海角大神

海角大神 / Text

How a seaweed harvesting collective sustains a village in Zanzibar

When the tides are right, the collective known as Pania Uchupe gets to work.

By Kang-Chun Cheng , Contributor
Fumba, Tanzania

Biasha Hamadi Makungu steps in at low tide, carefully threading her way past vibrant coral colonies and congregations of spiky sea urchins.

Ms. Makungu is searching for seaweed. Over the past 26 years, she has cultivated and hauled countless tons of it to shore from the coast of Fumba, a village in the Tanzanian archipelago of Zanzibar.

鈥淚 started harvesting seaweed because of the scarcity of water,鈥 she says.

Most villagers in Fumba are subsistence farmers, growing cassava, bananas, cabbage, and other produce. But when the tides are right, Ms. Makungu and 14 other women work as part of Pania Uchupe, a seaweed harvesting collective whose name in Swahili roughly translates to 鈥淟et鈥檚 work hard to succeed.鈥

Each harvest week lasts four or five days, with the women collecting more than 8,000 kilograms (17,000 pounds) of Eucheuma denticulatum, a strain of red algae. It can be made into a variety of products, from soaps and cosmetics to hot sauce and juice.

The collective has been active for years, selling mostly at local markets or to intermediaries who export to China, the United States, and elsewhere abroad. But in 2021, the women began supplying the SeaWeed Caf茅, a factory in Kerege that鈥檚 north of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania鈥檚 largest port.

鈥淭he idea was to invest in seaweed-based foods while empowering local farmers,鈥 says Nancy Iraba, a marine scientist who founded the factory.

Back in Fumba, the women of the collective sit in a circle, picking through baskets of semidried seaweed. They will reserve some of it for their own families, whipping up cakes, soups, and kachumbari (a traditional tomato-based salad).

Ms. Makungu supports her children and grandkids with her harvests; her husband, a former schoolteacher, died a few years ago.

鈥淥ur mothers didn鈥檛 do this 鈥 we are the first generation here,鈥 she says. 鈥淎nd we鈥檒l teach our children to do the same.鈥

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