Velondriake, in the vezo language, means “to live with the sea”. It is also the name given to the locally managed marine area (AMGL) which borders 32 villages in the south-west of Madagascar. In this part of the island, the state is absent. The place is too remote and the means are lacking, anyway, in one of the poorest countries in the world. “Locals told us that if they called the police it would take two to three days to arrive,” says photographer Tommy Trenchard.
A community organization
The Vezo, a fishing people, have therefore learned to organize themselves autonomously. Their villages are “entirely dependent on the sea”, comments the Briton, and “this is what led them to take hold of this incredible resource”, with the help of the British NGO Blue Ventures and the Malagasy University of Toliara. Because the history of the Vezo is that of the possibility of “living sustainably from the sea”, at a local level.
It was at the end of 2018 that the photographer arrived in the Malagasy village of Andavadoaka, with his partner, the Mauritian photojournalist Aurélie Marrier d’Unienville. The couple lead a series of projects on traditional coastal communities in countries such as South Africa, Zanzibar and Sierra Leone, examining in particular their adaptation to the problems of the 21st century.e century such as climate change and overfishing.
In Andavadoaka, the duo meet Brus, a former shark fisherman turned ecotourist, who introduces them to the community. They travel to two other villages: Tampolove, where they attend the monthly harvest of sea cucumbers, and Ankinjanoke. “In some cases, the only possible means of transport was the canoe”, remembers Tommy Trenchard.
marine identity
Among the Vezo, each represents the link in a human chain of preservation and sustainable exploitation of maritime resources. Duties range from fishing to marine farming, including providing surveillance patrols. Faced with the rapid decline of fish and octopus stocks, fishing prohibition zones have also been established by the villagers.
In a series of portraits, the two photographers have captured everyone’s physical involvement and participation in something that encompasses them, as if carrying the fate of the community in the meshes of their fishing nets.
Happy to share their way of life with the visiting photographers, the Vezos gladly posed, says Tommy Trenchard. The ocean is an integral part of their identity: nicknamed “the nomads of the sea”, the Vezo have always embarked on long-distance journeys to find the best fishing grounds, knowledge of the sea being thus a part of their heritage. Making it “one of the communities in the world with the deepest connection to the ocean”, concludes the Briton.