For 20 years, Millicent Turay has supported her family by collecting mangrove oysters near Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, a common livelihood along the west African coast.
But the activity, deeply rooted in local culture and which has enabled generations of women to make a living, is now under threat as mangrove forests deteriorate under pressure from human expansion.
"We learnt how to do it for ourselves... to survive," said the 50-year-old, speaking to AFP in the mangroves, machete and gloves in hand as she pried oysters from the tangled aerial roots.
"This job is physically demanding" and can be dangerous, she said.
The laborious work, carried out mainly by women, involves wading at low tide, barefoot and often chest-deep in muddy water and stifling heat, to reach rocks and mangroves where wild oysters cling.
