Problem overview:
Policies and measures: The Trochus communities in Vanuatu have been successful in controlling their own Trochus harvesting activities through traditional custom and practice for a long period of time. However, the traditional manner is seen as rather unsustainable according to scientific discoveries today. Therefore, the Fishery Department has decided to step in to slightly modify traditional practices by simply talking to them.
Training and educational initiatives: Vanuatus Fishery Department has seen that Trochus communities are very successful at managing their own Trochus harvesting activities, therefore, has decided not to interfere with their traditional management. Instead, provide them proper knowledge on how to manage the activities in a sustainable manner, and rely on them to carry on the practice.
Background in summary:
Commitment to manage Trochus a valuable marine resource: Today, Vanuatu's fisheries department is fully committed to forming partnerships with communities for resource management. They rely on the co-operation of the resource users and resource owners for the protection of Trochus (pearl shell) juvenile re-seeded sites.
Building partnership between authority and community: They believe that the most effective way to disseminate information is to go out and meet with the people, be willing to eat and sleep with the people and to sit with the people in their Nakamal (meeting house) to discuss sustainable management and to establish a working co-operation with the people.
Integrating traditional management with regulations: The Fisheries Department and the people need each other to manage the marine resources. While the Fisheries Department respects the communities custom environmental knowledge and practices communities should in the same way respect the Fisheries Management Regulation.
Entrusting the communities to manage themselves: The major feature of is that controls are expected at the local level, not from outside. Controls exerted at local levels are much more effective than controls exerted from the outside. Controls exerted at local levels are set and implemented by the people directly affected by the controls.
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Good practice rating:
(1 for the best, 5 for the lowest score) |
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Sustainability
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Efficiency
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| 2 |
 Improvement in either the environment of economic condition with no harm to the other. |
2 |
Cost efficient. |
| 2 |
Sustainable over time (not one-off) |
Process |
| Adaptability |
1 |
Participation of the community |
| 3 |
Location adaptability (can the project be done in other places?) |
1 |
Participation of resource owners/users |
| 3 |
Socio-cultural adaptability. |
2 |
Partnerships between various actors (Governments, NGO, Academia, Private) |
| 2 |
Level of development adaptability. |
3 |
Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments. |
| 3 |
Style of government adaptability. |
- |
Ability to attract political interest/support |
| 2 |
Degree of decentralization adaptability. |
- |
Procedures for feedback and review. |
Comments on this example:
Fishing activities of the local people are known to be small-scale and very unlikely to cause damage to the marine resources (unless unsustainable activities such as electric shock or explosions are practiced). On the contrary, medium and large-scale fishing activities with their high volume of catch are the ones posing a threat to the number of fish and species diversity. If fishing regulations are focused on controlling local fishing activities, then the problem of marine resource degradation might not be solved at all. Instead, regulations against unsustainable fishing activities should concentrate more on controlling medium to large-scale fishing instead of small-scale.
This is not to say that the community program was unsuccessful because the educational program does help change peoples attitude towards sustainable fishing. Also, building relationship will help the authorities understand more about the local people and vice versa, thus, conflict of understanding will be reduced.
One suggestion for the program is to involve the local people in monitoring illegal fishing activities from outsiders and reporting those activities to the authorities. This will help strengthen the local peoples awareness and concern to protect their resources and will help improve the authorities monitoring efficiency.
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Sustainability of the project:
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Adaptability of the project to other situations:
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Training and educational initiatives: Changing peoples attitude could be harder than you think. Some people are more overly concerned of what they are going to eat this evening than to fish sustainably in order to have more fish to consume in the future. Please bear in mind that we are talking about marine resources in general not just focusing on Trochus. Therefore, when authorities enter these communities hoping for them to change their attitudes, the process might turned out to be long and unsuccessful. (Unlike this example that turned out to be a great success because authorities were able to build close relationship with the community.)
| Process of decision making and implementation: |
Policies and measures: Relying on communities to continue to manage their own resources is a very effective idea. It reduces the friction that could occur between authorities and communities, and also reduces the monitoring and control cost. However, it is always safe for authorities to keep constant look on the communities activities in order to be sure that the people are really practicing their harvesting activities according to what the authorities expected.
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Documentation: |
Literature or other written project review references
Trochus (Tectus niloticus) , also known as topshells, are fished for their shells to be used as buttons, ornaments and ground down as a component of paint and lacquer. Trochus are found on intertidal reefs in tropical areas of the western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans.
Read more about Trochus at Aquaculture Information for Western Australia
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Source of Information: |
ESCAP: Integrating Environmental Considerations in Economic Decision Making Processes
Synthesis B Modalities for Environmental Assessment-Pacific Islands Subregion
Pacific Island case studies for Samoa, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands (Unpublished)
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Contacts: |
Chesher@TellusConsultants.com
P.O. Box 257
Port Vila
Vanuatu
Fax: (678) 23836
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Submitted by: |
ESCAP
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