Fisheries and Marine Protected Areas in the Pacific Islands
Fisheries
For thousands of years, local fishers have fished the waters around the Pacific Islands, probably with minimal disturbance to the natural environment. One way that these fishers have maintained fishing sustainable and prevented overfishing and decline in stocks has been through the rotation of fishing activities among reefs. In contrast to that some modern fishing methods, like dynamite fishing and fish poisoning have devastating effects on inshore fisheries and the marine environment. Today the Pacific Islands have one of the world's highest rates and numbers of species extinctions. The governments of many Pacific Island countries have been proactive and have prohibited the use of destructive fishing methods. They are also starting on efforts to make fishing more sustainable through several ways. For example, the Cook Islands have re-established traditional fishing methods in which economic use and conservation do not contradict each other. The Kouto Nui of the Cook Islands (Council of Traditional Chiefs) re-established the Ra'ui system of traditional marine protection that has not been practised for over 50 years. It is now used in five marine reserves on Rarotonga. Nevertheless, the use of traditional fishing methods is not enough to ensure conservation and further actions are needed to ensure the sustainability of the resources. These include:
- Closures such as the Ra'ui system in the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, as well as the Tabu system in Fiji. These closures have a cultural purpose, such as celebrating specific clan events, and are not intended to maximize and sustain yields. These temporary closures are almost always opened again, usually after a year or less, a period that is often too short for many fishes and invertebrates to regenerate.
- Traditional laws extend to clan members only. This is a factor that has to be considered especially as migration and increasing population can cause a breakdown in community identity. Furthermore, people may not respect closures under traditional laws, thus a legislative system from the government is needed to force non-clan members to respect these closures. An example of this issue occurred in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, where different clans claim the reefs under their traditional clan laws. Four of these reefs have been closed to fishing and are designated conservation areas. Only government enforcement could secure the protection of these reefs. Furthermore the fisheries law has provisions for the communities to maintain ownership of the reefs despite their protection under national legislation.
- The communal system of land ownership is an important regulation for some Pacific Islanders but poses another problem for the management of MPAs. Each clan controls different fishing areas and they do so with a lack of inter-group cooperation.
- There is a commercialization and diversification of fisheries into non-traditional resources with which traditional fisheries can hardly cope. Pacific Islander often act in a non-capitalist way and give more emphasis to social values. They do not practise accumulation of fish stocks that could be used in the same way as saved money, but distribute their catches generously to others.
- Pacific Islanders often dislike the establishment of MPAs as they bring closures of local reefs for fishing and other restrictions. Absence of environmental education and the will for cooperation of the population makes it difficult for external institutions to ensure the conservation of nature.