The reef at spring low tide

The Chumbe Island Coral Park is a unique privately managed nature reserve developed and managed by the Chumbe Island Coral Park Ltd. (CHICOP). It is a rare example of a still pristine coral island ecosystem in an otherwise heavily overfished and over-exploited area.

The reserve includes a reef sanctuary, which has become the first gazetted marine park in Tanzania, and a forest reserve.

In the following text you will find outline information about the reserve's history, the work of our park rangers, about our nature trails and educational material, and about research, baseline surveys and monitoring.

Fan coral with Goldie Fish

After the discovery of Chumbe's incredibly bio-diverse reef eco-system several years of campaigning by CHICOP succeeded in officially closing the fringing reef West of Chumbe Island in October 1992. With Chumbe being located upstream of the most important fishing grounds opposite Zanzibar's capital, Stonetown, the Chumbe reef provides a protected breeding ground for fish, corals and other species which can then spread out to recolonise nearby overfished and degraded areas. This makes Chumbe's protection of vital importance to both the preservation of bio-diversity and the fisheries economy in the region. On the 24th of December 1994 the Zanzibar Government officially gazetted the reef as the "Chumbe Reef Sanctuary" and with this Chumbe had become the first marine park in Tanzania. Following this Chumbe became registered as a UN recognised Protected Area.

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Men at work

To support nature conservation, local people must understand why this is a good thing and also benefit from it. This is why Chumbe Island has from the beginning recruited former fishermen from adjacent villages, who are stationed on the island and have been trained as Park Rangers. They were the key people in early outreach programs to raise awareness among the local community on marine ecology and sustainable management of natural resources. It is these Rangers who, through their employment with CHICOP, now manage the protection of the reserve and produce daily reports on any incidents and observations on the Reef Sanctuary and the Forest Reserve. Two of them have also learned SCUBA diving and were the first East Africans to witness the coral spawning observed in 1994. 

The Rangers are also involved in numerous research projects conducted on the island and have been trained to guide visitors for snorkeling in the Reef Sanctuary. Additionally a key role of these Rangers is to lead the school excursions within the Chumbe Education Program (see Education Program page for more info). To enhance this, various forms of educational materials have been developed. Biological reference literature and laminated fish guides for underwater use are available, and numerous reports have been commissioned and produced regarding the islands fauna and flora, both marine and forest. 'Floating underwater information modules' (FIMs) have been developed to aid all visitors to the MPA, accompanied by laminated information cards and identification guides depicting fishes, invertebrates and mollusks found in the reef. Nature trails and educational material are open to schoolchildren, eco-tourists and local people alike.

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Skunk Anemonefish

Black-Spotted Pufferfish

To establish the conservation value and document the terrestrial and marine resources of Chumbe Island for the management of the nature reserve, species lists, short reports and studies have been produced on fishes, corals, amphibians and reptiles, birds, bats, butterflies and vascular plants.

As agreed in the management contracts for the Reef and the Forest Sanctuaries, research is, when possible, conducted jointly with the Institute of Marine Sciences of the University of Dar es Salaam and the Departments of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries respectively. Joint research projects currently include: Macroalgae and scleractinian coral recruitment in the Chumbe Reef Sanctuary study (PhD and MSc); A Bioerosion Study (PhD); A study into the fish dispersal factors in the Chumbe MPA (PhD); Community participation and evaluation (PhD). Additionally short-term studies are regularly conducted by visiting researchers from both National and International institutions. 

More information:

Marine science report 27.10.2004 (PDF)

Terrestrial science report  27.10.2004 (PDF)

The importance of Marine Protected areas by Charlotte Johansson, 01.01.2007 (PDF)

Conservation Report for the Chumbe Reef Sanctuary and Forest Reserve by Mikala Peters, 03.01.2007 (PDF)

Taking back the reef by Peter Bennett, Sept. 2008 (PDF)

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Monitoring surveys conducted reveal that the protection of the reef to the west of Chumbe Island from 1992 by CHICOP has already shown good results. Coral growth and diversity is among the highest in the region, and Chumbe has at least 90% of all the hard coral species that have ever been recorded from Eastern African reefs (Veron, letter 27.3.97). Various reports by IMS state that the diversity and populations are greater on Chumbe in comparison to non-protected areas around Zanzibar (and indeed further afield). Ongoing surveys suggest that some of the fish families are of a greater size and abundance inside Chumbe’s protected area compared to other reefs on the west coast of Zanzibar. For example, groupers and triggerfish seem to be larger than in other sites and sweetlips more abundant.  Nearly 400 species of fish belonging to 50 families have been recorded, including Giant Groupers Epinephelus lanceolatus (up to 1m length), which is a rare sighting in shallow reefs (Mildner-Fiebig 1995). The rich fish life has attracted seabirds, such as the rare Roseate Terns Sterna dougalli, which have bred successfully on Chumbe. In 1994 around six hundred were ringed by an ornithologist to monitor their movements (Iles 1994). Many lobsters have found a safe haven on Chumbe. On land the rare Robber or Coconut Crab (Birgus latro) is common on Chumbe.  The IUCN red list of threatened species describes this species as ‘data deficient’ and it is considered rare elsewhere in the Indian Ocean.

The achievements of CHICOP have been widely acknowledged by international conservation organisations, amongst them the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), UNESCO-Directorate for Environment and Development in Coastal Regions and Small Islands (CSI) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Chumbe Reef Sanctuary is now fully registered as a marine protected area by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (established by UNEP, WWF and IUCN) in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The noted coral taxonomist Prof. J.E.N. Veron from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) visited the reserve in February 1997 and established that it has "one of the most spectacular 'coral gardens' to be found anywhere in the world" and that "the Park is exceptionally well managed".

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