WILDOCEANS
Greater eThekwini & Durban Port
Blue Port Project
The Blue Port project was established in March 2019, with the specific focus of progressively reducing the amount of plastic waste flowing into the port, minimising the amount of plastic waste escaping the port into the ocean and removing the historical build-up of waste in the ports’ ecosystem. This was actioned through the implementation of waste trapping interventions focused on the key rivers and canals flowing into the Durban port (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)
Greater eThekwini & Durban Port
Whale Time Project
The Whale Time project, with tour guides based out of the Port Natal Maritime Museum, strives to promote sustainable and ethical whale tourism along the East coast of South Africa, bringing science, conservation, tourism, and community together around iconic humpback whale species.
uThukela
uThukela MPA EbA Project
The 5-year uThukela Marine Protected Area (MPA) Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) Project seeks to improve the social and ecological resilience in and around uThukela MPA, addressing threats to both biodiversity and the people that depend on it. READ MORE www.uthukelampa.co.za
iSimangaliso Wetland Park
iSimangaliso MPA EbA Project
The iSimangaliso Marine Protected Area (MPA) Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) Project is a 4-year (2023 – 2027) initiative, driven by WILDTRUST. The project seeks to improve the natural environment in and around the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage Site MPA, through a series of interventions that will make the region more resilient in the face of the devastating impacts that come with climate change. The project is uniquely founded on the understanding that the success of the implementation of marine interventions also rests on the successful protection and restoration of estuaries and the natural environment along the coastal belt of the MPA. The Turtle Monitoring project at iSimangaliso has seen significant job creation within the coastal communities and created a sense of ownership for the wildlife and the environment along the coastline. To date, due to the initiation of the turtle monitoring project more than 50 years ago, the Loggerhead turtles have experienced a significant increase in numbers, while the nesting Leatherback turtle population is stabilising. There are approximately only 80 nesting Leatherback and 935 Loggerhead turtles that visit our shores annually
National & Regional Marine Environment
RV Angra Pequena
Over the last 9 years our classic research vessel RV Angra Pequena has been used for offshore research cruises along the East coast of South Africa, and up into Mozambique, Tanzania, and Comoros. She has been the platform for some of the first mesophotic surveys (40-250m) in South Africa and in the WIO region, including four African Coelacanth Ecosystem Programme (ACEP) projects in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape waters. Equipment deployments, supported by the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) team, have included the SAIAB Remotely Operated Video (ROV), Stereo BRUVs (S-BRUVS), plankton nets, drop cameras, oceanographic instruments and multibeam and boomer geoscience work. The team have also found and filmed coelacanth in sub-marine canyons on three cruises to iSimangaliso MPA. She is also the ocean-home for the Ocean Stewards initiative, providing opportunity for young marine scientists to go to sea (often for the first time) and to engage directly with scientists. RV Angra Pequena can accommodate up to 16 people (6-10 scientists/students), can stay at sea for up to 30 days and has a fuel capacity allowing 3000nm voyages, making her a very useful cost-effective vessel for work in offshore and remote locations.
National & Regional Marine Environment
Small–Scale Fishers & MPAs Project
The Small-Scale Fisheries Project aims to improve the management and sustainability of small-scale fisheries in South Africa while generating working examples of positive relationships between Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and the most vulnerable rural fishers living within or adjacent to MPAs, who are dependent on natural resources for local livelihoods and food security. Parallel to this, the project will create awareness of the benefits to fishers of MPAs, the need for MPA expansion to improve socio-ecological resilience for coastal communities, as well as the threats to both MPAs and fishers and key actions needed to address these. Key working examples of co-operatives will be championed in two MPAs, iSimangaliso and uThukela.
National & Regional Marine Environment
Securing Protection for South African Sharks & Rays Project
The goal of this project, which builds on the achievements of the first Shark Conservation Fund project (ended in July 2022), is to secure effective protection of South Africa’s IUCN Red List threatened and endemic sharks and rays. Key strategic interventions will secure appropriate new and improved legal provisions that protect sharks and rays via amendments to current provisions in fishery and biodiversity statutes, in conjunction with permit conditions. Further to this, effective implementation of legal provisions in fishery and biodiversity statutes and CITES regulations through enhanced capacity for enforcement and management, improved prosecution success and voluntary public compliance. The established Shark Attack Campaign (now called Sharks Under Attack ) continues to educate and mobilize the public, political leaders, decision-makers, and support management action for increased understanding of the threats on sharks and rays in South Africa.
National & Regional Marine Environment
Sanctuary for Sharks and Rays Project
The goal of this project, which builds on the achievements of the first Shark Conservation Fund project (ended in July 2022), is to secure effective protection of South Africa’s IUCN Red List threatened and endemic sharks and rays. Key strategic interventions will secure appropriate new and improved legal provisions that protect sharks and rays via amendments to current provisions in fishery and biodiversity statutes, in conjunction with permit conditions. Further to this, effective implementation of legal provisions in fishery and biodiversity statutes and CITES regulations through enhanced capacity for enforcement and management, improved prosecution success and voluntary public compliance. The established Shark Attack Campaign (now called Sharks Under Attack ) continues to educate and mobilize the public, political leaders, decision-makers, and support management action for increased understanding of the threats on sharks and rays in South Africa.
National & Regional Marine Environment
Strengthening Ocean Protection in Comoros Project
Initiated in 2021 by WILDOCEANS, the Strengthening Ocean Protection in Comoros project aims to improve the protection and recovery of the marine biodiversity and fisheries of the Union of Comoros, ensuring sustainable use of ocean assets and thereby enhancing the resilience of coastal communities that depend on them.
National & Regional Marine Environment
South African Oil Spill Modelling & Impacts Project
The WILDOCEANS programme has developed a locally relevant South African oil spill model to predict the nature, behaviour and trajectory of oil spilled from offshore oil and gas exploration and extraction (Energy Transition Fund Phase 1-ended 31 December 2022). The overall goal of this project is to stop and delay oil and gas exploration, extraction and ultimately production activities in South African offshore waters by ensuring that the environmental, social, and economic risks to, and impacts on, coastal areas are clearly understood by decision-makers, coastal communities, and the general public.
iSimangaliso Wetland Park
EMPOWERING THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF ISIMANGALISO PROJECT
This is a 5 year project which commenced on the 1st of February 2024, funded by The Light Foundation and co-funded by the Blue Action Fund, focusing on the vulnerable and women and children in three rural communities (villages) located on the coast at iSimangaliso Wetland Park in the uMkhanyakude District of the province of KwaZulu- Natal, also the most under-developed district in South Africa. These villages are situated directly adjacent to the iSimangaliso Marine Protected Area (MPA) and have a high dependence on natural marine and estuarine resources. These women and children include elderly women, either disabled, living alone or having to support large numbers of grandchildren, single mothers at home without income, many being young women who drop out of school due to early pregnancies, and older children (<18 years) who are head of their households. In addition to supporting these heads of destitute households, we will directly help the children in these households who are often hungry without regular and sufficient meals or access to clean water, live in impoverished conditions, often do not attend school, and are subject to health risks, including poisoning or respiratory ailments from wood-fires inside their huts.
National & Regional Marine Environment
THE MARINE PROTECTED AREA (MPA) EXPANSION AND PROTECTION PROJECT AND 30X30
The South African Marine Protected Area (MPA) Expansion Project, funded by Oceans 5 between 2018 and 2023, successfully supported the unblocking of the initial increase of MPA coverage of the mainland EEZ from 0.4% to 5.4% in 2019, through an intensive, and multi-faceted project that included both a high-profile campaign and practical support components to increase the pace and appetite for MPA expansion. This project has subsequently evolved through careful strategic planning, advocacy, and partnering with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) to supporting the unlocking of further expansion towards meeting the Global Biodiversity Framework, Target 3, 30x30 goal.