Can alternative income programs save Fiji’s reef fish? By: Amy West
If a country’s residents, historically, didn’t fret about their coastal resources or concern themselves with starvation, what happens when those previously abundant resources start diminishing? How does a culture shift gears into thinking conservatively? There’s no question that solutions are sorely needed for Fiji’s declining reef fisheries. The debate, though, usually hinges on what needs fixing first, and how.
Many implicate the failure of Fiji’s government to prioritize sustainable management over fisheries development projects, or suggest that Fijians’ mindsets must dramatically shift first. Similarly, people in Fiji believe that communication between rural people and the government needs improving, laws should be rewritten to tighten poaching and loopholes, or fishing should simply be curtailed. Still others contend that communities need more resources to protect their reefs. Either way this tangled web of ideas leads to no single overarching solution.
Helen Sykes, the founder of Marine Ecology Consulting in Fiji, says the most important thing that conservation organizations and scientists need to consider when working in Fiji, or other regions that mainly depend on fish for protein, is to think like a fisheries manager first, not a preservationist.
This notion is echoed by Joshua Cinner, a professor at James Cook University, who specializes in the relationship between coral reefs and coastal communities.
By: Amy West
Mongabay Special Reporting Initiatives Fellow
January 12, 2015