The sea has always whispered secrets to those who listen: of life, loss, resilience. In Jambiani, a coastal village in Zanzibar, those whispers are now becoming a chorus of possibility.
Under deepening climate pressures and collapsing seaweed yields, a group of women have turned to an unlikely ally—sea sponges—for their survival, dignity, and future. Their journey is testament to the quiet courage of everyday people forging change from necessity.
It’s A Miracle Crop That Gave Me Back My Life
At low tide, Zulfa Abdallah wades into the shallow waters, her goggles secured as waves swirl around her. She makes her way to a rope line suspended beneath the surface, where sea sponges grow in neat rows.
Tending them has become second nature, requiring patience and steady care. The effort has paid off—her earnings have now tripled compared to her former seaweed farming income.
With the additional money, she has repaired her mother’s home, purchased new furniture, and started saving to buy land, turning what was once a modest livelihood into a source of stability and progress.
Zulfa is just one of many women who have embraced this new opportunity. In Jambiani, the Swiss-based nonprofit Marine Cultures has spent over a decade training local women to cultivate sea sponges in shallow waters. The initiative is designed to be low-cost, environmentally sustainable, and able to generate consistent income.
Many of the participants are single mothers or women who previously had few economic options, and their work is helping to challenge traditional gender roles within the community.
Although initial skepticism was common due to cultural traditions and fear of failure, the growing success of these farms has gradually changed perceptions and inspired more women to take part.
A Pivot In The Face Of Climate Change
For years, seaweed farming was a lifeline along Zanzibar’s shores. Women planted ropes of seaweed in shallow lagoons and sold the harvest to middlemen for export. But rising sea temperatures, shifting salinity, disease, and storms have made yields erratic. More than 90 percent of seaweed farmers are women—and many have seen production slump under changing ocean conditions.
Enter sponges. These simple multicellular animals filter seawater, require no external feed, and regenerate from fragments. They also fetch premium prices in cosmetics and bathing goods. Unlike seaweed, which suffers in warmer and more polluted waters, sponge farms show promise as a more climate-resilient income stream.
Journalist Kim Harrisberg of the Thomson Reuters Foundation shared the story of Nasir Hassan Haji, a woman who now confidently dons goggles over her headscarf and dives beneath the surface to check on her growing sponges.
Once reliant solely on seaweed farming, she turned to sponge cultivation to secure a more stable income for her family in the face of climate uncertainty.
She explained that learning to swim and manage her own farm gave her independence and freed her from relying on others. This shift to sponge farming is not just a way to earn a living—it represents a powerful form of climate adaptation and personal empowerment.
Navigating Challenges, Building Cooperatives
The journey has been far from easy. In 2018, an unexpected explosion in brittle sea star populations wiped out large sections of the sponge farms.
The following year brought a different obstacle—dense algae blooms coated the ropes and smothered young sponges, requiring the women to clean the lines by hand almost every day.
Despite these setbacks, the farmers have shown remarkable resilience, adapting their techniques and continuing to nurture their farms through each new challenge.
Marine Cultures has worked closely with local scientists and communities to refine species selection, placement depth, and cleaning regimens. Before launching the first commercial farms, over 120 species were tested to find those best suited for Zanzibar’s waters and market demands.
In recognition that women often lack market power, a Zanzibar Sponge Farmers’ Cooperative has been established. The cooperative ensures that farmers receive around 70 percent of the retail price, with the remainder covering processing, transport, and overhead.
Mkasi Abdalla, a widow of seven children, reports earnings of 250,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $100) per month thanks to sponge farming—nearly four times what she made previously. She is now building a three-bedroom house.
Still, scaling is one core challenge. Marine Cultures lacks the resources to build hatcheries to generate juvenile sponges at scale, making expansion slow.
Cultural traditions have also created hurdles for the project. Many of the women had never learned to swim, and in some communities, entering the sea was considered inappropriate for women.
To overcome these barriers, swimming lessons were integrated into the training program, helping participants gain the confidence needed to work in the water. Over time, this initiative has not only improved safety but also encouraged women to feel empowered and even take pride in tending their sponge farms.
Ripples Beyond The Lagoon
What began in Jambiani is inspiring expansion. Marine Cultures is exploring sponge farming on Zanzibar’s Pemba Island and Tanzania’s mainland (Tanga region).
Scientists also point to ecological benefits. Sponges filter water, reducing turbidity and fostering habitat for fish and coral life. Sustainable aquafarming reduces pressure on wild sponge harvesting and overfishing.
Leonard Chauka of the University of Dar es Salaam praises the model: “Sponge farming is a lifeline for women… it provides stable incomes without depleting marine resources.”
In policy and rights arenas, activists are observing shifts. As sea sponge farming empowers women monetarily and socially, it also gradually alters mindsets about women’s roles in a traditionally patriarchal milieu. Some see it as part of a larger blue-economy movement, creating safe spaces for women to engage with the sea and local governance.
Hope In Practice: Lessons From The Frontlines
If there is a lodestar in this story, it is resilience—and the willingness to try. Zulfa’s journey began with skepticism, but she persisted. Nasir, Shemsa, and others joined not because someone handed them a lifeline—but because each day they waded back into the sea, met challenges, adapted, and learned.
This is the story too often left untold: that solutions can emerge from local knowledge, partnership, and patience. Sponge farming does not promise easy riches. Years of care, trial-and-error, and community-building lie behind each sale. As one interviewee said, the rewards are slow—but real.
Yet the fourth point must be emphasized: the social transformation is at least as profound as the financial one. That moment when a woman who once believed men must provide takes her first solo dive into the water, ruling her own harvest—this is a turning point. When her neighbors stop doubting and start asking for guidance, norms shift. When a cooperative gives her a seat at governance tables, a ripple becomes a wave.
It is in those small, steady acts—in laughter on the processing deck, in a daughter learning to swim in her mother’s footsteps, in a woman owning her income and her voice—that the future is being rewritten.
The sea, once a source of hardship, is becoming an instrument of hope.
Sources:
BBC
Marine Cultures
Global Issues
