By Ruth Keah | rkeahkadide@gmail.com
When three women groups in Gazi village, Kwale County, coastal part of Kenya, came together to start a project of conserving mangroves by making it an eco-tourism center and mitigating climate change effects, little did they know the place would become a globally recognized study site. Gazi Bay is located 55 km south of Mombasa Island and is found at the Southern extend of Diani Beach. The initiative called Gazi Women Boardwalk is a community based ecotourism site featuring a 350-meter boardwalk through a mangrove forest.
It is managed by local women who provide educational tours about mangrove ecosystems and support conservation efforts. Visitors can experience the unique environment, learn about the importance of mangroves and support the project which empowers local women and provides alternative livelihoods.
Mangroves play a dual role in climate change by mitigating its effects and protecting against its impacts.
They store carbon in the rich, anoxic soils beneath them, a process known as “blue carbon”. The carbon can remain stored in these soils for thousands of years, especially if the ecosystem is undisturbed.
They can store up to four times more carbon than other tropical forests in their soil.
Simultaneously, they act as natural coastal defenses, reducing wave energy and protecting shorelines from storms, sea-level rise and tsunamis, which helps communities adapt to climate change impacts.
Mwatime Hamadi, a member who also works as a tour guide, said that while the Gazi zonation has nine species of mangrove, the Gazi Women Boardwalk features six species that students frequently study to understand the mangrove ecosystem and its role in climate change mitigation.
“We started this project in 2016, with the board walk running to 450 meters, but we experienced climate change effects which swept away the board walk which was made of wood, we then collected plastic waste and made eco plastic poles made from recycled plastics and made a 350 meters board walk,” she said.
Mwatime added that they now receive students from universities all over the world, who visit the area to study the mangrove ecosystem, the ocean and blue economy issues.
The Gazi Women Mangrove Boardwalk is a result of a partnership between local communities and international organizations to create a sustainable ecotourism project that conserves the mangrove forest.
Funded by groups like the City Council of Overijse (Belgium) and the International Ocean Institute (IOI), and supported by the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), the boardwalk provides an alternative, non-extractive income for local women who were previously dependent on harvesting mangrove products.
According to Mwatime, they began as a self-help group of 25 members, growing to 30 active members focused on replanting lost mangrove forests and understanding the correct species and planting seasons.
After the mangroves started becoming bushy, she said, they decided to put up a boardwalk. Their primary activity being safeguarding the existing mangrove trees and carrying out extensive replanting of the mangrove trees.
She said they have established large-scale mangrove nurseries with over 400,000 seedlings in five nurseries as of April 2024. They set up these large-scale nurseries at least twice a year to meet the needs of degraded areas not only in Gazi but also in other coastal regions where mangroves have been cut down.
According to Ann Wanjiru, KMFRI assistant research scientist, through the project, women in Gazi have become role models in conserving the environment.
“Over the years, Gazi women has been able to help the community in terms of creating visibility of Gazi bay to the outside world. We normally host visitors both local and international students who come to study the mangrove ecosystem one of them being by the Gazi women board walk,” she said.
Mark Nadwa, a student pursuing a Bachelor’s in Biochemistry at Kaimosi University in Kenya, is among the students I met during a tour with his fellow students at the Boardwalk.
“I am here to learn and so far I have learnt different kinds of mangroves found here, how the community earn carbon credit from mangroves and also blue economy,” he said.
Sentiments echoed by his fellow student, Traccillah Sichangi, who is studying a Bachelor’s in Biology and Agriculture.
Sichangi is amazed by how the women came together to form such an environmental project, which not only mitigates climate change but also improves their livelihoods.
“I have learnt about the carbon credit business which helps the mangrove ecosystem to survive and the different species of mangroves including Xylocarpus granatum which is not only good for the ecosystem but also its medicinal, I have also learnt about the sea weed and sea grass which have good biodiversity to the ecosystem,” she said.
Besides being a model of social success, the efforts of the Gazi women boardwalk contribute significantly and directly, to the implementation of the Kenyan government’s goals regarding combating climate change, environmental conservation and promoting the blue economy.
Through their mangrove planting and conservation project, they are helping to achieve the goals set out in the National Climate Change Policy and the National Climate Mitigation Plan which aims to increase forest cover in the country to 30 percent by the year 2032.
KipKorir Sigi, KMFRI’s principal scientist who works closely with the women, notes that the boardwalk’s prominence is not only as a result of its accessibility but also the project’s role in improving the livelihood of the community.
“The Gazi mangrove ecosystem is the most studied because of its accessibility and has been protected well by the community, so we have a lot of demonstrations from restoration of mangroves to conserving the degraded areas,” he said. “To have a healthy ecosystem, it helps in issues of climate change.” Data from the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) shows that mangrove forests cover approximately 61,271 hectares, contributing three percent of the total forest cover in the country.
However, these forests are threatened by deforestation for firewood and construction. This is the main reason that has led communities living near these forests, such as Gazi, to replant and conserve them.
James Kairo, KMFRI’s chief scientist, said that when considering the holistic mangrove ecosystem and what it can provide, it puts a lot of pressure on the trees.
Therefore, what KMFRI has done with the Gazi women is give them alternative livelihoods.
“What we have provided for Gazi women is alternative use of mangrove, such that they are benefitting from the system and at the same time not degrading that system,” he said.
“So this system is not only providing the community with livelihoods but it also supporting nature in terms of soil conservation, fisheries functions, in terms of carbon sequestration in mitigating climate change, we want to advocate for holistic use of this ecosystem, so eco-tourism is one way they can benefit from the mangrove without degrading them.”
