Unfortunately, the Mauritian lagoons are not what they used to be. We don’t remember the last time we found a fully-grown tec-tec on our white sand beaches, and we are increasingly worried by the smaller and smaller octopus sold on the market today. Big parrot fish are scarce, and the colorful heads of coral have vanished. Fish populations have been exhausted. The once proliferant reefs that surround Mauritius have disappeared by fifty to sixty percent. Our lagoons are victims of extensive coastal development, unsustainable tourism, overfishing, runoff, land-based pollution, and coral bleaching.
As two young Mauritians, we brought our environmental and filmmaking expertise together to tell the story of the Mauritian lagoons. Our documentary, Vey nou Lagon, reveals the current state of our lagoons through the eyes of a traditional artisanal fisherman named Georgie. Georgie’s father successfully raised eleven children with fishing as his primary income, but living off the ocean is not sustainable anymore. Today, Georgie is a professional fisher who provides for a family of four, but has to work three jobs just to make ends meet.
Georgie isn’t the only one who relies on the ocean for food and livelihood. The people of Mauritius depend on these reefs for subsistence and tourism, and now, more than ever, we need to realize the consequences of our actions on the ocean. Fishers agree, we may not be able to depend on our lagoons for food and jobs in the future, unless we all start taking action.
Luckily, 2016 will be a decisive year for the Mauritian lagoons. On January 1, 2016, Mauritius
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