As East Africa’s oceans change, coastal women build new livelihoods

MALINDI, Kenya (AP) — The unfinished restaurant is still little more than concrete walls and wooden beams. As her daughter sweeps away the last piles of sand, 54-year-old Nuru Mohammed directs women hanging fishing nets to serve as décor. In a few days, the beachside restaurant on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast will open, offering another way to earn a living.

“For us women, this is hope,” says Mohammed, who for most of her life was one of the few fisherwomen in Malindi, a town northeast of the port city of Mombasa. “It will help support many families that have depended on the ocean for decades.”

Across East Africa’s coast, fisherfolk are increasingly turning to tourism, ecosystem restoration and other conservation-based businesses, reinventing their relationship with the sea as climate change, overfishing and declining ocean health threaten their livelihoods.

In Kenya, women are turning restored mangrove forests into sources of income through beekeeping and ecotourism. In Tanzania’s Zanzibar archipelago, fishing communities are protecting coral reefs through locally managed closures. In Mozambique, sea grass restoration is creating jobs while reviving marine habitats. Together, these efforts are redefining resilience, not as leaving the ocean behind, but as restoring it while building enduring livelihoods.

“Communities that depend on the ocean are also its best stewards,” said Andreane Martel, project director for a conservation program dubbed ReSea. “When local people, especially women, lead conservation, they protect biodiversity while creating more resilient and inclusive livelihoods.”

Mohammed said she has lost boats to theft and now struggles to compete with industrial trawlers. A nearby Chinese-owned fish processing facility reflects the dramatic changes for the industry.

“I can’t compete with that kind of power or scale,” she says.

“It has been tough,” Mohammed says, looking toward the ocean. “I fought to remain a fisherwoman. But I think it’s a fight I can no longer win.”

Ten kilometers (six miles) away, where the Sabaki River meets the Indian Ocean, Beatrice Mwanyiro oversees a mangrove nursery and restaurant built by ReSea, a 30-member women’s self-help group supported by the Canadian government.

“We have to adapt to the changing times,” Mwanyiro says. “The number of fish coming into the shallow waters are falling every year. Without another source of income, we won’t be able to feed our families.”

Mangroves, coral reefs, sea grass meadows and nearshore fisheries provide food, protect coastlines from storms and store vast amounts of carbon. But those ecosystems are imperiled by warming oceans, pollution, habitat loss and overfishing.

Mohamed Somo, a leader of fishermen in Lamu, a UNESCO heritage site, says boats that used to come in with catches of up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of fish now often bring home less than 30 kilograms (66 pounds).

Kenyan law restricts trawlers to waters at least 5 nautical miles (9 kilometers) offshore, but fishers say some vessels routinely operate much closer. The challenge extends beyond Kenya. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing costs the global economy an estimated $23 billion annually while threatening marine biodiversity and the food security of billions who depend on fish as a primary source of protein, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization.

“The trawlers fish offshore during the day, but at night they move into the shallow waters where artisanal fishers work,” Somo says. “By morning, there’s very little left for us.”

The growing pressure on coastal communities has pushed ocean conservation higher on the political agenda as communities struggle for survival and try to protect their ocean economies.

“Coastal communities are on the frontlines of climate change and declining ocean health, but they are also among the strongest drivers of resilience,” said Jerry Mang’ena, co-founder and executive director of Action for Ocean, a Tanzania-based organization that restores mangroves along its coastline.

“Supporting sustainable livelihoods, from aquaculture and eco-tourism to ecosystem restoration, helps families adapt while reducing pressure on the ocean. If we’re serious about protecting our seas, we must invest in the people who have cared for them for generations.”

At the recent Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, conservation groups urged African governments to ratify the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, or “High Seas” treaty, a landmark U.N. pact establishing marine protected areas in international waters and fair sharing of marine resources. It entered into force in January, and as of April had been signed by 145 countries and ratified by 81.

The outcome of negotiations over additional ratifications of the treaty could have a profound impact on the lives of fisher people like Mohammed as they try to build futures that no longer depend entirely on increasingly uncertain catches.

“The BBNJ Agreement gives African governments a historic opportunity to protect the high seas and safeguard the future of our fisheries,” said Aliou Ba, oceans campaign lead at Greenpeace Africa.

“But protecting the ocean also means confronting illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing that is stripping African waters of marine life and robbing coastal communities of food and income," he said. "Governments cannot afford to delay.”

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The Samito Women Group's restaurant under construction is seen in Sabaki, Malindi, Kenya, on June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)

Beatrice Mwanyiro, chair of the Samito Women Group, is interviewed outside the group's unfinished restaurant and mangrove restoration center in Sabaki, Malindi, Kenya, on June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)

Nuru Mohammed, a fisherwoman speaks inside an unfinished restaurant being built by a women's group of fishmongers in Sabaki, Malindi, Kenya, on June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)

The Samito Women Group's restaurant under construction is seen in Sabaki, Malindi, Kenya, on June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)

An unfinished restaurant under construction by a women's group led by Nuru Mohammed is seen in Sabaki, Malindi, Kenya, on June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)

NEW YORK (AP) — A rebound for several influential Big Tech stocks is helping to lift the U.S. market on Tuesday despite a fall for Apple and mixed trading elsewhere on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5%, even though more stocks fell within the index than rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 247 points, or 0.5%, as of 12:21 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% higher.

The stock market has been shaky recently as technology and artificial-intelligence stocks have swung on worries their prices shot too high in the frenzy around AI. Several of the most influential AI-related stocks held firmer Tuesday, which supported the market, after flipping from gains in the morning to losses in the afternoon a day earlier.

Nvidia rose 3.2% and was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500 Tuesday. Close behind were gains of 3.2% for Broadcom 5.5% for Advanced Micro Devices and 2.6% for Micron Technology.

Apple was long seen on Wall Street as a Big Tech company that’s less dependent on AI. But it’s still feeling the effects of the AI boom.

Memory chips for computers have become more expensive because of the demand created by the rush to build AI data centers. Those additional expenses are hitting Apple, which said it expects to make less profit from each $1 of its revenue during the final three months of this year.

That helped send Apple’s stock down 2%, even though the seller of iPhones and Mac computers reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

Palantir Technologies fell 2.1% even though it likewise reported a better profit than expected. The software company said it made more money working with U.S. companies than from the U.S. government for the first time, as U.S. commercial revenue soared 148% from a year earlier.

Tuesday’s midterm elections may also be keeping financial markets unsteady, but history suggests they may not matter much for the broad market. Going back to 1970, the S&P 500 has had a positive return in the six months following a midterm election every time, according to Brock Weimer, an analyst at Edward Jones.

Some on Wall Street speculate that a Democratic sweep of Congress this time around could lead to more regulations and restrictions on AI development. But Donald Trump would still be president and have the power to veto. And Wall Street generally prefers split control of Washington, which it sees as offering less risk of transformative policies that could reshape the economy.

On the winning side of Wall Street Tuesday were stocks of several companies that reported stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected.

Celanese climbed 4.7%, and DuPont added 8.8%.

Revvity jumped 11.7% for one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500 after the life sciences company topped analysts’ expectations and CEO Prahlad Singh said end market conditions are continuing to improve.

Expectations are high for all kinds of companies to continue to deliver big gains in profits as the U.S. economy keeps chugging along, even with high inflation and elevated interest rates. That helped send the S&P 500 to a record high last month.

An encouraging report on the U.S. job market said Tuesday that employers were advertising more job openings at the end of September than economists expected. That helped push the yield on the 10-year Treasury up to 4.96% from 4.91% late Monday.

In the oil market, prices continued to swing. Brent climbed above $107 per barrel overnight before briefly dropping below $101 in the morning amid continued uncertainty about what will happen in the war with Iran. It was most recently down 1.4% at $103.27.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were lower across Europe and mixed in Asia. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 3.6% for one of the world’s sharpest moves following losses for its two tech giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Stocks rose 0.3% in Australia after the country’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate for the fifth time this year.

AP Writers Elaine Lai, David McHugh and Rod McGuirk contributed to this report.

FILE - Traders Jonathan Mueller, left, and Michael Capolino work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

A screen displays a news conference by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Kevin Warsh on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

FILE - Trader Michael Capolino, left, and Specialist Thomas McArdle work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, file)

A dealer watches computer monitors near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A dealer walks near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and SK Hynix stock price at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

An employee works at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A TV cameraman films the screen displaying the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) in a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)