IV. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

[ IV-A | IV-B ]

B. Recommendations

Changing the behaviour of village-level fishers towards sustainability requires a proactive, working partnership between government, NGOs and the subsistence fishers - including women fishers.

Accomplishing such a partnership has a multitude of training needs. The Samoan Village Fisheries Extension Programme offers a useful case study of how to establish village-level fisheries management plans in partnership with government fisheries officials.

The process of village compliance will improve if villagers and/or schools participate in assessment and monitoring of fishery resources. Active participation in such studies fosters an understanding of the ecological processes of the marine environment and encourages the design of, and compliance with, proactive village management plans.

Training materials are needed to enable fisheries officers to understand the methodology and rationale behind such partnerships.

Economic decisions about the near-shore fisheries require factual information about the condition of the target species and the habitats. Without such knowledge, the pattern of commercial fishing has been one of discovery, over-capitalisation, followed by overexploitation.

Breaking this unsustainable pattern can best be achieved by developing a proactive, working partnership between Government, NG0s and fishers - including the women fishers. Many fisheries issues are contentious because of a lack of basic information on the condition of the stocks and habitats. Involving communities in the gathering of scientific information is a cost-effective way to develop important resource information and, at the same time, develop friendships to overcome resource abuse problems.

Better information on the scarcity or abundance of particular stocks and food preferences of the villagers will help develop both micro and macro economic policy. Much loved, but rare species may need greater regulation than more abundant but less favoured creatures. Supply and demand driven economics can rapidly lead to total destruction of a favoured species because fishers can get more money for individual animals as they become less and less common. Solving this destructive economic cycle will require a full understanding of the biology and economics of the system and a willing partnership between the regulators and the regulated.

Developing such a relationship involves a multitude of training needs. The Samoan Village Fisheries Extension Program offers a useful case study of how to establish village level fisheries management plans in partnership with government fisheries officials.

The process of fisher compliance will improve if villagers and/or schools participate in assessment and monitoring of fishery resources. Active participation in such studies fosters an understanding of the ecological processes of the marine environment and encourages the design of, and compliance with, proactive village management plans. In addition, there are strong social relationships in most Pacific Island villages; strong enough to control those who would damage the resources.

Training materials are needed to enable fisheries officers to understand the methodology and rationale behind such partnerships and how to integrate the information results into national policy and economic decision making.

Because of their ease of distribution and the rapid turn-over of government personnel in some countries, computerised training aids would be a useful complement to training programmes and workshops. Some of the areas that would be useful to include in the training programme are:

1. The importance of working with community groups and schools;
2. Gaining skills as a facilitator and communicating to rural fishers;
3. Developing village fishery management plans;
4. How to win community and school interest in participating with assessment and monitoring programmes;
5. Developing indicators of the status of fisheries that are useful and interesting to subsistence fishers (as well as to fisheries statisticians).
6. Step by step instructions for quantitative and qualitative experiments to measure indicators that help develop biological and economic fisheries models;
7. Useful analysis procedures and data storage techniques;
8. Assuring data quality;
9. Making the best use of the results. This includes compiling the data into a national database with periodic reports to the ministers and other economic decision-makers.

The training materials should be rich with illustrations and even video clips; comparable to the multimedia industrial training programmes that have become popular in the corporate world.

The computerised training system should:

• follow a process approach, so fishery officials, education officials village fishers (men and women), and students are involved with selection of the course content at all levels.
• be practical and simple, providing a sequence of explanation, demonstration and practice.
• provide for progressive course review and development.
• incorporate field assessment and monitoring systems needing a minimum of field equipment.
• integrate smoothly into the wider training agenda for sustainable development.

Multimedia provides an opportunity to use the same graphic resources and information systems while altering the language to suit the audience. It can, therefore, be readily adapted to different cultural situations throughout the region.

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