At
first, the island was just a blur on the horizon; a low, gray smudge on
which I fixed my gaze in the hopes of keeping myself from losing my
breakfast over the side of the boat. The morning mist had turned to
rain, and the steely blue swells outside our wooden vessel were getting
bigger as we cruised away from Zanzibar, the island from which we were
venturing even further afield.
We were heading toward Chumbe, a
sliver of coral reef and jungle that sits in the Indian Ocean about 20
miles off the coast of mainland Tanzania. The island has no roads, no
power lines and fewer than a dozen buildings; it covers an area of 54
acres, about one-third the size of Washington, D.C.’s Mall. But, small
as it may be, Chumbe is breaking ground in marine conservation. The
island was going to be our home for the next three days, and I (and my
stomach) couldn’t wait to get there.
By the time our guide
turned off the boat’s engine, the sun had emerged and the ocean had
transformed into a peaceful lagoon that shimmered a miraculous shade of
turquoise. Following the half-dozen other passengers off the boat, my
husband and I jumped into knee-deep water and waded the few yards to the
shore, taking care not to step on the shells that littered the sand.
A true solitary escape: no more than 16 visitors are allowed on tiny Chumbe Island, Tanzania, at any time. There are no power lines and no roads. (Paige McClanahan)
And there we were:
Chumbe, said to be the world’s first privately managed marine protected
area and still the only one in Africa. Being private, Chumbe doesn’t get
any government money; its conservation work is funded by the visitors,
like us, who come to the island to relax and get a close-up look at one
of the most pristine coral reefs in East Africa.
All
of this we learned during our first briefing with members of Chumbe’s
staff, just after we got off the boat. We and the other guests — some of
whom were visiting for the day, others, like us, overnight — piled onto
brightly colored sofas on the veranda of Chumbe’s main building, a
high-ceilinged structure made of local timber and coconut leaves that
serves as restaurant, visitors center and head office.
In line
with its status as a conservation area, Chumbe has some strict rules, we
were told. A maximum of 16 guests are allowed on the island at any
time. Fishing and scuba diving are both forbidden, as is shell
collecting, which I admit I was slightly disappointed to hear. But we
were actively encouraged to explore the reef the old fashioned way: with
flippers and a snorkel.
And so we did — at least half a dozen
times during our stay. On our first venture into the water, I stuck
close to our guide, who introduced himself as Matata, since I figured he
would know where to find everything good. But I didn’t need any
guidance, it turned out.
Chumbe Island became the world’s first privately managed marine protected area in the mid-1990s. (Paige McClanahan)
As
soon as I stuck my head underwater, I was face to face with a maze of
corals that were branching, ballooning, or just waving in the gentle
current. It felt like I was swimming through an underwater botanical
garden, with the coral flowers blooming salmon pink, mustard yellow, a
deep maroon. And then there were the fish. Schools of glimmering
damselfish hung lazily in the water — so tame that I could almost swim
into them. Matata pointed out sea cucumbers, angelfish, sea urchins and
an octopus, and I spotted a neon-flecked stingray gliding along the
seafloor. It was another world, and I was happily lost in it, the water
so warm I could have spent hours exploring.
At one point, a sharp
tap on my shoulder made me jump. I turned to see Matata jabbing his
finger into the hazy blue distance. I squinted through my snorkel mask
but saw only light and shadow.
“Did you see it?” he said, resurfacing with a splutter a moment later. “The shark! It was just over there.”
It
was a blacktip reef shark, Matata later explained, a species that is
apparently fairly common along the East African coast. He assured me
that the sharks didn’t pose a threat to humans. But still, the idea of
sharing the water with such a predator gave me the shivers.
It didn’t scare us away, though; we were back for more later in the afternoon. There was just so much to see.
Indeed,
the 74-acre protected area is home to more than 400 species of fish and
200 species of hard coral — 90 percent of the marine biodiversity that
can be found in all of East Africa. The managers of Chumbe have worked
hard to protect their little patch of ocean, and for good reason.
In
the waters around nearby Zanzibar, overfishing and booming tourist
numbers are causing long-term damage to fragile marine ecosystems.
Globally, climate change — which is increasing the acidity of the
oceans, as well as the temperature — is taking an enormous toll on coral
reefs and the species that inhabit them.
“People don’t talk
about pristine reefs anymore because there are hardly any left,” Ulli
Kloiber, Chumbe’s manager of conservation and education, told me during a
chat on the veranda of the main building.
Dense coral rag forest covers the interior of Chumbe Island. The forest is home to species such as the coconut crab. (Paige McClanahan)
The
waters around Chumbe were still relatively untouched when the protected
area was established in the mid-’90s, Kloiber explained. The Tanzanian
military had owned the island for a time but hadn’t made much use of it.
Otherwise, Chumbe had simply been a stop-off point for fishermen
trolling the waters between the mainland and Zanzibar, a semiautonomous
region of Tanzania; the island’s lack of fresh water kept away any
potential long-term inhabitants. The only buildings were a lighthouse
and a small mosque that had been built by British colonizers around the
turn of the 20th century.
So setting up the conservation area
was relatively straightforward, Kloiber told me — the island was pretty
much empty. Today, Chumbe’s educational and conservation activities are
managed by Chumbe Island Coral Park Ltd., a not-for-profit company known
as CHICOP that’s owned by a German woman named Sibylle Riedmiller. She
was the one who arranged for the land and its surrounding waters to be
leased from the government of Zanzibar; Riedmiller is still the owner of
CHICOP, although she is no longer based on the island.
Riedmiller
and her staff started off by putting rangers on the island and working
with local fishing communities to educate them about the reef and its
inhabitants. They soon started to reach out to local high schools,
inviting students to the island at no cost to learn about the reef, and
experience it firsthand. Both of those outreach programs are still
active, with all of the work funded by tourists’ visits.
“At the
beginning, of course, it was quite tough, because the fishing
communities had no idea what a marine protected area was or what the
benefits [of conservation] were,” said Kloiber, adding that there isn’t
even a word for “coral” in the local language of Swahili.
A local fishing boat, known as a dhow, sits in the waters off of Chumbe. The island’s conservation staff works with local communities to encourage sustainable fishing practices. (Paige McClanahan)
Chumbe’s
staff also act as watchdogs, reporting any fishing to the authorities
in Zanzibar, and offenders are either fined or forced to hand over their
fishing gear. They still spot poachers about four or five times each
year, Kloiber tells me, but that’s much less frequent than it used to
be.
Indeed, after two decades of conservation work, Chumbe’s
reef is now one of the best protected in the region. Species like sea
urchins and parrotfish have been fished out of other reefs in the area,
but they’re still thriving in the waters around Chumbe.
But
there’s more to the island than just the reef, as we were happy to
discover on the second day of our visit. Swapping our flippers for
sandals, we took a guided walk through the island’s interior. Chumbe is
covered in dense forest that sits on a layer of jagged, fossilized
coral, known as “coral rag.” The forest is home to 75 tree species,
including the storied African baobab, one of which soars majestically
above the otherwise low canopy. We learned about local fauna, including a
(nonvenomous) lime-green tree snake and the 16-inch coconut crab, the
world’s largest land-dwelling arthropod.
In the evenings, we
wandered back to our seaside bungalow to relax and shower before dinner,
a generous buffet heavy on seafood and spices. Shaped like a giant,
upside-down clam and constructed of the same local timber and coconut
leaves as the main building, our little house was straight out of “Swiss
Family Robinson.” Like everything else on the island, Chumbe’s
bungalows — which use only solar power, have pit latrines and harvest
rainwater for the showers and sink — were designed to minimize any
environmental impacts. It seemed perfectly fitting that we shared our
little jungle cottage with a clutch of hermit crabs that had set up
house under the front steps.
It’s all in keeping with what
Kloiber describes as a “green line” that runs through everything that’s
done on Chumbe — the fundamental commitment to conservation that
underlies how the project was designed and how it continues to be run.
Conservation is their focus, but tourism is their lifeblood, Kloiber
tells me.
“The engines of the project are really the guests,”
Kloiber says. “As long as the eco-tourism is working, it’s a
self-sustaining project.”
Paige McClanahan is a writer based in Nairobi.
If you go
Where to stay
Chumbe Island Coral Park
Chukwani Road
Chumbe Island, Zanzibar
011-255-242-231-040
Eco-bungalows,
Afro-Indian cuisine, and snorkeling galore. Rooms from $260 per person
per night, including all meals, activities, and the boat ride to and
from Zanzibar.
Protea Hotel Mbweni Ruins
Plot number 143/93, Mbweni St.
Kiembe Samakie, Zanzibar
011-255-242-235-478
A
quick drive from Zanzibar International Airport airport, this friendly
and atmospheric hotel is where you catch the boat to Chumbe. Rooms from
$188 (double occupancy), including buffet breakfast.
Information
For more about Chumbe, including the island’s ecology and history, visit www.chumbeisland.com. For tourism information about Zanzibar, visit zanzibar.net.
— P.M.
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