A Holistic Approach

A HOLISTIC APPROACH

Love The Oceans believes in a community-led, holistic approach to conservation. Through comprehensive biodiversity and sustainability research, educational outreach and capacity-building community workshops in sustainable fishing, Love The Oceans aims to facilitate the transition from current unsustainable fishing practices and targeted elasmobranch fisheries towards sustainable fishing supplemented by alternative livelihoods.

The first step in any successful conservation effort is to understand the underlying cause of the issue. Through our comprehensive research Love The Oceans is collecting baseline data to understand and document pressing conservation issues across our three main research sites; Guinjata, Paindane and Coconut Bay. We are monitoring the development of current conservation issues through our continuous research. The combination of solid baseline data and continuous sampling effort ensures the development of clear, achievable biodiversity targets and framework for the implementation of a successful community-led Marine Protected Area in the Inhambane Province.

The next integral step is to enable and empower our communities to solve the critical conservation and sustainability problems that are negatively impacting their livelihoods. At Love The Oceans the core of our community-led conservation approach is our Educational Outreach: We work with active fishermen running workshops on sustainable fishing and educate the next generation of fishermen by teaching Marine Resource Management and Sea Safety at two local schools; Guinjata and Paindane School. Equipped with the right tools and knowledge our communities are enabled to successfully transition towards sustainable fishing, ending elasmobranch fishing and establishing a Marine Protected Area with a long-term, sustainable outcome beneficial for both ecosystems and communities.

The final step in Love The Oceans’ community-led conservation approach is to develop and implement alternative sources of food and income through our Sustainable Livelihoods and Ocean Conservation Champion Programs. Ecotourism is a major industry currently generating an estimated US$10.9 million in direct revenue to dive operators in the Inhambane Province annually, and with a direct economic impact of US$34.0 million annually. Sustainable ecotourism and other alternative sources of income can ensure both sustainable livelihoods for the local communities and the protection of vulnerable ecosystems and species.

Through our Research, Educational Outreach and Community Outreach Programs Love The Oceans is taking a holistic, community-led approach to conservation leading the sustainable development towards the end goal of establishing a Marine Protected Area through a community-led, bottom-up approach.

OUR IMPACT

Love The Oceans believes in working towards a clear, achievable and focussed goal, and producing clear, measurable results. To date Love The Oceans has:

Hosted +130 volunteers over 4 volunteer seasons.
Collected 5 years of continuous data on small-scale, artisanal fisheries across three fisheries sites, Guinjata, Paindane and Coconut Bay, and conducted initial assessments of the sustainability of various types of fishing methods.
Collected 4 years of biodiversity assessments on local coral reefs using Reef Life Survey methodology, and conducted initial assessments of biodiversity and coral reef health.
Collected 3 years of humpback whale surveys, including sightings frequencies, surface behaviour and vocalisations.
Collected 2 years of oceans trash research, removing over 500 kg of marine debris from our local beaches.
Collected 1 year of turtle research, conducting turtle nesting patrols during nesting season.
Taught over 750 children at primary school level about Marine Resource Management during 4 seasons of volunteer programs.
Built 7 classrooms at Guinjata and Paindane School over 4 years of Community Outreach, bringing the schools up to 7 and 8 solid classrooms respectively – enabling the achievement of secondary school status for both schools by 2021.
Taught over 600 children to swim over 3 seasons of volunteer programs. In 2018 LTO ran the first season of intensive swimming lessons teaching over 200 children to swim over the course of two weeks.
Secured our Community Outreach Manager an internationally recognised STA Award in Teaching Swimming to enable swimming lessons to continue outside of Love The Oceans’ volunteer season.