The effectiveness of locally managed marine areas in Fiji.

Vave, Ron and Tawake, Alifereti and Bogiva, Apisai and Comley, James and Waqainabete, Sunia and Aalbersberg, William G.L. and Tawake, Lavenia T. and Jupiter, S.D. and Sykes, H.R. The effectiveness of locally managed marine areas in Fiji. [Conference Proceedings]

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Abstract

Marine resources, the mainstay of most Pacific Island peoples livelihoods have been dwindling rapidly over the last several decades. Creating locally managed marine areas (LMMA) is one such effort to reverse this trend that utilizes community based adaptive management(CBAM) process, based on progressive participatory community-driven approaches informed by marrying scientific and traditional knowledge. Despite the widespread promotion of LMMAs in Fiji over the last 15 years, their role and effectiveness remains contested. Hence, this paper focused on the key question:
to what extent does LMMA work as a practical and useful approach to marine conservation in Fiji? The progress of scaling up LMMAs to national level across 300 Fijian communities is first reviewed. Both empirical and experiential evidences on successes and challenges of
LMMAs are also presented. Household incomes have improved by as much as 30%, fish catches increased, communities adaptive
capacity enhanced, knowledge and attitudes improved and a sense of ocean stewardship, ownership and pride being restored back into communities. LMMAs have also transformed
decision making for customary marine areas from a more traditional, autocratic style to a more participatory and democratic process of governance. In addition, social learning motivated by the CBAM approach is clearly evident in the adaptive measures implemented by communities and in policies and legislation put in place by provinces and the national government. In conclusion, the Fiji study
revealed that LMMAs leads to improvement in the livelihoods of the people in all sorts of ways, both anticipated and unanticipated.

Item Type:	Conference Proceedings
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GC Oceanography G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment (FSTE) > Institute of Applied Science
Depositing User:	Generic Account
Date Deposited:	01 Jun 2014 22:53
Last Modified:	01 Jun 2014 22:53
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/7416

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