Ministerial Conference on
Environment and Development
in Asia and the Pacific 2000
Kitakyushu, Japan 31 August - 5 September 2000
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Coastal Fisheries Resources
Prior to the 1980’s Pacific island national fisheries were dedicated to developing extractive commercial fishing for foreign exchange. Subsistence fisheries were not a national concern, and the general belief was that stocks were under-fished and thus offered an important path to economic development. These views turned out to be wrong. Subsistence fisheries are of great importance to national food security and the coastal areas were not adaptable to sustained commercial fishing pressures, especially not destructive commercial fishing using dynamite, gill nets, diving equipment and poisons that rapidly destroyed coral reef habitats and depleted species with slow growth rates. Other government sectors that interact with fisheries are largely excluded from the fisheries development process. There was little, if any, communication between fisheries agencies and, for example, tourism (sport fishing, diving, resorts, parks), environment (parks and habitat protection), planning (macroeconomics and finance), agriculture and forestry (responsible for water siltation and subsequent damage to inshore fishery habitats), lands and survey (responsible for filling of mangrove and coastal areas) or public works (responsible for building waste dumps, coastal roads and causeways that diminish fish nursery areas, cut off fish migration routes, and disturb water flows in bays and estuaries). There was also little or no communication between subsistence fishers (especially women) and the national fisheries agencies (mostly men). Integrated coastal zone management is increasingly seen as a necessary step for Pacific island countries but most independant small Pacific island nations have shown little progress in instituting such programmes. They are, however, in place and functioning in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, and Guam. While excessive fishing and use of destructive fishing techniques may be the direct cause of the decline of inshore stocks, pollution and habitat loss also depresses the ability of inshore stocks to recover. Sea grass beds, coral reefs, mangroves, and the sea surface microlayer are all critical nursery habitats for marine plants and animals. All of these have been damaged by siltation, pesticides, hazardous chemicals, petroleum products and heavy metals. Mangroves are used as municipal dump sites and are filled for housing. Fisheries experts remain convinced that shallow water coral reef fish stocks are in good condition away from population centres but agree that stocks of important key species, and all commercially valuable species, are over-fished near villages and especially near urban centres. There is, however, little data to substantiate trends of reef stocks in remote areas. Valuable commercial species, such as giant clams, lobsters, and most large reef fish have been heavily fished even on remote reefs. Deep reefs and sea mounts, ranging from 100 to 500 metres below the surface, were also believed to hold great promise for commercial fishing. Many countries in the region received assistance to increase their fishing fleet for deep bottom fishing. Then it was discovered that the large fish in these depths were also very old, many not reaching maturity for decades. Some of the fish harvested were over 40 years old. When fish were harvested from a particular sea mount, replenishment of the stocks was so slow, the area could not be successfully fished again for many years. Fishers in Tonga, for example, began to deplete sea mounts – one after the other – within a few years after their discovery. As the fishers moved to progressively more distant sea mounts fuel costs and refrigeration problems began to deplete their profits. Many of the boats, bought on zero-interest loans, were never able to pay off their debts. Offshore pelagic fisheries are believed to be in good condition in the Pacific islands, but have been fished to or beyond their sustainable level in Australia and New Zealand. Multi-level partnerships for sustainable coastal fisheries.The Secretariat for the Pacific Community (SPC) integrates the efforts of national fisheries agencies in the Marine Resources Programme. The Coastal Fisheries Programme has two major divisions; the Integrated Coastal Fisheries Management Project and the Inshore Fisheries Research Project. These programmes assist nations with expert technical training in all aspects of fishing, including research, catching and processing sea foods, storage and marketing. The SPC plays a key role in building a consensus for sustainable development in National fisheries agencies. Regional technical and working group meetings bring key representatives of national fisheries together on a regular basis to share experiences on technical, scientific and policy dimensions of the fishing sub-sector. Over the past decade, SPC coastal fisheries programmes have helped shift national fishing priorities from increasing commercial fishing capability to sustainable management of fisheries resources, and from there to an awareness of the need to decentralise fisheries management and involve local communities in self-management programmes. These changes represent a fundamental and necessary maturation of policy and behaviour of fishery agencies. The process of facilitation by the staff of the SPC helped national fisheries departments understand the need for sustainable approaches to fisheries development. Technical publications from the fisheries meetings and the SPC fisheries newsletter were important influences but the meetings themselves were perhaps the key component to this reorientation process. The conferences provided an opportunity to catch up on new developments in the theory and practice of fisheries and to gauge policy decisions against the wider fisheries community. Topics discussed at recent meetings now focus the group on sustainability of fisheries activities and decentralisation of management. Speakers from countries making progress towards sustainability strongly influence the thinking of other fisheries leaders. The SPC is working closely with fisheries staff in Fiji to oversee the introduction of the Live Fish Export industry as a sustainable enterprise. Rural Fiji fishers stand to make $US8 million by catching live fish that will sell to the restaurant trade in Asia for about $US56 million. The company, Altraco, is operating under strict conservation guidelines set up by the Fisheries Department that include reef rotation and closures and specific limits to catch methods, fish species and fish sizes. Making laws and regulations to control small scale commercial and subsistence fishing has had a history of failure in the Pacific Islands. Command and control techniques are impractical in the widely scattered islands. Without the understanding and willing support of the village people there is no possibility of management of coastal resources. There have been two paths towards improving management of coastal marine resources; the development of Marine Conservation Areas and forming partnerships between government fisheries departments and local communities to form community resource use plans. Fisheries departments in the Cook Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, PNG, Fiji and Samoa are at various stages of developing partnerships with local communities to sustainably manage their coastal resources. For example, the Cook Islands Ministry of Marine Resources is implementing two ADB funded projects on coastal resource management; the Outer Island marine resource management project and the Marine resources management and conservation programme (total cost US$ 700,000). The projects include having local communities plan, manage and enforce management policy. In Samoa, the Fisheries Department is implementing the AusAID funded Samoa Fisheries Extension and Training Project, one of the most innovative and successful examples of community/government partnerships for coastal fisheries management in the Pacific sub-region. In Tonga, community based giant clam reserves were initiated in the island group of Vava’u in 1988. Studies demonstrated the reserves increased settlement of the endangered species of giant clam on surrounding reefs. In association with the Tongan Ministry of Fisheries, community based giant clam reserves have spread throughout the islands of Tonga. In Vanuatu, temporary reef closures are a traditional means of conservation management. These are now actively encouraged by the Fisheries Division and are in wide-spread use in the country. In some cases, the traditional system has been expanded to include the concept of formal, permanent community reserves. For example, in the Meskalyne Islands, a community set up a giant clam marine reserve in 1992. This reserve is entirely run and supported by the village people and, in 1998, had more than 1,100 giant clams. In PNG, the Moma Coastal Fisheries Development Project utilised an innovative, provincial task-force of cross-sectoral participants to assist in the community development of coastal resources. The project was placed in the provincial planning department and reported directly to the District Secretary. The cross-sectoral team was able to form and implement an integrated social, economic, and biological management plan for the sustainable development of the target area.
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