Crabs Alive

Community out grower crab farming initiative along the Mambrui/Cheshale coastline.

 

Issue

We have seen first-hand how unsustainable wild harvesting of crabs from sensitive mangrove ecosystems has resulted in stark outcomes. With a clear lack of effective controls, extreme depletion on resources damaging important ecosystems, leaving communities with yet another lost opportunity to achieve sustainable livelihoods. Across the coastline of Kenya, and Africa as a whole, we are concerned to witness growing populations imposing unsustainable pressures upon finite natural resources while soaring unemployment, drives greater desperation with economic instability and despair.

tofauti crabs alive project - African wildlife and communities charity


Action

In partnership with Crabs Alive Kenya, we want to change the mould of prior failed efforts to farm low value tilapia and other species among local communities, and instead offer them support and the inputs required to achieve reliable and consistent incomes through engaging in our mutually beneficial out grower crab farming initiative.

How? Well, first we are farming baby mud crabs, who have an awesome name, they are ‘crablets’ so cute! Once they are big enough, they go to local communities’ (who are upskilled and supported) so they can start to farm on their own and have less need for wild harvesting of native mud crabs living in the mangroves. We will help the artisanal fishman design and prepare their land for the crablets to have the best chance of reaching maturity. There will be regular incentives, support, and ultimately financial security for many of these rural community members who currently are below the poverty line.

If we are using coastal infrastructures to grow the crabs for consumptive demand, we can allow the wild mud crab stocks to recover from over harvesting in the wild mangrove forests. And those mangroves, they're nature's superheroes, and one of nature’s most productive carbon assets and can sequester carbon up to 400% faster than land-based tropical rainforests. By acting as protective coastal barriers to cities, they save an estimated USD 65 billion a year worldwide in storm and flood damages.

So, whether big or small, every mangrove mud crab counts in the fight against climate change, supporting people who depend on the sea for their livelihoods through projects like this with Crabs Alive in partnership with Tofauti.

 
tofauti wildlife conservation charity
 

Impact

  • Protecting wildlife by removing through well positioned incentives the need for wild harvesting of crabs which is a prime earning option for coastal communities to meet the market demands for this high value species.

  • Building infrastructure to protect habitats by ensuring that our crab farming expertise and infrastructure provides a consistent and attractive alternative livelihood opportunity to the communities that will depend on them. For sustained change there has to be mutual benefits, which we will look to reach through the out-grower programme to offer a better chance for the people to live in harmony with their natural environment and mitigate the over exploitation which is currently a major threat on the coast of Kenya.

  • Reducing human-wildlife conflict through offering alternative livelihoods to local communities so they no longer need to deplete natural resources from sensitive mangrove areas along the Kenyan coastline.

  • Providing access to environmental education through increasing communities awareness of the intrinsic value of intact ecosystems, and utilisation of community owned land for mud crab population restoration to secure their future on the coast.