Thursday, August 15, 2013

One Step Closer!


Six times the engine purred before the seventh ignition rumbled life into the van and sent us riding into our first night in Madagascar. We had endured 24 hours of travel, from D.C. to Detroit, to Paris, and finally to Antananarivo, the capitol city in Madagascar. We sat in a van with a family of other sleepy travelers, who spoke foreign words and giggled as we did when the van finally started. While the night brought little sleep, the next day consisted of a plane ride to Toliara and a birds-eye view of this beautiful sunlit island country. Gina and I drank in the deep red soil, the highland plateaus, the lush green coastline where the land and sea shared a wet kiss, and the wetlands moving with fishers and groups of children – all of it too much to take seriously. Had we actually arrived?

Two weeks earlier, we had received an email that confirmed our wildest hopes: we would be able to work with the non-profit organization, Blue Ventures, on a research project on community fisheries in Madagascar! Blue Ventures has a solid reputation with the local Malagasy people and would be able connect us with fishers and fishery managers who could answer our questions: How are fisheries managed at the community-level and is this management effective? Ultimately, Gina and I along with the rest of our Master’s Group Project team (Katie, Kristen, and Pablo!) would like to gather data like this for the entire world using an online survey. For the time being, our research in Madagascar would take place at the Blue Ventures research site in Andavadoaka, where volunteers and independent researchers have participated in conservation efforts since 2001. This research is a part of a greater interest in community-based fisheries in the Western Indian Ocean in collaboration with Rare, an international non-profit conservation group.

Two acronyms you should become familiar with are TURF and LMMA (since we will use these relentlessly for the rest of our blog J). Both of these acronyms are areas in the ocean set aside for local-level fishery management. T-U-R-F stands for ‘Territorial User Rights in Fisheries’ and can be thought of as an area in the ocean defined by a boundary of some kind that allows community members exclusive rights to use the fish and other resources within the boundary. L-M-M-A stands for ‘Locally Managed Marine Area’ and, as far as we can tell, is similarly defined as a TURF in Madagascar. The village we are conducting our research in, Andavadoaka, is a part of the largest LMMA in the Indian Ocean, Velondriake!

But even though we are headed to Andavadoaka tomorrow, it seems like we are as far from the remote desert village by the sea as we were when we were in America. In Toliara, where we are now, the streets are crowded with people dressed in tattered clothes and eager to give you rides in their pousse pousee (pronounced poose-poose). We have been approached several times by hands eagerly reaching for our white skin, asking for money. While Madagascar is undoubtedly beautiful from where you look perched in the clouds, there are some major public health and welfare issues that face you stark cold on the ground. However, beneath the grimy reputation Toliara has earned from travel guides, we have found moments of kindness and patience in every corner. I can only imagine how hilarious we looked trying to buy a mosquito coil in a crowded local shop; we pretend to know French by saying “mosquito” with a French accent while swirling our finger to indicate a coil. The shopkeepers must be experts at charades for within two minutes we made our purchase! And let’s not get started on our (in)ability to speak the local language of Malagasy...

We are interested to see what life will be like in Andavadoaka, where the village is so far removed from infrastructure there is absolutely no government involvement in the community. Did I mention we have an 8 hour four-wheel drive ride tomorrow? Our mantra for the trip so far?  Just one step closer!! We’ll check in once we get to our research site and catch you up on life by the Indian Ocean!

-Alana

For more information on our Master’s Thesis Group Project, please feel free to visit our website, DiscoverTURFs.com.


(The view from a pousse pousse! Riding around Toliara.)

2 comments:

  1. May the effects and potential of your efforts and intentions grow beyond belief and be heard by the farthest ear, seen by the most distanced eye. The kindness of words passed.from peaceful lips, the genuine embrace from tender arms will warm even the most frosted of hearts--and may they greet you with hospitality, as allies.
    -a

    ReplyDelete
  2. SO happy for you two and know the work you will do there will be amazing!!! Can't wait to see you at the end of September! Safe travels and good luck (bonne chance!) lovelies!

    ReplyDelete