Funafuti Conservation Area Project

Funafuti Conservation Area Project, Tuvalu

(Source: SILIGA A. KOFE, ESCAP POC, Port Vila, Vanuatu)

When Tuvalu separated from Kiribati as an independent nation, the resident population tripled. Unregulated usage of the atoll environment led to a marked decline in the quantity of avifauna and marine life on the atoll. Commercial overexploitation of lagoon fisheries undermined the sustainability of important subsistence and local artisanal fisheries. The abandonment of traditional taboos, marine tenure systems, and fishing regulations, which were responsible for relatively sustained-yield production over thousands of years, coupled with widespread use of dynamite, pesticides, other fish poisons and stupefactents, and small mesh gillnets have degraded important fisheries resources. By 1992, species of particular nutritional and cultural importance showing evidence of overexploitation included a range of groupers and snappers, emperors and rabbitfish, giant clams, spider conch, lobsters, crabs, prawns etc. (Tuvalu UNCED Report 1992).

In October, 1995, The people of Funafuti, the capital island of Tuvalu, launched the Funafuti Conservation Area Project (FCA). The Government of Tuvalu and the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme assisted the people’s initiative by providing technical assistance and other material resources the project needed. The project objective was to conserve the biodiversity of Funafuti atoll through the sustainable use of natural resources for the benefit of the community and their descendants.

The project conception was developed in the traditional government maneapa and after lengthy discussions between the community elders and officials from the national and regional environment organisations, tripartite commitments and obligations were agreed upon, enshrined in a Memorandum of Understanding between the national government and the President of the Island. The designated conservation area covers an oblong shaped area of 150 square kilometres or one-third of the total lagoon-fringed island. The conservation vision of the maneapa was a recollection of the abundance of marine and bird life on Funanfuti island in the 1950s and 1960s.

An office for the project was set up and a Project Manager appointed in 1995 under the overall responsibility and management of the President of the Funafuti Town Council. The Council, an elected body, mediates between the national government and the local maneapa government but is statutorily subservient to the maneapa to the extent that the Council President’s appointment is subject to the concurrence of the traditional government of elders. The Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment is the project’s link to the national government and the main body responsible for mainstreaming into national policy, conservation and other aspects of the environment subject.

Sustainable development is a national priority and is expressed in the current national environment management strategy (NEMS) in the Kakeega or the Medium Term Development Strategy, the principal national policy statement. The Environment Unit in the Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment provides technical advice including the environmental impact assessments and project appraisals to the Conservation project and outside expertise in these areas are sometimes made available by the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and other bilateral and multilateral donors.

Three years after the project was launched, there was a marked increase in the abundance of marine and bird life in the conservation area. The area was patrolled daily by the project patrollers and scientific assessments carried out by visiting conservation scientists from SPREP. Offenders of the conservation rules have been dealt with in and according to maneapa rules and also mentioned in parliamentary exchanges.

In 1997 a Tuvalu Tourism Marketing and Development Action Plan offered the Marine Conservation Area as the cornerstone for the development of a small-scale eco-tourism business. The project funded SCUBA diving courses with certification to provide the human resources and interest for a Dive Operation. A Tourist information centre, the Funafuti Interpretive Centre, was constructed in 1998 and buoys were deployed marking the boundary of the marine reserve. Community workshops discussed community involvement in resource management, the role of protected areas, and the results of the coral reef baseline survey. A pamphlet on management practices for the Funafuti Conservation Area was produced in Tuvaluan and English and several radio talk shows aired.

The FCA is a success story to the extent that the community has been fully involved in all stages of the project’s planning and implementation. The conspicuous return to the abundance in marine and bird life of thirty years ago, has served to heighten interest and awareness in the benefits and value of conservation. The project is being replicated in other islands in Tuvalu.

Ministerial Conference on

Environment and Development

Last updated: May 18, 2000.