JULIE GARNIER1,2, ISABEL SILVA1,2, JOHNSTON DAVIDSON4, NICHOLAS HILL2, LARA MUAVES3, SANTOS MUCAVES 3, ALMEIDA GUISSAMULO3 & ALISON SHAW2 1
Maluane / Cabo Delgado Biodiversity and Tourism Project, Zona dos Inos, Av. Marginal, Pemba, Mozambique Zoological Society of London, Conservation Programmes, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4RY, UK 3 The Natural History Museum of Maputo & Department of Biological Sciences, Eduardo Mondlane University, PO BOX 257, Maputo, Mozambique 4 Current address: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville, Australia Corresponding address:
[email protected] 2
The province of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique still represents one of the most inaccessible coastal regions of East Africa, having been isolated by more than 30 years of war and by its remoteness from the strategic centres of economic activity located south in the country. No longer than 10 years ago, the Querimbas archipelago - called “Maluane islands” before Portuguese times - remained one of the only coastal areas in the region in which biodiversity had never been really documented, although its potential conservation value had previously been suspected (Tinley, 1976). When marine surveys started to be undertaken in the southern Querimbas (Whittington et al ., 1998) results indicated that the diversity of corals found there was comparable with the best found along the East African coastline. As a result, the Querimbas National Park was gazetted, encompassing most of the southern section of the Querimbas where coral reefs are monitored regularly (Motta et al ., 2003, Costa et al., 2004).
Vamizi island lies in the far north section of the Querimbas archipelago just below the Tanzanian border (Fig. 1), in the area where the South Equatorial Current splits into the Mozambican Current and East African Coastal Current. It appears to be an ancient uplifted patch reef of Pleistocene origin, surrounded by a submerged reef flat with broad terraced slopes
Obura, D.O., Tamelander, J., & Linden, O. (Eds) (2008). Ten years after bleaching - facing the consequences of climate change in the Indian Ocean.CORDIO Status Report 2008. Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean/Sida-SAREC. Mombasa. http//:www.cordioea.org 121
(Davidson et al ., 2006). It is bound eastwards by bathymetric intrusions providing proximity to deep water of the Mozambique channel. Vamizi is one of the largest islands (12 kms long and 0.5-2 kms wide) of the Querimbas and one of the four islands which always had a resident community since Arabic times, settled in the western section of the island for its easier access to the mainland. The resident population was estimated at 533 people in 1999, the majority being of kimwani and swahili origin with a livelihood based on subsistence fishing (Garnier, 2003). Since the end of the war, an increasing number of itinerant fishermen from Tanzania and other provinces in Mozambique have established a presence on Vamizi, making the total population highly fluctuant on the island depending on the monsoon. Regular movements of fishers between the island and coastal villages on the continent, only situated 4 kms from the island, also contribute to this high flux of people. After conducting the first socio-ecological surveys in the northern Querimbas (Garnier et al , 1999), the Maluane initiative was created in order to ensure the sustainable conservation of the exceptional coastal biodiversity of the northern Querimbas and to support the socio-economic development of local communities, using up-market tourism as the economic engine. As stated in its management plan (Garnier, 2003), the objectives of Maluane are: To protect and maintain the biological diversity and natural resources of national and international significance, as well as ecosystem processes; To ensure community participation in management decisions and activities; To promote sound management practices for sustainable production purposes; To contribute to the socio-economic development of local communities; To provide opportunities for research and education; To develop up-market tourism activities that will ensure the financial viability of the Project.
Family Acroporidae Faviidae Mussidae Poritidae Oculinidae Pocilloporidae
Species count 59 51 11 14 2 7
% total (183) 32.24 27.87 6.01 7.65 1.09 3.83
Present in sites 36 36 36 36 35 35
Agariciidae Fungidae Merulinidae Siderastreidae
8 9 3 6
4.37 4.92 1.64 3.28
34 34 33 33
Dendrophyllidae Euphyllidae Pectinidae Astrocoeniidae
4
2.19
25
2 6 1
1.09 3.28 0.55
23 22 5
In order to achieve the objective of a three-fold sustainability (ecological, social and financial), Maluane was developed as a partnership between a conservation organisation (the Zoological Society of London (ZSL)), local communities and the private sector, represented by a group of individual European investors with a strong commitment to conservation. Since 2001, Maluane has developed a number of marine conservation programmes on Vamizi Island that will be succinctly presented below.
Detailed assessments of Vamizi reef were conducted in 2003 and 2006 by Maluane and ZSL and the results presented below are extracted from Davidson et al. (2003, 2006) and Hill et al. (2003). In order to undertake a full benthic survey of coral communities around Vamizi Island, three methods were used: manta tow surveys, rapid ecological assessment (REA) and SCUBA search. Underwater visual census of reef fish was conducted to obtain abundances of all species 122
excluding cryptic and small species. Both surveys were undertaken in collaboration with the Natural History Museum of Maputo and the University E. Mondlane at Maputo, with whom Maluane has developed strong links and which always send Mozambican students for training in conservation management techniques with Maluane. Coral reefs around Vamizi were identified as being very healthy and productive (Plate 1). The average coral cover was 37% (range 22-63%), with low levels of injury (
