Nyuli Conservation Group Training

Nyuli Community Conservation Group is a new group of villagers from Mkwiro village, who are interested to establishing a community marine protected area off Nyuli Reef, which is close to Wasini Island. They are going to have 10 rangers, who are going to be patrolling the area to stop illegal fishing (mainly ring nets and spear gun-fishing) and 22 tour guides, who will take tourist to snorkel on the pristine coral reef of Nyuli or on dolphin-watching tours to see the different species of dolphins and whales.

Amber and Cody during the interacting with tourists lecture

GVI met with the group to know how we could help them and they asked GVI to educate them on the importance of conservation and also to train them on working with tourists. And last Friday GVI volunteers and staff gave lectures on marine conservation as a whole, whales and dolphins (their behavior, morphology and diversity), as well as mangroves. We were very happy to see their high level of enthusiasm and interest.

The main message we tried to get across was for them not to overfish or use illegal fishing techniques, and I am pleased to say they understand the importance of these issues and how they relate to conservation.

Ebrahim acting as a tour guide and Cody as a tourist

On Monday we gave lectures on sea turtles and reef fish which I think was quite intense, so when a lecture on “Interacting with tourists” followed the class got involved and they were laughing at each other role playing at being tour guides. Other than being entertaining, I honestly believe that they will make brilliant tour guides. At the end of the week they will have an exam on what we taught them, so fingers crossed!!!

Nyuli Conservation Group Training