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Seagrass Reserve Success

One Year On: Community members in Beangolo, Madagascar celebrate the success of their first seagrass reserve

By Blue Ventures

June 21^st, 2023

Community members in Beangolo in southwest Madagascar are reaping the benefits after establishing their first seagrass reserve last year.

These reserves, or no-take zones (NTZs), are marine protected areas that are protected from fishing or other extractive activities to allow an ecosystem to recover. Our research from other Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) in southwest Madagascar shows that community-managed NTZs not only allow breathing space for the ocean but also encourage responsible fishing, strengthen compliance with laws, and safeguard food security. In Beangolo, the reserve has allowed increased community resilience to extreme weather events as well.

📸 Garth Cripps ©

📸 Madagascar Film & Photography | Blue Ventures ©

📸 Garth Cripps ©

📸 Garth Cripps ©

📸 Garth Cripps ©

The Covid-19 pandemic restricted movement, disrupted markets, and reduced tourism income for communities in southern Madagascar. It compounded years of drought, making farming unreliable and increasing pressure on coastal fishing grounds, growing the need to set up protected areas to secure sources of income and food.

In 2021, the Blue Ventures team in southwest Madagascar focused on training, monitoring and participatory data collection programmes for local community members to arm them with the skills and information to steward their own coastal waters. While training was underway, the community was looking for solutions to their deeper food security and environmental issues.

📸 Garth Cripps ©

“Before, it often rained, and the plantations were prosperous, which helped when there was not enough fish. There was no rain from 2019 to 2021, we did not grow any cassava, and there were no sweet potatoes to eat. We rely on the sea more than ever now for food and our livelihood”

The Beangolo community members had heard the success stories of fishers in the neighbouring Velondriake LMMA, who shared the impact of their conservation initiatives through films distributed locally. Velondriake comprises 36 communities that came together and decided to ban destructive fishing gear, carry out seasonal closures of certain fisheries, and designate small coral reef areas as permanent NTZs.

The monitoring programme and success of the Velondriake LMMA encouraged them to set aside an inshore area of coral and seagrass for a short period to allow fish and easier catches of slow-moving invertebrates such as sea cucumbers and shellfish to repopulate.

📸 Madagascar Film & Photography | Blue Ventures ©

📸 Madagascar Film & Photography | Blue Ventures ©

📸 Garth Cripps ©

📸 Madagascar Film & Photography | Blue Ventures ©

Data from this year, collected by the community, shows that the seagrass has not only spread widely, but fishers have logged bigger fish populations and informed the monitoring team that lobsters, and aquatic plants are growing in abundance they haven't seen in years.

"The project has also shown that getting fishers involved in talking about their resources leads to more organic leadership and governance," said Paul Antion, Southwest Madagascar field programmes manager, Blue Ventures, citing the example of a young man from Ambatomilo who took part in the first participatory mapping session and now leads the community monitoring team.

"Our life has changed. Before we had the seagrass reserve, when we went to the sea, we would only get half a kg of octopus, but after, we can get five or four kg even with this south wind. It helps us stay motivated. We feel if we didn't do that {the no-take zone}, we would regret it and suffer continuously," said Haja.

📸 Madagascar Film & Photography | Blue Ventures ©

📸 Garth Cripps ©

📸 Madagascar Film & Photography | Blue Ventures ©

📸 Madagascar Film & Photography | Blue Ventures ©

Almost a year after establishing its first NTZ, the Beangolo community is sharing its best practices with other communities through exchange visits. They recently hosted a group of 20 fishers from the Sambele LMMA to showcase the benefits of implementing seagrass reserves. The visit was a massive success, with the represented communities collectively deciding to establish seagrass and coral reef NTZs in each of their respective villages.

📸 Garth Cripps ©

Footnotes

Story by Blue Ventures, Photos by Garth Cripps and Blue Ventures

FootNotes

Story by Blue Ventures, Photos by Garth Cripps and Blue Ventures

© 2026 Blue Ventures

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