Ghana’s women struggle to save oyster farming hit by climate change

Each day Beatrice Nutekpor weaves through the mangroves to harvest oysters for sale.

In Ghana’s coastal mangroves, oyster farming has been a key source of livelihood dominated for ages by women.

Hundreds of women were trained in eco-friendly farming methods for oysters, including mangrove planting and preservation, and selective oyster harvesting, to lessen the impact of climate change.

“Previously the oysters attach themselves to the mangroves but because the mangroves have been cut now they settle in the water. The oysters have started attaching themselves to the mangroves we have planted. We also harvest the fish that hides in the roots of the mangroves so the mangroves are very good for us,” says Nutekpor.

It’s a family tradition she’s been doing since she was 15.

Now at 45, she is struggling to sustain the practice and pass it to her daughter.

She says: “Just as my mother taught me this business, I also want to teach my daughter so that she could also teach her child, then oyster farming will become our family’s business."

Mangroves, trees or shrubs that grow along coastlines serve a critical multifunctional purpose in the aquatic ecosystem, ranging from being a home to fish to providing a buffer for coastal erosion from rising sea levels, and protection to land during storms and cyclones.

However, training by the non-profit Development Action Association ended after it lost its U.S. aid as a result of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to cut foreign aid contracts.

It left the women to try what they can to keep their generational practice and sustain their families as Ghana emerges from its worst economic crisis in a decades.

Oyster farming involves breeding oysters in a controlled aquatic environment for commercial purposes.

Much like the rest of coastal West African nations, Ghana has lost a significant portion of its mangroves to climate change and development.

There is no available data on recent depletion, but over 80% of the original mangroves have been lost since the last century.

Mangroves are also increasingly threatened by climate change as global temperatures and sea levels rise.

A single basin of oysters sells for roughly 47 Ghanaian cedis ($4), and Nutekpor sells just enough to feed her family and put her daughters through school.

As mangroves are depleted by people in search of firewood, development has crept into the coastal areas and authorities release water from overflowing dams, endangering the forests.

Promise Hunya, Community Liaison Officer of the Development Action Association says the USAID project helped the community understand the vital role that mangroves play in the ecosystem.

He says: “At first we didn't know the importance of the mangroves and through the USAID project, and they brought us a student from Cape Coast University to teach us how important the mangrove is. “

The loss of mangroves means farmers like Nutekpor risk their lives free diving 30 feet (9 meters) or deeper for hours in search of oysters that migrate to deeper water in the absence of mangrove roots.

The oysters play an ecological role in the estuary. "If we have more oysters, in a water body, in any mangrove area, it's found that the water gets cleaner than before", says Francis Nunoo, a professor of fisheries science at the University of Ghana.

Although replanting the mangroves have paid off for the women, it is a back-breaking job that keeps them in the harsh sun for hours.

Nunoo believes the time has come to find alternative sources of income for the women.

He says: “The reliance of the coastal people on these ecosystems is heavy. So I would also add that we should intentionally find alternative livelihoods for them to help reduce the heavy reliance on mangroves ecosystem, oysters and all the fish and other things that we have because we have a situation where if you don’t take care, the rate of destruction is always higher than the rate of repopulation. We are going to lose some species and we are going to lose some lives."