Ministerial Conference on
Environment and Development
in Asia and the Pacific 2000
Kitakyushu, Japan 31 August - 5 September 2000
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Vanuatu Giant Clam Sanctuaries
In 1991, Enrel Simon Bong Masang from Pellonk village on Uliveo island in the Maskelyne Islands southeast of Malakula in Vanuatu went to Suva, Fiji to visit his daughter. He had been a fisher since he was a boy and knew very well that the fish, dugongs, turtles and giant clams around his island were vanishing. While he was in Suva he heard a radio program about how community giant clam sanctuaries were helping re-establish giant clams in parts of Tonga and Fiji where they had been fished out. When he returned to Vanuatu he stopped by the Vanuatu Fisheries department and asked for any information about giant clam sanctuaries. They gave him a booklet from the South Pacific Aguaculture Development Project Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) entitled "12 steps to more giant clams" describing the experience of islanders in Vava'u, Tonga. He read it and began the process of setting up a giant clam sanctuary on the reef flat off their village. They called the Sanctuary Ringi Te Suh Marine Conservation Reserve. Ringi Te Suh has two meanings; to leave something to multiply and to leave something alone. This fit well with Enrel's alarm at the steady decline of sea creatures on the coral reefs of the Meskelynes Islands. The giant clams, in particular, were vanishing rapidly. Two species, Tridacna gigas and Tridacna derasa had already become locally extinct. The bought over 500 giant clams from local fishers. These Hippopus hippopus and Tridacna squamosa were arranged in a reef area about one square kilometre in size and this was marked off using mangrove branches. There was local opposition to closing off part of the reef,
because some people did not want to restrict access to any part of the reef. To
make matters worse, a national agency criticised the project because of the
local opposition, and a biologist said the larval clams would all be carried
away by currents, so it was not really going to do any good. No agency was
willing to help fund the project. |
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