An environmental campaigner from Palau says tradition could be the key to more sustainable fishing.
Palau Legacy Project co-founder Jennifer Koskelin at Island Voices in Tahiti. Photo: Pew Charitable Trust / Pew Polynésie Française
Jennifer Koskelin is among a group of cultural ambassadors from across the Pacific meeting in Tahiti do discuss indigenous conservation programmes.
Ms Koskelin, co-founder of the Palau Legacy Project, was instrumental in securing the half-million square kilometre Palau National Marine Sanctuary in 2015.
She said Palau now acts as a giant fish aggregating device, and the reserve has actually made fishing more commercially viable.
"When you create a fully closed area around the space that you want to preserve, you get a lot of spill over. And so for us the goal is, in that large marine protected area we are anticipating a spill over so that in the space closest to the islands that we live in, it becomes easier to catch fish," she said.
In 2008, the UN General Assembly designated June 8 as World Oceans Day.
