An Overview Of Our Solution
Protecting coral reef ecosystem through Traditional No Take Areas for sustainable fishery and create new sustainable income
Who is this solution impacting?
Ecosystem
Oceanos/Costa
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Ásia
Problem
Describe the problem
My marine coastal fishery solutions are: 1. Establish coastal management areas using local wisdom or traditional policy which was applied in the coastal community in the past. 2. Create alternative livelihood utilizing their potential natural resources 3. Develop community based management model for sustainability of selected approach.
Biodiversity Impact
The first one is utilizing local wisdom. The coastal communities, in most cases have local wisdom to preserve & to sustain their marine resources. For example they are not allowed to extract their certain marine resource areas on certain periods, what is called SASI or traditional ‘no take zone’ in several areas in Maluku & Papua. This method has proven to maintain the stock of economic species at certain level of population. The harvest & fishing time was determined by the local agreement among community members & followed with specific traditional ceremony. Certain rules such as the size of species for harvesting & fishing, agreed timeframe as indicated by the monitoring results, were applied. This ‘SASI’ tradition has resulted in sustainable fisheries & promotes ecosystem health in the past. The second one is introducing fish aggregation device(FAD) to the coastal community at certain areas, particularly pelagic zone areas to reduce the threats & pressures on coral reef ecosystem & demersal fisheries. With this FAD, the fishing cost can be minimized because the cover area of fishing ground target can be made smaller. It means the fishermen do not have to go far away to catch fish so they can economize operational cost. The third one is developing alternative livelihood, particularly developing community based marine eco tourism. Diving, snorkeling, mangrove tour, & catch & release fish in pelagic zone are attractive activities of marine eco tourism that can generate alternative income for local community in order to support the sustainable fisheries.
Solution
The local wisdom approach can increase the pride of local community with their tradition that they are able to manage their local resources wisely, and this pride strengthens their commitment on preserving their resources. Therefore, the threats and pressure on ecosystem could be reduced and beyond that, the community members become the guard against the threats from both internal and external parties. The FAD approach could change the fishing pattern and fishing target toward certain species, in this case reef fish. Hence the introduction of FAD can reduce the threats on coral reefs and other living species that depends on its ecosystem. The development of marine eco tourism as a non extractive activity for alternative livelihood could give positive impact on reduced threats on biodiversity of the ecosystem. The local community will preserve their local resources since it gives them direct benefit. ; The traditional ƒ??no take zoneƒ?? has been applied in 11 villages in 4 sub districts of Raja Ampat, West Papua. Each village has at least 2 traditional no take zone that consists of two ecosystem, namely coral reef and mangrove, with surface area is approximately 10 ƒ?? 50 hectares per traditional no take zone areas. The quite small of surface areas as the start is to ease the process of monitoring and surveillance implementation by the community members as soon as they got trainings on that process. Additionally, the small area was just the pilot for them to learn on the impact of no take zone approach. Once this pilot area succeeds, the community can increase the surface areas voluntarily. It has happened in several villages where they increased the surface areas of traditional no take zone as soon as they see the results.
Replicability
How many years has your solution been applied? 8 years // Have others reproduced your solution elsewhere? No // I manage my solution by strengthening the participation of community. I convinced them that they are able to manage their own local resources and what they have done will benefit themselves and make them proud with their local wisdom. I also gave them trainings on managing including monitoring local resources, and forming conservation groups to support the implementation of protecting their nature by emphasizing on community volunteerism spirit. In this way, the cost for managing the coastal areas can be minimized.
Human Well Being and Livelihood Impact
The fishermen does not have to go far away to reach their fishing ground, and it cost them less for operational. Additionally, their harvesting species were valued higher because it was caught at the right time, where the size and age meet the quality standard. All the community members have got the positive impact from this solution. // The management of my proposed solution is fully managed by the local community. The mechanism is developed by the community, under the village regulations and customary law. The source of financial resources to support the management in the long term will be obtained from the management of non extractive natural resources as main part of ecotourism attraction. To enable the community managing their natural resources, all related parties must be given trainings on managing their natural resources.