Before dawn breaks over Banjul, Fatou Jarjue steps into the muddy edge of the Tanbi Wetland. She waits for the tide to retreat, then pushes her wooden canoe through narrow channels lined with tangled mangrove roots.
Her work today, like most days, is part of a wider Tanbi Wetland mangrove restoration effort that is reshaping how coastal communities defend Gambia’s low-lying capital.
Jarjue, 34, told Al Jazeera she has restored more than 5,000 mangroves since last year. She grew up in Ndangan, a settlement of about 300 people roughly two kilometres from Banjul. She began following her mother into the mangroves at age 12, learning to harvest oysters, crabs and fish.
The mangroves are more than a source of income. They form a natural barrier against coastal erosion and flooding. Rising seas and shifting weather patterns have pushed women like Jarjue to combine harvesting with active replanting, part of a broader Tanbi Wetland mangrove restoration drive documented by Al Jazeera.
Sussan Colley, 48, has fished and harvested oysters in the wetland since her teenage years. She told Al Jazeera that declining mangrove cover once shrank her catches. As restoration efforts expanded, oysters began returning in greater numbers and size, giving her confidence that the Tanbi Wetland mangrove restoration push is working.
The Tanbi Wetland National Park was declared a Ramsar site of international importance in 2007. It spans roughly 6,304 hectares around Banjul, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The wetland’s mangroves act as a hydrological buffer, absorbing storm surges and slowing coastal erosion.
Much of the Tanbi Wetland mangrove restoration work traces back to the TRY Oyster Women’s Association, founded by Fatou Janha Mboob. The association brought together about 500 oyster harvesters from 15 communities and won the United Nations Equator Prize in 2012 for community-based conservation, according to the University of Rhode Island.
In 2012, the Gambian government granted TRY exclusive rights to manage the cockle and oyster fishery within the Tanbi Wetland, the first such arrangement for a women’s association in Sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations notes. The Oyster and Cockle Co-management Plan now governs when harvesting pauses each year, reinforcing the same Tanbi Wetland mangrove restoration goals the women pursue on the water.
Marine scientist Dawda Saine told Al Jazeera the annual closure during the rainy season is often misunderstood. He said oysters are not closed off because they turn poisonous, but because heavy run-off during the rains affects their quality and allows stocks to regenerate.
Banjul mayor Rohey Malick Lowe said the survival of the capital is tied directly to the mangroves. She told Al Jazeera that Banjul is an island, and if the mangroves disappear, the city goes with them. She said the Banjul City Council is working to protect the capital from climate threats, though human activity continues to degrade parts of the wetland, making continued Tanbi Wetland mangrove restoration work essential.
The stakes are not abstract. Severe flooding in 2022 affected thousands of people across Gambia. Experts have warned that a one metre rise in global sea levels could inundate parts of Banjul, according to Al Jazeera. That risk has added urgency to the Tanbi Wetland mangrove restoration campaign led largely by women.
For Jarjue, the work remains steady and unglamorous. She checks seedlings, replaces damaged plants and monitors degraded patches whenever she is not harvesting. Colley, meanwhile, is teaching her own children the same skills she inherited, hoping they will value both livelihood and conservation.
Without reliable electricity, women in Ndangan still struggle to preserve oysters and crabs when market demand is low. But the broader Tanbi Wetland mangrove restoration effort continues, seedling by seedling, as coastal communities work to keep Banjul’s last natural shield intact.
