Seagrass-Watch Magazine Issue 47 - March 2013 | Page 25

Education, gleaning and seagrass
Wakatobi seagrass meadows are an essential resource base for local people contributing significantly to their welfare through the provision of fishing grounds, substrate for seaweed cultivation,
nutrient cycling and, for the Bajo, a place to live. Despite the recognised importance of seagrass meadows, these habitats are suffering from increasing anthropogenic pressures. Recent
Seagrass-Watch education and awareness raising held in Wakatobi, highlighted the importance of seagrass and the importance of minimising threats to ensure sustainable use of the resource.
Clockwise from top: bringing in the gleaning 'catch', low tide gleaning typically a female activity; Halophila ovalis off Tomia Island ; Seagrass-Watch workshop on Hoga Island

The destruction of seagrass meadows has been well
documented and has wide ranging consequences, the most
significant of which include a reduction of detritus production,
which changes the fish community and alters the food web,
beach erosion due to the loss of the binding roots, and loss of
structural and biological diversity. Evidence from focus groups
with the Pulo and Bajo communities indicates that significant
areas of seagrass in the Wakatobi has already been destroyed or
reduced in species and/or density. Few people in the Wakatobi
are more aware of the significant threats to seagrass meadows
than the Bajo, and for few people will the consequences of
seagrass decline be more devastating. Fish are just one of many
edible seagrass organisms. At low tide, nearly every accessible
intertidal seagrass meadow in the Wakatobi is picked over by

men, women and children gathering a major portion of their daily
nutrition, and in many cases for fishing families this “gleaning”
activity provides more essential nutrition than fishing itself. As
each full moon approaches, the exposed intertidal zone at sunset
becomes a significant fishing area, with numerous fishers and
families collecting invertebrates, trapping fish stranded in tide
pools, or bringing in their nets laden with fish after the tide has
receded. Much of this fishing is subsistence and communitybased activity, but it also includes small family fishing collectives
earning a basic living selling excess catch. In many locations it
involves the whole family, including small children, and as a result
exists as a social and recreational activity. Therefore, not only are
these threats to seagrass threatening an important resource, they
are also threatening a way of life.
MARCH 2013

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