Rebuilding Mozambique's ocean: Jangamo community conservation

Love The Oceans: Restoring Biodiversity Through Community-Led Conservation

Introduction

Love The Oceans (LTO) is a grassroots marine conservation charity working in Jangamo Bay, Mozambique, to create a community-led Marine Protected Area (MPA). Despite being recognised internationally as a Mission Blue Hope Spot, an Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA), and an Important Shark and Ray Area (ISRA), Jangamo faces growing pressures from overexploitation and climate change. These pressures are driving biodiversity loss, degrading critical habitats, and threatening food security in a region where thousands of people depend on the ocean for survival.

Our work combines scientific research, education, and community empowerment to restore marine ecosystems while improving human wellbeing. Through fisheries, coral reef, megafauna, ocean trash, shark and ray, and social research, we generate the evidence needed for conservation action. Alongside this, we deliver community programmes in ocean literacy, swimming, gender equity, and sustainable resource management, ensuring local people have the knowledge and skills needed to become long-term stewards of their marine environment.

Our Mission

Our mission is to create a scalable, holistic conservation strategy that can be replicated along the coastline of Mozambique and beyond. Our vision is to empower coastal communities globally and inspire collaborative action to restore and protect our oceans, ensuring healthy marine ecosystems for generations to come.

Background & Problem Statement

Jangamo Bay sits on Mozambique's southern coastline within the globally important Mozambique Channel. The area supports coral reefs, seagrass beds, migratory whales, endangered sharks, rays, turtles, and thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on healthy marine ecosystems.

Yet our community faces significant challenges. Poverty levels are high, access to healthcare is limited, and literacy rates remain low. Many families rely heavily on fishing for both food and income, creating increasing pressure on already stressed marine resources. Love The Oceans fisheries data shows declining catches of ecologically critical and increasing pressure on endangered marine wildlife.

At the same time, climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Coral reefs are becoming increasingly vulnerable, biodiversity is declining, and food security is becoming less certain.

The social challenges are equally important. Around 95% of people in our area cannot swim, limiting their ability to safely and successfully govern marine resources. Women face additional barriers to participation in marine conservation and ocean-based livelihoods due to social norms and limited opportunities. Without addressing these underlying social challenges, conservation efforts cannot succeed in the long term.

Our Solution

At Love The Oceans, we believe successful conservation must address environmental and social challenges together. Our strategy is built around four interconnected pillars.

Science-Informed, Evidence-Based Conservation

Through rigorous scientific research, we generate the data needed to guide conservation decisions and support effective marine protected area management. Our work includes fisheries monitoring, coral reef health assessments, shark and ray research, megafauna surveys, and social science studies. By understanding how ecosystems and communities interact, we can identify practical solutions that deliver measurable conservation outcomes.

Community-Led Empowerment

Conservation is strongest when local people lead it. We equip community members with the skills, confidence, and opportunities needed to actively participate in marine management. Through ocean literacy programmes, swimming lessons, gender equity initiatives, internships, and professional training, we are building the next generation of conservation leaders.

Environmental Stewardship and Ecological Resilience

We combine scientific evidence with local and traditional knowledge to strengthen environmental stewardship. Our projects reduce pressure on marine resources, improve ecosystem health, and support sustainable livelihoods. By empowering communities as custodians of their environment, we create the conditions for lasting ecological resilience.

Scalability and Impact

We believe conservation knowledge should be shared. Our projects are designed to be practical, affordable, and replicable. To support this vision, we created the Ripple Network, a platform connecting grassroots conservation organisations around the world to exchange lessons learned, collaborate on challenges, and amplify impact beyond individual projects.

The Opportunity

The opportunity before us is to demonstrate that biodiversity restoration and community development can be achieved together.

Through Project BEAM (Biodiversity Enhancement and Algae Management), we are tackling one of the greatest threats facing our coral reefs: macroalgal overgrowth caused by the loss of herbivorous fish. By manually removing algae and creating space for corals to recover naturally, we are testing a low-cost restoration approach that could be replicated in coastal communities globally.

Alongside this work, our fisheries research is generating critical evidence on fish stocks, endangered species, and ecosystem health. Combined with community training programmes that increase ocean access, conservation literacy, and sustainable fishing practices, these initiatives create a pathway towards healthier ecosystems and stronger livelihoods.

Long-term support will allow us to continue monitoring ecological recovery, strengthen local conservation capacity, and generate the evidence needed to influence policy and secure lasting protection for Jangamo Bay.

Tracking Impact

We believe transparency and accountability are essential to effective conservation. Over the past decade, we have monitored more than 9 km of coral reef habitat and over 1,000 hard coral colonies. We have completed more than 10,000 hours of fisheries research, removed over 2,000 kg of ocean trash, protected 26 sea turtle nests resulting in 515 hatchlings reaching the ocean, and established 40 Project BEAM restoration and control plots.

Our work benefits approximately 12,000 people across a 122 km² operational area. We have trained five local fisheries data monitors, provided sustainability training to more than 40 fishers, delivered ocean literacy education to over 2,000 children, and taught more than 5,000 children and community members to swim.

We measure both quantitative and qualitative outcomes. Ecological monitoring tracks changes in coral health, biodiversity, fisheries, and habitat condition, while social monitoring assesses knowledge gain, behaviour change, community participation, and livelihood outcomes. Results are shared through peer-reviewed publications, community meetings, annual reports, and international platforms to ensure transparency and continuous learning.

Our Experience

Love The Oceans was founded on the belief that local communities should be at the centre of conservation.

Our team combines internationally recognised scientific expertise with extensive local knowledge. All scientific staff hold postgraduate qualifications, while community team members bring invaluable lived experience and understanding of the local context. Together, these perspectives create stronger, more effective conservation solutions.

This approach has produced remarkable results. When we began our work, there were no Mozambican professional divers in our district. Today, we have trained the district's first Mozambican Divemaster, the first women scuba divers, the first women swim instructors, and the first women lifeguards. Through our Ocean Conservation Champions programme, young people who might otherwise have left education have gained new opportunities to continue their studies and pursue careers in conservation.

Our work has been recognised internationally through the Mission Blue Hope Spot designation, the Ocean Award, the 2024 Gender Just Climate Solutions Award at COP29 and the UN Ocean Conference, and partnerships with universities, government agencies, and conservation organisations worldwide.

We know that lasting conservation requires patience, trust, and long-term commitment. By combining science, community leadership, and ecosystem restoration, we are building a model that not only restores biodiversity in Jangamo Bay but can inspire similar change across Mozambique and beyond.

Read our 2025 Impact Report here.