MUNJE, Kenya — From the middle of 2023, a favored octopus fishing ground just offshore from the village of Munje was strangely empty. Members of the village’s beach management unit diligently kept watch to make sure no one fished that section of reef. At the end of October, Munje’s BMU took to the water to harvest the reward for their patience. Munje is small fishing village on the Indian Ocean, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of the port city of Mombasa. Its inhabitants depend on farming and fishing for food and income. Fishing for octopus, principally Octopus vulgaris, in the reefs is among the most profitable livelihoods. But octopus had grown scarce because of overfishing and damage to the coral reefs where these cephalopods live. “During the days of our fathers there was lot of octopus here, but now when a fisher goes and comes back from the oceans, he returns with just 1 or 2 kilograms [2-4 pounds] of octopus,” Hamisi Bakari Chimete, the BMU chairman, told Mongabay in August. “This is the reason why we came up with the idea of secluding one of our fishing sites, to enable octopus to breed and replenish, and the corals reefs to regenerate.” Detail of poster at the Munje BMU office illustrating the octopus life cycle. An octopus closure allows the population time to regenerate between harvests. Image by Terna Gyuse for Mongabay. Fishing less to harvest more Every fishing community in Kenya has a beach management unit, a committee of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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