Transcript
WINIFERETI NAINOCA: It's probably to do with overfishing, of course, because of the increased population and the management systems of the fishing areas. It's to do with the biological cycles. If we integrate that with the community management systems that was already in place for centuries, there had always been [inaudible] areas, not only in Tuvalu, but for the rest of the Pacific. But now we are going back to strengthening those systems and what we have seen that has worked in some of the other Pacific islands that we wanted to and Tuvalu is putting aside different types of areas where there's complete restrictions, some are seasonal, where you can only catch a certain fish over certain seasons depending on migratory and their life cycle. So if it's spawning season, we do not encourage the catching of that. We are seeing the effect of effective management of marine protected areas and once that works it will increase their food security and of course could help with the regrowth of those corals and, better still, could have a little community-based ecotourism programme running.
JO O'BRIEN: Is the local fishing community involved in this project?
WN: Of course. When we implement projects we have to go through the usual strengthening of government and institutional sector systems including policies and associated regulations, then it trickled all the way down to the - in the case of Tuvalu, to the kaupules, part of the indigenous management structure at the community level.
JO: And how has the lack of fish affected the people there?
WN: Naturally, like, they have to spend a longer time out at sea so they probably have less time to do the work, do gardening; the extra fish that they used to catch for sale, the sales have gone down and the decreased number of some species has disappeared. Even the size of the fish that's being caught is gradually getting smaller, so it affects food security.
JO: Is climate change believed to be playing a part in that?
WN: Yes, especially during a cyclone where the coastal reefs are destroyed. As you know, the food chain in the sea where a lot of the lower animals in the food change is around the reef. And so when the cyclones hit, they also damage part of the marine ecosystems.
JO: But you believe this project will make a difference?
WN: Yes we have to believe because we have seen it work in Fiji, for instance, and it's starting now in Tonga and there are other locally manged marine area projects that are running in the other Pacific island countries.
