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The Mozambican government is putting in a network of marine protected areas around Ibo Island. These are no-fishing zones, and they contribute to sustainable management by giving fish populations a reproductive refuge. I spent three months on Ibo Island doing master's thesis research. My research objective was to map the fishing grounds used by Ibo Islanders, and to estimate how intensely they fished each of the grounds. This involved the traditional methods of social science research -- interviews, surveys, and participant observation -- combined with data analysis and mapping using GIS software. The result is a series of maps that may be useful when deciding where to put the marine protected areas. Also there's this series of images that show the fishing techniques used by Ibo Islanders. |