An Overview Of Our Solution
Relief for reefs and protein for people
Who is this solution impacting?
Ecosystem
Oceanos/Costa
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Oceânia
Problem
Describe the problem
Fish is a cornerstone of food security in the Pacific. The growing coastal communities of the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) will need another 115,000 tonnes of fish by 2030. People will try to catch much of this fish from coral reefs but many reef stocks are already overfished. The rich tuna resources of the region can provide the fish required but tuna are often hard to capture in coastal waters. We are using near-shore fish aggregating devices (FADs) to make skipjack and yellowfin tuna, and other large and small oceanic fish, easier to harvest when they come close to the islands. Our FADs are floating buoys anchored to the sea floor. They are cheap to install and work because tuna and other oceanic fish species are attracted by floating objects.
Biodiversity Impact
The use of FADs allows small-scale fishers to move beyond coral reefs to near-shore waters where they can catch both large oceanic species, such as tuna, wahoo, mahi-mahi and rainbow runner, and small oceanic species like scads (Image 1). The main benefits of this practical solution are that: • communities rely less on coral-reef resources, which reduces reef fishing, relieves the pressure on reefs and paves the way for other coastal fisheries management measures (such as marine protected areas) to be more effective; and • catches of skipjack and yellowfin tuna, and other large and small oceanic fish, can be made economically by coastal communities to provide a sustainable source of protein for coastal communities. The additional 115,000 tonnes of fish needed by the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories by 2030 represents only 10% of the skipjack and yellowfin tuna now caught in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean by industrial fleets. The present harvests of these two tuna species are within the ranges for maximum sustainable yield (Image 2). Regional tuna management authorities are aware of the need to use a greater proportion of the tuna catch for food security in the future. In fact, national fisheries agencies have an obligation to use tuna for this purpose under the ‘Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean’. Our solution promotes better access for coastal communities to the rich tuna resources of the region.
Solution
Fish and invertebrates associated with coral reefs are currently overfished in several PICTs, particularly on reefs close to urban areas. Using anchored FADs to divert fishing away from coral reefs (Image 3) releases the pressure on stocks, reducing the risk to biodiversity. Prolonged and intense fishing on coral reefs upsets the balance of the key functional groups (herbivores like parrotfish and predators like groupers) that maintain the proportions of live coral and seaweed on reefs. In severe cases of overfishing, reefs can become dominated by seaweed. Changing the balance of key functional groups reduces the abundance and diversity of hard and soft corals, and the range of invertebrate and fish species which depend on corals for shelter and food. Shifting fishing pressure away from reefs to FADs helps protect the biodiversity of reefs by maintaining a good representation of all key functional groups. FADs also improve the success of other management measures to protect biodiversity, particularly the use of marine protected areas (MPAs). When fishers have good access to alternative sources of food, MPAs are more likely to be declared and respected by local communities. As people learn to get the protein they need from fish species that are economical to catch, cheap to buy and high in nutrition, their consumption habits change. These new habits reduce the demand for reef fish. Restoring coral reef biodiversity through the use of FADs has an added benefit: it helps retain the potential resilience of reef ecosystems to climate change. // Since 2003, more than 200 FADs have been deployed in Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna. The purpose of these FADs is to increase access by coastal communities to the fish they need for food and livelihoods, and improve management of coral reefs. In Samoa, for example, we deployed FADs in waters under the jurisdiction of communities with frameworks for community-based management of coastal fisheries centred on MPAs. The FADs are used by 37 communities and the area of MPAs where FADs provide alternative access to fish is estimated to be 17,000 hectares. The Samoan example demonstrates the potential of this solution for the 75 developing countries where coral reef resources contribute to food security and livelihoods. FADs can be applied wherever coral reefs occur close to deep water, and where tuna and other oceanic fish come close to the coast. The total area of coral reef in the Pacific exceeds 12,500,000 hectares and all PICTs have areas suitable for deployment of anchored FADs. Where communities use only canoes to fish, we usually anchor FADs within one nautical mile of the coast (Image 4). Where communities own boats with motors, we place FADs from 4 to 5 nautical miles from the coast. We are not promoting open-ocean FADs used by industrial fleets (Image 1), which are now regulated to reduce the bigeye tuna catch and bycatch. Instead, we are supporting sustainable small-scale fishing.
Replicability
How many years has your solution been applied? 8 years // Have others reproduced your solution elsewhere? Yes // To conserve biodiversity and enhance food security and livelihoods through the use of near-shore FADs, we: • engage communities in resource planning to identify and confirm overfishing problems and raise community awareness of potential solutions; • identify locations where FADs attract oceanic fish at suitable distances from coastal communities; • train fishers to fish safely and effectively around FADs, using techniques such as trolling, vertical longlining and mid-water handlining; • maintain FADs by replacing fittings once a year (routine maintenance increases their life span)(Image 5); • replace lost FADs quickly, otherwise people start fishing too heavily on reefs again; • monitor catches taken around FADs, and the socio-economic benefits; and • secure funding for the continuing deployment and maintenance of FADs. In the Pacific, we design our activities to form part of a community-based ecosystem approach to fisheries management (CEAFM). With this approach, the community takes responsibility for managing the coastal environment and stocks of fish and shellfish, usually with assistance from government or non-government organisations. Importantly, CEAFM relies on a broad toolbox of management measures. The addition of FADs to this toolbox makes the other management measures more powerful. Communities are also encouraged to recognise that fishing around FADs is a key adaptation to climate change – as coral reefs degrade due to higher sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification, FADs are expected to continue to supply tuna in many PICTs.
Human Well Being and Livelihood Impact
Near-shore FADs give coastal communities a sustainable solution to fill the emerging gap between the amount of fish needed for food security and the amount of fish available from coral reefs. Cost-benefit analyses from Cook Islands and Niue have shown that the value of fish harvested from FADs was 5–7 times greater than the cost of building and deploying them. FADs allow the tradition of subsistence fishing in the Pacific to continue, while providing opportunities to develop sustainable community-based fishing and tourism activities to earn income. More efficient catches of tuna and other oceanic fish at FADs create additional job opportunities by: • allowing the biodiversity of coral reefs to recover to become attractive sites for tourism; • increasing the amount of fish caught by small-scale commercial fishers for sale at local markets; • supplying fish for small-scale processing, such as smoking and drying; • increasing access to large fish for sport fishing; • reducing the time and cost (fuel) involved in locating fish; and • providing better access to under-exploited small pelagic species. FADs also improve safety at sea by creating well-defined fishing areas, and give people access to fish that are free of ciguatera poisoning (an increasing problem for reef fish in some PICTs). In the Pacific, many community members fish near FADs. Around 4 million people live on the coast, and fish consumption in PICTs is 2–4 times the global average. So, in this region alone, our solution has the potential to benefit hundreds of thousands of households. // Coastal communities in the Pacific are increasingly recognising the benefits that healthy reef ecosystems deliver for food security and opportunities to earn income, and the role that FADs play in keeping reefs in good condition. Community-based management, which is governed via traditional or customary regulations, is proving to be a successful way of maintaining the benefits of coastal fisheries resources in the region. In Samoa, for example, many communities have revised their local by-laws to foster and enforce the use of FADs and MPAs as integral components of their community-based ecosystem approach to fisheries management. These communities manage the closed areas carefully and arrange for their people to fish around FADs. They also take part in collecting data on the effectiveness of FADs and MPAs, and contribute this information to regional evaluations of the benefits of these management tools. More comprehensive monitoring programmes are needed in other countries where FADs have been deployed so that communities can refine their knowledge about (1) where to locate FADs to attract oceanic fish most effectively, and (2) the best times and seasons to fish around FADs. Such knowledge will help communities plan fishing activities around FADs, and the smoking and drying operations needed to store protein for those times when tuna are not available. If our solution wins, we will work with partners to strengthen the monitoring of the socio-economic benefits of near-shore FADs at selected sites, and measure changes in reef biodiversity.