At the recent COP29 Conference, Love the Oceans won the 2024 Gender Just Climate Solutions Award in the Transformational Category.
We had the opportunity to sit down with Francesca to delve into her impactful work and celebrate the achievements of Love the Oceans.
Francesca Trotman’s passion for the ocean and love for sharks began in her childhood. Her fascination with marine life led her to study Marine Biology at university, where she first visited Mozambique in her second year to practice underwater photography. During this trip, she witnessed shark killings In Jangamo Bay. She decided to write her dissertation and master's thesis on the topic, and revisited Mozambique to spend four months with local shark fishermen.
After the results of her thesis uncovered unsustainable practices in the industry, Francesca decided she wanted to take further action, founding Love the Oceans.
“I flew out to Mozambique two days after graduation, and I haven’t looked back since”
- Francesca
Figure 2: Jangamo Bay. Photo: Ike Isaacson
Love the Oceans is a non-profit marine conservation organisation based in Mozambique. The charity aims to create a scalable holistic conservation strategy that can be replicated along the coastline of Mozambique and beyond. They’re doing this through the establishment of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Inhambane Province and increasing the community’s resilience to climate change. This work involves research, education, and diving to protect marine animals in the area through a bottom-up community led approach.
Key areas of their research include collecting fisheries and megafauna data to inform sustainable practices, monitoring coral reef health, and improving turtle hatching rates. In addition, the team conduct weekly beach cleanups, and their community engagement program teaches marine resource management to school children.
In the local community, an alarming 98% of people can’t swim. To address this, Love the Oceans offers free swimming lessons for 4 to 18-year-olds and in 2023 launched their Sea Her project, teaching women how to swim, dive, harvest mussels and increasing access to ocean spaces.
Historically, women in Jangamo have not been involved in the marine sector, with limited access to education and healthcare. Lack of access to menstrual products prevents many women from learning to swim and results in girls attending school for 12 weeks less than their male counterparts. Additionally, due to a lack of sexual education, pregnancies and marriage at a young age contribute to girls leaving education early and becoming financially dependent on their husbands.
Love the Oceans is actively addressing these disparities though multiple gender equity projects. The organisation focuses on the economic empowerment of women through alternative livelihoods that can offer financial security, whilst alleviating pressure on traditional fisheries.
“We strongly believe that empowering women is crucial in the mission to create resilient ocean ecosystems and communities.”
-Francesca
The team at Love the Oceans are working to provide women in the area with a range of menstrual products and increase sexual health education for both men and women. In addition, they have trained the first female swimming teachers and scuba divers in the district, creating local role models for women. Furthermore, the organisations Aquaculture Project trains women in aquaculture farming for mussels and oysters to help them achieve financial independence.
At the COP29 Conference in Azerbaijan, Love the Oceans was awarded the 2024 Gender Just Climate Solutions Award for their gender equity work. Before attending COP29, Francesca expressed hope that there would be more commitments to fund grassroots NGOs, enabling them to make a tangible impact on the ground. She also advocated for greater consideration to be given to the effects of climate change on the oceans, an often-overlooked aspect of climate discussions.
Figure 7: Trained scuba divers. Photo: Mario Guilamba
Francesca is completing her PhD with One planet at Newcastle University. Her research focuses on holistic management to create sustainable, climate change resilient fisheries in Jangamo.
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are essential for achieving international goals to protect 30% of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2023. However, MPAs are increasingly affected by climate change.
Francesca’s PhD will present fisheries, predator and social data collected by Love the Oceans, which is critical for providing scientific evidence to support the establishment of an MPA. This data will provide a well-rounded picture of what successful conservation in Jangamo should look like. She acknowledges the challenge of working with limited historical fisheries data, but she has now collected almost ten years’ worth of data.
“The whole premise of Love the Oceans is action from science. Evidence-based conservation is what we call it.”
-Francesca
Additionally, Francesca will analyse baited remote underwater videos to study the presence and numbers of apex and mesopredators within the ecosystem. Early findings indicate alarmingly low numbers of these predators.
While Francesca has always been passionate about apex predator conservation, her work in Jangamo has broadened her focus to the socio-economic impacts of fisheries. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has estimated nearly 500 million people rely on small-scale fisheries for their livelihoods, many of whom are living in or at risk of poverty. This sector is highly vulnerable due to climate change affecting oceanographic properties, with significant implications for food security. Therefore, the final chapter of Francesca’s thesis will focus on the socio-economic side of fisheries, including the role of women in marine conservation, food security and reliance on fisheries.