This study explores the illegal harvesting of wild abalone and plans for an abalone farm in South Africa as examples of communities seeking to establish a livelihood in degraded landscapes, a hallmark of the Anthropocene. The perspective of the reefs as multispecies ruins complicates the apparent dichotomy between the destructive character of illicit abalone harvesting on the one hand, and the constructive character of an abalone co-operative farm, on the other hand, and incorporates the impact of non-human organisms on communities’ engagement with the mollusc in pursuit of a livelihood. This investigation into multispecies ruins opens innovative angles for interdisciplinary research and knowledge production that can inform more holistic approaches to multispecies survival in sites of socio-economic and ecological debris.