Learning Networks

The last edition of Toko Telo interactive online discussions facilitated by Blue Ventures welcomed experts from across the coastal tropics to discuss how community-based ecotourism can catalyse locally led marine protection. Laura Resti Kalsum of Stay Raja Ampat in Indonesia, Francesca Trotman of Love the Oceans in Mozambique, and Adrian Wells of Seventythree, shared their ...

Last week’s Toko Telo interactive online discussion facilitated by Blue Ventures welcomed experts from across the coastal tropics to discuss how experiences from COVID-19 can help networks and organisations support fishing communities. Prisca Ratsimbazafy of the MIHARI Network in Madagascar, Teri Tuxson of the LMMA Network in Fiji, and Jane Muteti and Yvonne Muyia of ...

To mark World Octopus Day, Rayhan shares his story of an octopus data collection workshop with our Indonesian partner, Japesda Read the full post: Sharing octopus knowledge: it’s fun and it’s virtual!

Blue Ventures is joining forces with conservation leadership specialists, Maliasili, to create a new movement for conservation in the Western Indian Ocean.  The African Marine Conservation Leadership Programme brings together a new generation of marine conservation leaders from the Comoros, Kenya and Tanzania, strengthening their skills, confidence and effectiveness to build the capacity of the ...

This article was first published as a commentary on Mongabay on April 22nd 2020 Impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on vulnerable communities in the Global South go far beyond the looming public health emergency.  The broader economic and environmental ramifications are of profound importance to biodiversity conservation. How the conservation movement responds will determine our relevance ...

After four years championing the rights and needs of Madagascar’s small-scale fishers, Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy has won the prestigious Whitley Award for local conservation leaders in the Global South. Rakotondrazafy received this award on 1 May 2019, in recognition of her work coordinating the MIHARI Network, Madagascar’s network of locally managed marine areas (LMMAs). Coastal communities ...

Njaka and Nantenaina travel to Rwanda to find that they're not alone in seeing the links between family planning and environmental conservation. Read the full post: Family planning: a holistic issue

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 an interview with the MacArthur Foundation, the National Coordinator of the MIHARI Network, Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy, tells the story of MIHARI's foundation and growth. Founded in 2012, the MIHARI Network represents the voices of Madagascar’s small-scale fishers and promotes the equitable and sustainable management of marine resources through locally managed marine areas, or LMMAs. In 2014, MacArthur ...

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 ...