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In 2018 we’ve witnessed more than ever the potential of partnerships, networks and learning exchanges for building relationships and inspiring locally-led marine protection, so we’ve pulled together some highlights. 2018 – Building relationships for lasting change The accomplishments of this remarkable year were only possible thanks to the support of our friends, partners and thousands of individuals ...

Blue Ventures celebrated its 15 year anniversary this year. Over this time, we have grown from a handful of scientists working with one coastal community in Madagascar, to a flourishing team working across nine countries and impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Read on for the 15 biggest moments in our journey ...

On World Fisheries Day, a new best practice guide has been launched to help coastal communities reverse the accelerating loss of fish stocks in the tropics. A collaboration between the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Blue Ventures Conservation and the research initiative FLExCELL, a guide for local fishing communities in the tropics has ...

New research published in the journal Marine Policy demonstrates the promise of smartphones as a useful tool for small-scale fisheries data collection in low-income countries. Describing the results of a project conducted by Blue Ventures between 2013 and 2016 in southwest Madagascar, the study shows the potential for smartphones and the Open Data Kit (ODK) ...

In January 2018 the Tampolove community began stocking their redesigned aquaculture pens with sea cucumber juveniles as part of an innovative livelihoods project within the Velondriake locally managed marine area (LMMA) in southwest Madagascar. Since then, the community has been stocking new juveniles every month, and on 11 November enough sea cucumbers had reached an ...

Madagascar’s Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, HE Augustin Andriamananoro, recently hosted three landmark workshops in Morondava, Ambanja and Antananarivo, to discuss the future of the island’s lucrative mangrove mud crab fishery. The three events brought together over 200 attendees from across the fishery supply chain, from fishers to exporters, researchers and government representatives. Having ...

For over a decade, Blue Ventures has been supporting communities across the Western Indian Ocean to organise temporary octopus fishery closures as a pathway to longer term management. The closures serve to give the octopus time to increase in size and reproduce. This management method is successful because the life cycle of octopus is short ...

Blue Ventures is working with the Government of Madagascar to help coastal communities create a locally-managed marine area (LMMA) around the Barren Isles, which will become the country’s largest marine protected area, as well as the Indian Ocean’s largest LMMA. This ambitious conservation initiative aims to safeguard the marine biodiversity underpinning the archipelago’s traditional fisheries by ...

World Mangrove Day is celebrated globally on 26 July, but for Blue Ventures' blue forests team in Ambanja, northwest Madagascar, celebrations were delayed until Saturday 28. This was to coincide with the signing of natural resource management rights contracts by ten local communities and the Ministry of Environment, Ecology and Forests (MEEF), a critical moment that ...

The implementation of a reserved fishing zone for Madagascar’s small-scale fishers was the subject of a meeting between the Minister of Fisheries and staff from the MIHARI Network and Blue Ventures. The landmark meeting at the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources in Antananarivo on 19th July 2018 began with a speech from Mr Hermany ...