Long-term, community-led conservation on Mozambique’s Indian Ocean coast.
We’re working toward a Marine Protected Area in Jangamo Bay – not as outsiders swooping in, but alongside the fishers, teachers and students who call this coastline home. Every programme we run has three things in common: rigorous science, local employment, and a stubborn insistence that conservation has to work for people as well as reefs.
A holistic approach
Three pillars, one programme.
Research
A decade of fisheries, coral and megafauna data collected across Guinjata, Paindane and Coconut Bay – with the Instituto Oceanográfico de Moçambique. Evidence is what makes the case for protection.
Education & capacity building
Marine resource lessons in two local schools, a six-month Ocean School for adults, and swimming lessons for children and women – because 98% of the community can’t swim the sea they depend on.
Community solutions
Alternative livelihoods to replace destructive fishing gear, women-led aquaculture trials, and paid roles for turtle guards, research assistants and teachers – every salary is local.
The founding
It started with a shark on a beach.
Francesca Trotman was on a university internship in 2013 when she saw a shark killed for its fins on the sand. She went home, finished her degree, and came back in 2014 – first to run an artisanal-fisheries research project, then to build the organisation that now runs in Jangamo year-round.
Ten years on, Love The Oceans employs a majority-local team, coordinates work in two schools, and has helped build 14 new classrooms. The research that started it is still running: fisheries catch data, coral reef monitoring, whale bioacoustics, ocean literacy.
Why it matters
70% unemployment, 98% non-swimmers, and one of the world’s richest reef systems.
Inhambane Province sits on the third largest garbage patch in the Indian Ocean, hosts nearly 10% of the world’s humpback whales, and has a local illiteracy rate close to 50%. Tackling any one of those in isolation won’t work. The mission has to be both ocean and community – which is why we teach, we research, and we employ in equal measure.
~15 km
Coastline in the Hope Spot
Mission Blue Hope Spot
Jangamo Bay, recognised globally.
In partnership with Mission Blue, Jangamo Bay is designated a Hope Spot – a stretch of ocean with outstanding ecological value. It connects existing protected areas from Bazaruto Archipelago in the north to Ponta do Ouro in the south, and it’s the evidence base for our push toward a full Marine Protected Area.
Our commitment
Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Our research, education and community programmes in Jangamo Bay contribute directly to eight of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
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Get involved
See the mission in action.
Join a research expedition in Mozambique, or have a look at the measurable impact ten years of this work has built.