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Kuruwitu: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Tanya
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As you know from previous updates, “Kuruwitu: Between a Rock and a Hard Place” is one of the films we are currently producing under the Inspiration series. (If you would like to refresh your memory about this project, you can read our earlier posts about this film's progress here and here.)
To follow is Simon Trevor’s latest field report, describing progress on the Kuruwitu project (don’t miss the photo-story which follows his account, showing the extraordinary success of the No Fishing Zone in rehabilitating Kuruwitu’s marine environment):
Our film work at Kuruwitu could go on forever, for there are so many exciting changes taking place, and I have no doubt this will carry on for years. However, we shall obviously have to close the first chapter of this story soon. We can’t go on forever - even if we would like to!
We are waiting for it to stop raining at the coast so that Lesley [Kenyan camerawoman working with AEFF] can record the latest increase in fish numbers. This will enable us to show the great changes that have taken place since we first started filming here, just after the local fishing community had declared this area a No Fishing Zone in order to provide a safe fish breeding ground and to allow the fish stocks to recover.
Lesley Hannah, cold and exhausted after another successful dive. Lesley is holding one of AEFF's cameras in a special underwater housing which has enabled her to get such amazing footage of the changes taking place beneath the waves at Kuruwitu.
Before we sign off on this film, we also feel we should include the arrival of the glass bottomed boats, which have been financed by a grant from the Community Environment Facility (under the Community Development Trust Fund, a joint EU-Kenya Government initiative). This will be such a momentous occasion, for it signals the beginning of new lives for the fishermen who will no longer have to rely on fishing for their livelihoods. We just hope that the tourist trade in Kenya will remain stable.
To our delight, another community very close to Kuruwitu has already declared another No Fishing Zone in their area, and we were there to film the official opening. This time the coastal Director of Fisheries presided over the event and there has been great support from other government officials, especially the local government chiefs. In fact, the local officials were so excited that they were being filmed and their good intentions recorded, that they have since been imploring us to return to film their fish.
Although this area, known as Bureni, is only a couple of kilometers from Kuruwitu, upon seeing Lesley’s latest underwater footage from there, I immediately noticed that the corals were of a different type and even the fish species were different. Of course both the coral and the fish were badly depleted but we now know that it will only be a matter of time before this area too will recover, just like Kuruwitu – provided the community can keep destructive elements at bay. This diversity within the marine ecosystem from one area to another shows how important it is to conserve more than just one or two isolated patches in order to benefit fully.
In addition to Boreni, yet another community expressed interest in the Kuruwitu model, this time from the Lamu area, a considerable distance up the coast towards Somalia. The community members even came down to talk to the Kuruwitu fishermen and again we were there to record their wonderment at the fish at Kuruwitu.
So it looks like AEFF shall have a camera team on the coast for a long time (as long as we can raise enough funding to make all these films!) What is interesting to note is that this need for films on the coast is repeated time and time again across the country, and indeed across the region. I have been struck many times by how many parallels there are between the forests and savannas and the marine environment. Now there’s another idea for a film…
You'll remember that in my previous post about progress on this film, I had promised to post some images...so here we have it: The Kuruwitu story in pictures…
BEFORE THE NO FISHING ZONE WAS FORMED AT KURUWITU:
This is Kuruwitu in 2006, but it resembles much of Kenya’s underwater landscape beyond the Marine Parks these days. Huge areas have been denuded by irresponsible tourism (people breaking the coral heads with their feet while snorkeling), by over-utilization of fish and all other marine life has removed the creatures which keep the sea urchins in check, and by the effects of El Nino over ten years ago.
This was a typical sight before Kuruwitu was formed. Sea Urchins have completely destroyed this coral head, which has probably been living here for four hundred years. This area used to be one of the finest coral gardens on the East African coast but it was decimated by people’s feet trampling the coral while snorkeling and by the rough waters stirred up by the El Nino weather system in 2006. Most of the fish were caught and taken away for the aquarium trade. Some of the coral would also have been sold as living specimens across the world.
A new emerging coral head is fed upon by a sea urchin. “Urchin” is an old word for a spiny hedgehog. The urchins feed on the algae, which coat the coral and, as they do this, they undermine the coral heads, which then collapse. As a result of the removal of the creatures which feed on urchins, their numbers had risen so that new coral like this one could never grow to maturity.
Sea Urchins have completely devastated this area – scientists now term it “urchin barren”.
This man is searching for “the last” baby octopus. Local traditional fishermen have seen their stocks of fish plummet as more and more people arrive at the coast to concentrate on removing anything edible from the shallow waters along the reefs. Additionally more efficient fishing nets, scuba diving equipment, and motorized boats have increased the catches to such an extent that today, there is hardly anything left. So now there is little hope for a better life from fishing for most of the population along the coast, and other alternatives need to be found.
Tidal pools like this one are completely devoid of fish and no longer hold breeding fish stocks at low tide. These pools have been denuded of all life by over-exploitation, including by the international aquarium trade.
These coral reef fish represent the desperation that coastal people now face in their struggle for survival, for these are not traditional food species. Due to over-exploitation of fish all along Kenya’s 500km coastline, there are no larger fish here any more. These reef fish have far more value attracting tourists who will pay time and time again to come and see them, but faced with hunger and no other options, people have no choice but to eat them.
AFTER THE NO FISHING ZONE WAS FORMED AT KURUWITU:
These men are members of the Kuruwitu Conservation and Welfare Association. They are not wealthy in material terms but they have the most extraordinary asset right on their doorstep. The No Fishing Zone that they have voluntarily created is recovering and will soon provide the foundation for a better standard of living for this coastal community. Supported now by the Kenya Government and with funding from a European Union/Kenya Government financial grant, the local people will have the means to conduct snorkeling and glass bottom boat tours to their coral gardens. They now have the opportunity to change their way of life from fishing to tourism. This is only possible because of the astonishing recovery of the Kuruwitu area, for which they must take much of the credit.
There are thousands of different types of coral across the world. You may find this hard to believe but a coral is an animal. Thousands of free-swimming larvae drift across the oceans before attaching themselves to rocks where they develop into billions of living polyps, which secrete calcium carbonate skeletons. Over thousands of years whole reefs are formed in this way. People benefit from healthy reefs in many diverse ways.
The protection of this reef by the Kuruwitu Conservation and Welfare Association is probably one of the most far reaching and important events in Kenya’s recent marine history.
After seeing our film there is no telling how many more communities will also see the wisdom of their actions and emulate the model in their own areas, in order to secure healthy fish stocks for themselves and for future generations.
Prior to the formation of the No Fishing Zone by the Conservation Association, the aquarium trade had removed nearly all the fish but here is living proof of the Association’s success and their determination and courage in the face of opposition from many sides. They have to contend not only with the professional aquarium traders in Kenya, who remove an uncontrolled number of fish and even living coral (on which fish rely for safe refuges and breeding places), but also with some other local fishing communities alongside the Kuruwitu area who have yet to see the benefits to all brought about by a No Fishing Zone and say they have sold the sea.
Here’s another urchin killer. This large ferocious Black Barred or Picasso Trigger fish is responsible for keeping those coral wreckers in check. But this fish is in great demand as an aquarium fish. It was aquarium suppliers who denuded the original Kuruwitu coral gardens and if it were not for the Conservation Association members, they would still be carrying out their destructive trade.
A QUESTION FOR US ALL…
Beautiful Helmet Shells like this one have been removed from the coastal waters in their hundreds of thousands to sell to tourists. These creatures feed on sea urchins, and so the end result is that sea urchins proliferate uncontrollably. They are not the only creatures that kills urchins and keeps their population in check but their almost total removal from the underwater environment has had a significant effect.
It has been calculated that the international seashell trade removes 2,200 tons of shells per year from the ocean. Why is it that we humans must remove everything we can from our environment when it looks so much more beautiful and natural in its rightful place? How many parents still encourage their children to collect shells during a stroll along the beach? In today’s world, there are just not enough shells left for that luxury.
Would you buy one of these cowrie shell necklaces after learning and seeing the effect of removing marine creatures from their natural home on Kenya’s coral reefs?
Please help us complete this educational film!
AEFF requires a further $5,000 to complete the filming and postproduction work on this film. This will cover the cost of the editing, the writing, translating and recording of the narration (in English and Kiswahili, and hopefully in Giriama too - the tribal language of this coastal area) and all other finishing costs.
In addition, we need to raise $3,750 to produce 500 multi-language DVD copies of the film for free distribution across Africa via our network of distribution partners including mobile cinemas, conservation organizations, educational institutions, terrestrial and satellite TV. This includes the cost of creating a DVD master, producing the covers, replicating the DVDs, packaging each DVD into a cover, freight of the DVDs from UK to Kenya (there are no reliable replication facilities in East Africa at present) and the significant cost of distributing each DVD to remote places across the continent.
Once completed, this film will be seen by millions of people in its first year alone, and will forever endure as an important educational and historical document, charting the progress at Kuruwitu, and setting an example for others to follow in order to create a better life for themselves, without destroying the environment. Please help if you can:
Thank you.
Catch up on previous tales of Kuruwitu through our earlier posts:
17th March 2008: Leaking Canoes but no dampening of spirits...
13th March 2008: Filming and Progress Report on two marine film projects...
A Rewarding Day
I am finally back in my office after a hectic, but very fruitful ten days in Nairobi – non-stop meetings, meetings, meetings…but it’s all looking good for AEFF, as we continue to build relationships with partner organizations with whom we hope to grow and flourish over the coming years.
Of course, our Nairobi trip started with the prize giving at the Giraffe Center, which was celebrating 25 years in conservation in Kenya, making this year’s environmental awareness competition particularly special.
As you know, AEFF was asked to donate 150 DVDs as prizes for the school children and university students taking part…and thanks to the generosity of our supporters from Wildlife Direct, Safaritalk, Fodors and our own website, we managed to raise the funds to enable us to provide these prizes. As a result, every winner and every runner up received, within their parcel of prizes, an educational DVD about various environmental and wildlife issues, drawn from our selection of 12 different films.
What a day it was! The event kicked off at 1.30pm, with poetry readings by children from all around the country, of all different backgrounds and age-groups…and no ordinary poetry reading it was either, for the kids themselves had written their poems, demonstrating an acute grasp of the issues and a deep concern for the environmental health of their country. It was really moving to sit there and listen and watch, for the poets were very animated in their delivery. The younger children sang songs, which they acted out as they sang.
One of the most extraordinary performances came from the Machakos School for the Deaf. Despite their disability, these kids staged the most extraordinary dance routine in colorful costumes and intricately painted faces, guided by the deep rhythmic vibration of a drum (below). It was an incredible performance.
Altogether, there were over 400 students at the event, which was held in the leafy gardens of the Giraffe Center, in Nairobi’s Langata suburbs. We caught up with many friends from the conservation field, including Steve Itela from Youth for Conservation and his colleague Isaac.
Isaac and Steve from Youth for Conservation, with AEFF's own Lucy and Ian
The Guest of Honor at the event was the Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, Dr Julius Kipng’etich (above), who made a grave yet rousing speech, discussing the major environmental issues of our day (global warming, pollution, over-population, deforestation, loss of biodiversity), and calling upon the youth to meet these challenges as they grow into adulthood – while simultaneously pointing out to the current generation that if we do not face these issues, it will be the young who condemn us when we hand on the problems to them. Dr Kipng’etich then outlined KWS’s strategy in meeting the demands of the coming years, a process in which he hopes many young and talented people will join him.
Of course, as the prize giving itself approached, the kids could hardly contain themselves (above). The KWS Director was the first to hand out prizes, to the overall Boys Environmental Champion of the Year, and the Girls Environmental Champion of the Year (below).
The KWS Director congratulates the Girls Environmental Champion, while Rick Anderson (the Giraffe Center's Chairman), and Christine Odhiambo (its manager) look on.
Following on from this, various sponsors and supporters were called upon to hand out prizes to the kids, from the youngest kindergarten children who won awards for their artworks, to the university students whose essays had set them apart from their peers. Ian Saunders, representing AEFF, was called out of the audience to give away a series of awards, including our DVDs contained in every enticing prize package…
AEFF's Ian Saunders hands out prizes (click to enlarge)
Altogether it was a fantastic day, perfectly organized by the Giraffe Center team led by its manager, Christine Odhiambo, and even the giraffes turned up on cue, to thrill children and adults alike.
From AEFF’s point of view, we are delighted that 150 school children and university students now have a copy of one of our educational films to show at their schools, all across the country. This will also allow the schools to get in touch with us, and request further films to use in their science classes. Already since the event, AEFF has received requests from university students who want to show our films in their Environmental Clubs at university, and from there take them further afield to show to community groups… it just goes to show how many diverse positive effects can come from participating in an event like this.
Thank you again to all our supporters who made this possible.
If you are able to continue supporting us with a contribution towards our film making work, your donation will be gratefully received and will help us to continue making educational films long into the future, for the benefit of people, the environment and wildlife in Africa. Thank you.
The Turtle Watcher
As many of you will know, we are currently working on a series of films under the umbrella heading of “Inspiration”. Each Inspiration film highlights a specific issue, through the eyes of an individual (or small organization) who is involved. The series seeks to create role models, whom others can emulate and learn from. Each film will show how people are benefiting by adopting conservation-based or environmentally sustainable initiatives – benefiting not just in terms of personal wellbeing but financially too.
One of our films centers on a man named Kahindi, “The Turtle Watcher” (see photos of Kahindi below). He is fanatical about saving sea turtles, which as you know are highly endangered, despite playing an important role in the biodiversity of our oceans. Working with the Watamu Turtle Watch, Kahindi’s job takes him from the beach where he monitors the coming ashore of turtles to lay their eggs, to the villages of fishing communities who – thanks to people like Kahindi spreading the word – now hand in turtles inadvertently caught in fishing nets. This means the turtles can be returned to the sea, instead of being killed.
This is the latest filming report sent in from the field by Simon Trevor, head of AEFF’s production team…
The final phase of the filming for our turtle film ended a week ago when Lesley Hannah [Kenyan camerawoman working with AEFF] was able to film a Green Turtle laying her eggs on a beach near Watamu on the Kenya coast.
Close up of the turtle laying her eggs deep in
the nest hole she has dug with her flippers - she
can lay up to 100 eggs in one sitting!
From the start, we felt that this was a vital sequence for the beginning of the film, and we had been waiting for an opportunity to film such an event. It has always struck me as strange that in wildlife documentary making, the beginning of a film is so often the last sequence to be captured on film.
Nesting turtles have been witnessed many times around the world but few East Africans will have seen this amazing event… and it is amazing for many reasons. Turtles look old and they are old! (Surely Stephen Spielberg based his famous ET on a turtle? Just look at that head!)
Turtles have been around for millions of years. In fact, it is said they would have witnessed the dinosaurs evolve and become extinct… so they would have been coming ashore during the hours of darkness to lay their eggs for aeons…
Today in Kenya, as in many parts of the world, turtle nesting sites are becoming crowded out by human activities along the remaining sloping beaches. These secluded areas are vital for the successful hatching of their eggs. We at AEFF hope that this film will help people to understand the role turtles play in the biodiversity of the oceans and make an effort to conserve them.
A female turtle returns to lay her eggs on the same shore where she was born, sometimes many years after the moment that she took that first gigantic step in her life of swimming out to sea as a tiny hatchling. She would have been one out of a thousand siblings to have survived and, in the interim period, would have covered hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of ocean. (Astonishingly, male turtles never return to land after they leave their natal beach.)
Once a turtle returns to her birthplace to lay her eggs, she will come ashore as many as four times, with intervals of ten to fifteen days between each laying. She can deposit as many as one hundred eggs at a time. This knowledge gave us a better chance of being in the right place at the right time to film a nesting turtle but the odds against us were still formidable.
One particular turtle came ashore at 1.30am, but was not spotted until she was already on her way back out to sea. Having spent many exhausting hours searching the beaches over several consecutive nights, Lesley was bitterly disappointed to have missed the turtle coming ashore. But, as the Watamu Turtle Watch ‘watchers’ knew, turtles sometimes come ashore but return to the sea without laying their eggs. This behaviour is known as a “false crawl”. So they all decided to wait and see if she would return again that night somewhere along the same beach…
Lo and behold, at 3.30am the enormous reptile reappeared. She came ashore again and this time she settled down to dig a hole for her eggs. Lesley and the ‘watchers’ were careful not to disturb her while she was busy digging, for with the slightest disturbance at this point, she would desert the nest and her precious eggs would be lost forever.
Filming could not begin until the turtle was actually dropping her rubbery eggs into the cavity she had dug with her flippers. Once she started laying, nothing seemed to bother her, she just carried on laying. Kahindi was able to walk right up to her and check her flippers. Everyone at Watamu Turtle Watch was excited to see a metal tag they had attached to this same turtle five years ago – when she was laying eggs in exactly the same spot! She was the largest turtle they had ever seen and would have weighed in the region of 250 kilos [550 pounds].
Kahindi checks the tag on the turtle's flipper, placed there
when she was laying eggs in exactly the same spot five years ago.
By the time the turtle had laid her eggs and covered the nest it was 8 o’clock in the morning. Fortunately for the turtle, it was a rainy morning so there were no tourists to disturb her on the beach. The only humans who arrived to watch were hotel security guards, no doubt attracted by the “turtle watchers” on the beach so early in the morning. They were amazed and then fascinated by the mother turtle’s behaviour. When our film is finished and is shown on mobile cinemas and on TV, I can imagine how these guards will dine out on how they were actually there when it was being filmed!
8am: the exhausted mother turtle, having covered over her eggs with
sand, leaves the nest and heads back to the ocean...
Just as the turtle laboriously began to haul her huge bulk back towards the ocean, the heavens opened and the rain came down in buckets. Lesley had seen the gathering clouds and had guessed this was going to happen so she had run back down the beach to get an umbrella. And that was how she was able to film the culmination of this amazing event, huddled beneath an umbrella, capturing that magical moment that the mother turtle, her awesome task completed, returned exhausted to the ocean. Well done, Lesley!
When you see the film, readers, as I hope you will, you will now know what went on behind the scenes…
As the turtle heads back to the sea, the rain starts pouring down...
Kahindi watches over her as the mother turtle reaches the waves
And off she goes, beneath the pouring rain, back into the ocean...
Further reading: How the loss of nature and biodiversity will damage the world's poor...
