17 Jun 2014

Community use of Marine Protected Areas coming in Solomons

2:29 pm on 17 June 2014

WWF in Solomons Islands has submitted plans to the government detailing how four fishing communities in Gizo will use Marine Protected Areas there.

The in-country manager, Shannon Seeto, says communities of Saeraghi, Sepo Islands, Koquvalata and Nusatuva have been working for almost a decade to protect their marine resources.

He says if the government endorses their management plans, they will be the first in the country to use legal Marine Protected Areas under the new Protected Areas Act.

Mr Seeto says Inshore Fisheries Aggregation Devices, or IFADs, will be used, which allow fishermen to fish just beyond the reef, protecting declining stocks of reef fish.

Hopefully the poaching on the Marine Protected Areas will minimise where fishermen can use the IFADs that we have put outside to still catch fish. And then it leads on to food security and providing the communities with alternative incomes. A lot of the fish caught on the IFADS [can] be sold at the market.

The WWF Solomon Islands manager, Shannon Seeto.