Coastal Fisheries Programme
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Traditions-OK
Number 37 - November 2016

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Group Co-ordinator and Bulletin Editor:
Kenneth Ruddle, Asahigaoka-cho 7-22-511, Ashiya-shi, Hyogo-ken, Japan 659-0012.

Production:
Pacific Community, Fisheries Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems Division, Information Section. SPC, BP D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia

Produced with financial assistance from the Australian Government, the European Union, France and the New Zealand Aid Programme


Editor’s note

This edition contains four contributions, all of which concern Melanesia.

The first, “Spreading community-based resource management: Testing the “lite-touch” approach in Solomon Islands”, was prepared by Grace Orirana and five co-authors. In Solomon Islands, community-based resource management (CBRM) is a main strategy for marine conservation and managing coastal fisheries, although most communities do not yet implement CBRM. As a consequence, it is not realistic for either NGOs or government agencies to diffuse CBRM by operating as partners of individual communities. In this article, the authors describe a “lite-touch” approach that was used successfully to support the Mararo community in east Are’are on the weather coast of Malaita, in implementing CBRM, and to serve as an example for leading neighbouring communities. The approach helped build community ownership and pride of its own CBRM programme. Although in this test case the lite-touch approach worked well, partly because the selected community was small, well-organized and experienced relatively few conflicts over resources, nevertheless, the authors demonstrate clearly that some rural communities can support themselves and nearby communities in implementing CBRM activities with relatively few inputs from external CBRM partners.

The second article is “Management over ownership: Modern community cooperation in Langalanga Lagoon, Solomon Islands” by Meshach Sukulu and seven co-authors. In many Pacific Islands the foundations for CBRM have been weakened. In this article the authors describe a cooperative process among six communities in Langalanga Lagoon to examine how collective efforts for management can evolve where natural resources are degraded and highly contested, and both traditional and centralised mechanisms to control use have been either weakened or are missing. The collective action described was initiated and driven by community members, and over five years has attained a level of association that was formalised as a community-based organisation. The long process of developing cooperation in Langalanga demonstrates that in some cases the role of a management partner is to support emerging processes. Although sustainable fishing has not been achieved in Langalanga, the re-invented community cooperation suggests that degrading trajectories can be altered through community-driven processes, even when suitable conditions for CBRM are absent.

The third article also examines an aspect of fisheries management in Vanuatu. “What influences the form that community-based fisheries management takes in Vanuatu?” by Rolenas Baereleo Tavue and four co-authors, examines the last 25 years of Vanuatu’s efforts to manage coastal fisheries by demonstrating how the experiences and lessons during that quarter of a century have shaped the CBRM model used at present. The article describes how activities and management measures are designed with communities, how arrangements are recorded in management plans, and the formal links made with the national government through nominated wardens and monitoring activities. A virtue of the CBRM model is its ability to adapt to the different contexts of provinces and communities, which is illustrated in this article from experiences in three islands.

The fourth article, “Sustaining appropriate community-based coastal resources management: Experiences and lessons from Vanuatu” is by Graham Nimoho and three co-authors. This article is based on the results of the “Project for Promotion of Grace of the Sea in the Coastal Villages of Vanuatu (Phase II)”, supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The project sought to establish community-based coastal resources management (CBCRM) and simultaneously to improve community livelihoods to ensure its sustainment. The project was conducted from January 2012 to January 2015, with local activities undertaken in northwestern Efate, northeastern Malakula, and Aneityum. The goals were to enhance conservation of the coastal environment and the sustainable use of coastal resources in the project areas, and to disseminate CBCRM to areas around the project sites. This article examines the design and implementation of project activities, beginning with a brief summary of the baseline surveys and pilot projects in each project area (described in detail in Nimoho et al. 2013), and the development of activities. The common components of pilot projects (community-based collection and analysis of fishing activity data, FAD fishing management, and shell craft production), and projects implemented in individual areas are analysed. There follows a discussion of the making of community-formulated resource management implementation plans. Project achievements are examined.

We take pleasure in having Philippa Cohen join this issue as a guest co-editor. She is employed by WorldFish and based in Townsville, Australia as an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University. Dr Cohen’s research provides critical appraisals of community-based approaches to small-scale fisheries management through which she provides guidance to environmental and fisheries management policy and practice, particularly via interactions with regional agencies, national governments and NGOs.

Kenneth Ruddle and Philippa Cohen


Contents

Spreading community-based resource management: Testing the “lite-touch” approach in Solomon Islands
Orirana G., Siota F., Cohen P., Atitete T., Schwarz A.M., Govan H. (pdf: 332 KB)
“Management over ownership”: Modern community cooperation in Langalanga Lagoon, Solomon Islands
Sukulu M., Orirana G., Oduagalo D., Waleilia B., Sulu R., Schwarz A.-M., van der Ploeg J., Eriksson H. (pdf: 526 KB)
What influences the form that community-based fisheries management takes in Vanuatu?
Tavue Baereleo R., Neihapi P., Cohen P.J., Raubani J., Bertram I. (pdf: 389 KB)
Sustaining appropriate community-based coastal resources management: Experiences and lessons from Vanuatu
Nimoho G., Seko A., Iinuma M., Nishiyama K. (pdf: 1,004 KB)

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