Indigenous and local knowledge and perceptions in the management of coastal resources in fiji
- Autores: Baravi Stewart Helu Thaman
- Directores de la Tesis: Joeli Veitayaki (dir. tes.), John D. Icely (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universidad de Cádiz ( España ) en 2017
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Simon Cragg (presid.), Javier García Sanabria (secret.), Romulus Abila (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado Erasmus Mundus en Gestión Marina y Costera/ Marine and Coastal Management por la Universidad de Cádiz; Alma Mater Studiorum - Università Di Bologna (Italia); Russian State Hydrometeorological University (RSHU)(Rusia); Universidade de Aveiro(Portugal) y Universidade do Algarve(Portugal)
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- Resumen
There is great opportunity and a critical need for the use of truly integrated socio-ecological approaches that focus on the study of attitudes and perceptions, valuation, and the link between environmental and human health that may serve in the future as historical references to times past. Perhaps the greatest challenge is the integration of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK), both social and natural, with comparable modern scientific knowledge (MSK).
Fisheries are particularly important to the economies of Fiji and other Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) through employment, food, health and livelihood security. Over the past half century an increasingly high percentage of higher value coastal fisheries resources have been seriously overfished at an unsustainable rate. The disappearance and/or declining abundance of fish and other marine organisms constitute one of the most serious crises of the Pacific region today. Loss of traditional fisheries knowledge has resulted in an inability to assess how drastically fisheries have changed in the recent times. Today, the management of coastal fishery resources in many PICTs is a combination of several systems which include: Traditional management; Central government management: and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and similar arrangements. There has been a remarkable proliferation of community managed areas, including MPAs, in PICTs, and particularly in Fiji in response to the very clear signs of serous overfishing and degradation of the marine environment. They build on existing community strengths in traditional knowledge and governance and have also helped in revitalizing ILK and its application by communities to managing their marine resources.
This study is about community-based marine conservation in Fiji and focuses on time-depth indigenous knowledge of fishing communities, their involvement and perceptions of conservation and recovery of their marine resources. It is about the serious loss of marine biodiversity in Navakavu over the past half century, due mainly to overfishing, and about how community-based marine conservation through the establishment of a locally managed marine area (LMMA) and the co-management of marine resources has been used to successfully promote biodiversity conservation. Particular conceptual emphasis is placed on building synergies between time-depth ILK and MSK; exploring community perceptions and levels of involvement in conservation initiatives; and the use of the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework in analysing the major issues facing the community.
This study brings together such knowledge from both time-depth traditional and modern scientific taxonomic perspectives in an effort to better understand the taxon-by-taxon changes that have occurred and might be expected to occur in the long term. The main objective of the study is to combine existing taxonomic and ecological expertise from the literature and more systematic biological surveys elsewhere with the in-depth ILK held by a local community. The studies on ILK with regards to the Navakavu LMMA clearly showed that there was a wide range of marine species have either returned to the area or are in significantly higher numbers and of larger size-classes than before the establishment of the LMMA.
Fiji is an archipelagic nation state composed of more than 300 islands, ranging from large volcanic to small raised limestone islands and atolls, located in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The Navakavu study site involved the establishment of an LMMA and MPA in 2001. The Yadua study site involved the establishment of a wildlife sanctuary in 1980.
The main hypotheses of this study were that ILK and community perceptions are fundamental tools in providing the knowledge base for conservation interventions and that building synergies with MSK, and community involvement at all levels, is necessary for successfully conservation interventions. Research questions were formulated around the idea of how time-depth ILK be actively utilised in conjunction with MSK in the assessment of overfishing and other environmental pressures in addition to assessing community involvement from a community perspective.
For Navakavu, in-depth ethnobiological questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews had been conducted in Navakavu since 1990. Subsequent to the establishment of the original MPA in Navakavu in 2001, the original 1990s survey results were then compared and verified by the informants and researchers together with on-going monitoring by a local fisheries experts and in-depth field surveys and discussions with local older fishers. In Yadua, questionnaire surveys, structured interviews with community leaders and other knowledgeable people were conducted in order to gain further insights from the communities’ perspectives.
This thesis consists of seven chapters. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are a general introduction, description of the study area, and methodology respectively. Chapter 4 documents the rich time-depth ILK of fisheries resources held within coastal communities of Navakavu, Fiji, and how they have changed over time. It is a taxon-by-taxon analysis of their abundance before the onset of overfishing, their status in the mid-1990s and their recovery status after conservation measures placed in the form of an LMMA and MPA. Although the study focused on all named taxa know to the fishers of Navakavu, the analysis here focuses on molluscs. Chapter 5 is a comparative assessment of the effectiveness of community conservation initiatives in Fiji and Portugal through an assessment of the level of involvement, impacts and perceptions of local communities of these conservation initiatives. The study results show that effective community involvement clearly leads to greater community understanding and ownership of conservation activities, increased conservation effectiveness, greater perceived benefits for local communities, reduced conflict situations, and greater synergy between conservation and sustainable livelihoods. Chapter 6 involves the use of the DPSIR framework to critically analyse the issue of overfishing in the Navakavu study site. Chapter 7 consists of overall conclusions and recommendations.
The study shows that in-depth multiple-taxon indigenous knowledge of biodiversity can provide time-depth information about drastically “changed environmental baselines” and the impacts of marine conservation that cannot be provided by short-term modern scientific field surveys and archaeological and palaeological studies which normally only assess a limited range of well-known species. ILK may also help enhance or validate scientifically obtained information on trends and observations, since only those who inhabit and utilize an ecosystem would know its history and dynamics through generations of hands on experience. This study successfully engaged community elders who had extensive traditional knowledge of various historical aspects of the fishery resources of Navakavu. The study also illustrates how to important it is to combine the depth of traditional knowledge with modern scientific research by showing how the two types of information may be linked and how they may complement each other where one is lacking.
Community involvement in conservation provides significant benefits including the ownership of resources and initiatives that integrate traditional and local knowledge into decision‐making processes and management activities. The Fiji study showed that community-focused conservation can be successful given appropriate community involvement. This contrasted with the Portugal study where conservation efforts were not community-focused and often led to conflicts and criticisms. A bottom-up approach has been utilized in Yadua, Fiji, whereas a top-down approach is clearly observed in Portugal.
Existing data and ILK on species composition and abundance and the state of the marine environment before the onset of serious commercial overfishing and other drivers must be taken into account when scientists conduct further monitoring and studies, as this constitutes a valuable wealth of social environmental knowledge that has been proven to assist in the conservation process. Socio-economic studies must be encouraged in any community conservation initiative as it is the community that have in-depth and time-depth hands on experience accumulated over generations in close contact with their resources. The nature, timing and impact of overfishing and environmental change on different taxa from an ILK perspective must be referred to when making scientific conclusions on the changing health and state of marine biodiversity and ecosystem services. Effort must be placed on further recording and documenting local taxonomy and nomenclature of marine biodiversity, and the ILK within rural communities must be collected, organised and complemented by MSK to be adapted to the specific local setting.
A more holistic community-driven model for conservation is required that is based on the bio dependent cultures and livelihood needs of local people and their knowledge systems. Resources users in local communities need to be involved, especially when selecting, planning, setting regulations, managing and monitoring protected areas, because user groups will not comply with restrictions on their traditional resource harvesting practices if they do not understand or support the rules. A transdisciplinary approach to conservation management is essential, and the problems associated with the lack of engagement between stakeholders and partners must be addressed.
