By 2 p.m. on a sweltering Tuesday, Alice Kazungu had already waited five hours under the acacia shade at Mida Creek, her eyes fixed on the shimmering water for any sign of returning canoes. A fishmonger and vice chair of the Mida Beach Management Unit in Watamu, Kenya, she once filled her baskets with abundant tilapia, mullet, and crab. Now, she’s lucky to sell three kilograms in a day. “There was a time when there was so much fish around here,” she says, the weight of memory pressing in her voice. “Now they bring back only two or three kilograms.” Her story is no anomaly—it’s the new rhythm of life along this once-thriving estuary, where rising ocean temperatures, habitat loss, and overfishing are reshaping existence for hundreds who depend on the sea.
Mida Creek, a 3,500-hectare labyrinth of mangroves and tidal channels, forms a vital part of the Watamu Marine National Reserve ecosystem. For generations, it has nurtured coastal livelihoods, serving as a nursery for fish and a larder for families. But today, fishers like Philip Baya, who has cast nets here for over 30 years, say they must travel farther—sometimes to the open ocean—just to return with dwindling, often undersized, catches. Scientists confirm what these communities are witnessing: the Western Indian Ocean is warming faster than the global average in some areas, disrupting marine breeding cycles and degrading critical habitats like seagrass beds and mangroves. Baya knows this intimately: “Mangroves are breeding areas for fish. When they disappear, the fish disappear too.”
Yet, amid the struggle, a quiet resilience is taking root. The Mida Beach Management Unit, a community-led co-management group, is mobilizing fishers, women traders, and conservationists to restore degraded mangroves, ban illegal fishing gear, and protect juvenile fish breeding grounds. In the past two years, over 50 hectares of mangroves have been replanted with species like Rhizophora mucronata and Avicennia marina. Beach cleanups are now monthly events, and local patrols have reduced the use of destructive monofilament nets. These efforts are not just ecological—they’re economic lifelines. When mangroves rebound, fish return. When juvenile fish are protected, future catches grow.
The stakes could not be higher. For Alice Kazungu, every absent canoe means no food for her children. But she still holds hope—not in miracles, but in action. “We are not giving up,” she says, watching the horizon. And neither is her community. As climate pressures mount, the revival of Mida Creek isn’t just about fish. It’s about proving that even in the face of a changing ocean, people can still shape a future worth waiting for.