By Lansana Fofanah
The seventh edition of the Annual Bonthe Oyster Festival has been successfully celebratedover the weekend in Sherbro Island, Bonthe district Southern Sierra Leone.
What started in 2015 as a campaign to create alternative livelihood for marine protected areas oyster fisherwomen, has turned out to be a major event that empowers oyster harvesters and continue to boost local economy in the coastal communities ofBonthe.
With funding from Whitstable Oyster Trading Company in the United Kingdom, the annual BontheOysterFestival has transformed the local economy in the Island Communities of Bonthe and adjacent villages of York Island, Gbomgboma, Kegbay, Kingjimmy, etc. by creating added value oyster products; thereby making it a lucrative business for residents and improves their livelihood.
“Before this competitions, we use to sell oyster for Le10 per cup, but with the awareness and method of preparing it, we sell it for Le35 per cup because of added value. It was also difficult for people to buy our products because of the crude ways we use to prepare it. But when we know that the festival was coming, we prepared a lot for customers and we made a lot of cash from the sale of oysters,” said Mariatu Sankoh one of the participants that used to send her oyster to Freetown for sale.
The once-abandoned trade in oyster has turned to be a lucrative business which has created jobs and livelihood for people in that part of the country.
This year’s festival started with a Boat Safety competition, where local oyster harvesters from neighboring islands like York, took part in the much-awareness-raising competition under the strict monitoring of the Sierra Leone Maritime Administration at the Bonthe jetty.
Dr. Salieu Kabba Sankoh, Research Fellow/ Lecturer at the Institute of Marine Biology and Oceanography and the Dept of Biological Sciences, Fourah Bay College, explained that oyster harvesters usually encounter sea accidents where they lose their catches and sometimes therir lives. To avert such a loss at sea, the competition is meant to raise awareness on how to maneuver those accidents at the same time not losing their harvests.
“We decided to include boat safety competition as part of our festival activities to get the women some training on how to rescue themselves once they go out to harvest oysters in their small canoes which are very unstable during bad weather. We demonstrated to them through this competition how to also recover their catches when the boat capsizes. While we do so through competition to attract more participants, we are also promoting sea safety and also to educate onlookers who are also fishermen,” he said.
Isaac Okyere, from the Cape Coast Center for Coastal Resources Management in the University of Cape Coastdescribed the festival as educative and sees it as a West Africa Shellfish festival since oyster harvesting is done in almost every West African country. “We have the Mangrove festival in Benin, Oyster festival in Sierra Leone and next year will be in the Gambia. Other impressive things are going on in Ghana, Togo and elsewhere and we are trying to bring all these initiative together as a West Africa festival,” he said.
Day two of the festival started remarkably with contestants presenting spice-smoked oysters, plain-smoked oysters, cooked oysters and cooked shellfish (cockles, crabs, shrimps, etc).
With over one hundred participants, expert judges were drawn from Ghana and the United Kingdom, to taste, inspect the various recipes for quality, good preparation and presentation.
These according to Dr. Komba Konoyiema, from the Institute of Marine Biology and Oceanography, Fourah Bay College, are key components when it comes to adding value on the oyster trade.
James Green, from the Whitstable Oyster Trading Company, the sponsor of the event commended the organizers for sustaining the Oyster campaign.
“The idea of sponsoring this festival is to create awareness on the harvesting, processing and packaging of oysters in Sierra Leone. You don’t need to increase your production or work so hard but to add value to it that will bring more income. The shocking of oyster shell competition really gets the crowd going. We are happy that this competition has created the much-needed impact on the economy of these people too,” he said.
Professor Richard Wadsworth, leading member of the organizing team, commended the inclusion of women in the boat safetycompetition; noting that most of these women are engaged in harvesting oysters without much knowledge on safety..
“This is very educational to get people to think about boat safety, using a small boat is adangerous thing to do. This competition will also shape the minds of fishermen on what to do when they encounter bad weatherat sea. We hope to make it better and better as we go along,” he said.
Winners of various prizes thanked the organizers for supporting them with different prices as they have been empowered and confident to improve on oyster harvesting.
Moat of the winners in the food category promised to start up fast food business not only on the island but in big towns.
