Sustainable Partnerships: Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) & Kumbatia 🌏
Kumbatia collaborates closely with NRT, a membership organization owned and led by 45 community conservancies and dedicated to nurturing community conservancies for enhanced livelihoods and environmental preservation. Together we’ve established the Fish-to-Market program, aimed at increasing market demand for small-scale fishers and promoting sustainable development along the Kenyan coast.
Kumbatia's role as the private sector partner is to enable the communities to access premium buyer markets within Kenya and beyond. Kumbatia provides robust training sessions on industry-best post-harvest handling methods to ensure the highest product quality and longevity. Additionally, we equip communities with the necessary resources for fishing expeditions, including ice, bait, fuel, and coolers, enabling these small-scale fishers to deliver products that can compete with the industrialized fisheries market.
NRT, with Kumbatia’s support, trains communities on the importance of more sustainable forms of fishing, such as hand lines and pole-and-line methods, compared to traditional methods like ring nets, seine nets, and beach nets, which can cause substantial damage to juvenile fish populations, coral reefs and seagrass beds.
What makes the Fish-to-Market program unique is that fishers must adhere to our gear requirements to access Kumbatia’s premium pricing and free inputs, thereby developing a market-based incentive for more sustainable practices.
Supported by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and The Fauna and Flora International (FFI) through the Darwin Initiative fund, our collaboration with NRT has allowed us to extend our reach. We have scaled our project from originally one community to now engaging with seven in Lamu County (Kiunga, Faza, Kiwayu, Ishakani, Shanga Ishakani, Shanga Rubu, and Pate), and from 36 fishermen to 140 presently.
We have established a strong relationship with the communities alongside our NGO partners, and through the Fish-to-Market program, we're making strides towards more sustainable fisheries, nurturing marine environments, and improving livelihoods.
