Every number on this page is real work done by a local team and the people who’ve joined them from eighteen countries. Here’s where ten years of Love The Oceans has moved the needle.
3,000+
Children taught to swim since 2016
1,000+
Children reached through school programmes
14
New classrooms built across two schools
1,000+
Coral colonies tagged and monitored
~10%
Of the world’s humpback whales pass through the bay
30+
Local people employed seasonally as turtle guards
200+
Expedition alumni across 18 countries
16
Coral diseases documented across 14 families
Community & livelihoods
Conservation jobs, paid in cash, to local people.
Turtle guards patrol nesting beaches from November to March. Teachers run our school outreach. Builders put up classrooms. Every one of those roles is filled by someone from Jangamo, Guinjata or Paindane – and every guard’s wage supports ten family members on average.
The point is simple: if the reef is worth more alive than dead, the people who live here have to be the ones who feel that.
Research that stays
A decade of data on fisheries, reefs and megafauna.
Catch-per-unit-effort, reef biodiversity transects, humpback bioacoustics, whale shark ID, manta manta-ray surveys, ocean-trash counts. The dataset now goes back far enough to tell us what’s working, what isn’t, and where protection would make the biggest difference.
Reef algae cover has doubled since 2018. Fish biomass is alarmingly low. Sixteen coral diseases have been catalogued across fourteen families. None of this is comfortable reading – but it’s the case for change.
Hope Spot
Nearly 10% of the world’s humpback whales pass right by.
Between June and October each year, humpbacks calve in the warm waters of southern Mozambique. Jangamo Bay sits in the middle of that migration – and is now part of a Mission Blue Hope Spot that connects existing protected areas from Bazaruto down to Ponta do Ouro.
A full Marine Protected Area is the next step. The evidence is there; the policy work is in motion.
Ten years, in order
How we got here.
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2013
The internship that started it.
Francesca Trotman witnesses shark finning on a beach in Mozambique during a university internship.
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2014
LTO is founded.
First artisanal-fisheries research project in Jangamo Bay. 26 students join the first-ever expedition.
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2015
Partnership with Guinjata School.
Ocean-literacy lessons start in the local primary school. First classroom improvements completed.
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2016
Swimming lessons begin.
We start teaching local children to swim – addressing the highest drowning rates in Mozambique. Paindane School joins the programme.
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2019
Reef monitoring scales up.
Coral-tagging programme crosses 1,000 colonies. Turtle-guard employment expands to three nesting seasons.
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2021
Jangamo Bay becomes a Mission Blue Hope Spot.
Global recognition; first major step toward a full Marine Protected Area.
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2024
Ocean School and Sea Her launch.
Six-month adult-education programme starts. Women-led aquaculture trial and women’s swimming lessons open – 50% of programme stakeholders are now women.
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Next
A full Marine Protected Area.
Policy work underway with Mozambican partners. The research is in. The community is behind it. The funding is what’s left.
Keep it going
We still need your help!
Expedition fees fund the core team and the schools. Donations cover everything else – scholarships, equipment, the slow, unglamorous work of policy.