in the process of judging the submissions and will announce the winners soon.

Here are some of their responses to our questions.
Bimwisho Abdalla Yussuf - Mkiang’ombe village
What should community do to ensure environmental sustainability of Pemba for future generation?
Each and every person should be a guardian to another. The community should take some specific efforts to stop illegal fishing for the next generation.

Rashid Ali Juma - Makangale Village
What should community do to ensure environmental sustainability of Pemba for future generation?
The community should work together, educate themselves on how to conserve the environment and educating fishers so that they can supervise each other.

Juma Ali Makowe - Kijijini village
What should community do to ensure environmental sustainability of Pemba for future generation?
The community should:

Protect the fish breading zone

Escape the illegal fishing gears

Avoid dropping any plastic litter in the water.

And finally, a couple of answers from the students!
Mkitu Hassan Mohammed - Makangale Secondary
What message would you deliver to the adults in your village about the environment?
I shall tell them that; if we damage the coral reef, we will not have fish and food. It is necessary to protect them.

Yahya Said Mwalim - Mnarani Primary School
What was the most important thing you learnt from the video and why you think is important?
I learnt that we should not unnecessarily cut off the coral reefs, because if we destroy the coral reefs the fish will die and we will miss them and food.