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Note from the
editor
I apologise for the delay in getting this issue
to you. We had several contributions lined-up from Fiji, but
then none materialised, owing to political turmoil there. Instead,
we are going to press with another issue focussing on Solomon
Islands, a reflection of the great interest that nation has
for this "Special Interest Group".
The first of the three articles is by Daisuke Takekawa of the
Kitakyushu University, Japan. His paper, "Hunting method
and the ecological knowledge of dolphins among the Fanalei villagers
of Malaita, Solomon Islands" is based on nine months field
research in Fanalei village, during the early 1990s. In the
Solomon Islands, men of particular villages hunt dolphins to
obtain the teeth, which are used as the traditional currency,
for bride price and for personal adornment. Dolphin teeth are
one of the items used to form a network among the people of
the area. The Fanalei villagers produce some 100,000 dolphin
teeth, almost all of which are sent to other parts of Malaita
and neighbouring islands. Fanalei village is intimately concerned
with the circulation of dolphin teeth. To hunt dolphins, groups
of men go by dugout canoe to the open sea early in the morning,
and drive individual schools of dolphins to the beach by hitting
two stones together below the water surface.
In the second article, "Women, rural development and community-based
resource management in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands:
establishing marine invertebrate refugia", Shankar Aswani
notes that in some places, historical use, cultural affiliation
and societal attitudes can provide a basis for modern management
of marine areas. This idea has been widely promoted. But, in
practice, different systems of marine resources governance and
management can co-exist in a single region. This then raises
the fundamental question of which institutional arrangements
are best able to produce precautionary management programs,
such as marine reserves and spatio-temporal refugia? Aswani,
who is from the University of California, Santa Barbara, attempts
to answer that question by summarising a case study from Roviana
Lagoon, Solomon Islands. The case elucidates variables between
different sea tenure institutions and core historical and social
tenets that distinguish adaptable and successful regimes from
those that are not. Dr Aswani also examines a small-scale women's
rural development project that is involved in the establishment
of spatio-temporal refugia and a marine reserve in a mangrove
habitat. The project’s initial success indicates sea tenure
governance arrangements that may favour the establishment of
successful management regimes. Further, the case shows how anthropologists
can integrate their empirical research results with the objectives
of local people for the purpose of participatory environmental
management.
Robert E. Johannes and Edvard Hviding complete the contributions
to this issue with their article "Traditional knowledge
possessed by the fishers of Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands,
concerning fish aggregating behaviour". In May 1987, Johannes
was asked by the Marovo Area Council to record important aspects
of the exceptionally rich traditional knowledge of Marovo Lagoon
fishermen concerning their marine resources. His fieldwork was
done with the assistance of Edvard Hviding. Hviding, then a
graduate student at the University of Bergen, Norway, who had
been living in Marovo for a year and was studying other aspects
of traditional fishing and marine resource management, including
customary marine tenure and its associated knowledge. Marovo
people have a very impressive knowledge of sea animals. Some
of their most important practical information concerns where
fish and other marine organisms are found in large numbers;
when they are found there (that is, season, lunar period, tidal
stage, time of day); and their behaviour and movements. Many
reef and lagoon fishes come together in large numbers during
particular months, during particular moon phases and at special
places. Some of these aggregations are described in Marovo by
such names as bobili, baini, rovana, and sakoto.
Knowing this makes it easier for the fishermen to be at the
right place at the right time for good fishing. Sometimes these
aggregations form for the purpose of spawning, as when groupers
mass in certain reef passes, or mullet school and swim in tight
circles. In other cases, fish aggregate for the purpose of feeding,
or for protection. In other cases, neither Marovo fishermen
nor biologists know why the fish come together.
Kenneth Ruddle (
ii3k-rddl@asahi-net.or.jp)
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