Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Sea Cucumber fishery 3 year ban in Papua New Guinea


The National Fisheries Authority (NFA) has imposed a 3 year ban on sea cucumber fishery for "Beche-de-mer". ... the reason being this fishery is exhausted to a point of collapsing. The ban is said to affect almost 300,000 people in coastal communities nationwide. Also the industry players (buyers, and sellers) in PNG will be affected. NFA had opted that this three year ban had to be imposed to maintain sustainability, how? sea cucumber collection by people exceeds the rate that an individual grows to an adult.. so do we wanna prolong the years to wait for natural recovery? or can we aquaculture and replenish over harvested reefs... we better start farming sea cucumber en mass to aid recovery in the wild and start exporting F2 generations instead of wild stock. Many local fishing villages who depend directly from beche-de-mer for school fees, basic needs, pocket money etc.. will have difficulty financing their livelihood. The challenge is for NFA to provide an alternative fishery so the affected coastal people can still fish their means. What is the new alternative then? how best will they implement the management of this new alternative fishery?.. given the lessons learned from beche-de-mer fishery.










Conservation of coral reef resources in local communities in Papua New Guinea


It appears that in Papua New Guinea almost all or over a half of its coastal provinces are endowed with coral reefs and its associated resources. Subsistence and artisanal fishing activity is predominant. Over the years reefs were used as a means for food, medicine, transport and many other ways that has sustained livelihood of the coastal communities who depend directly on them. Each fishing community has in its own ways in exploiting the reefs surrounding it. Mostly these activities were small scale anthropogenic fishing activity on the reefs. It wasn’t until commercialization of reef resources then the inevitable happened. Resources became scares and NGOs started their ad-hoc campaign to try to save the reefs and their resources. Little did they know that their strategy were to far from reality... so you see... Conservation of coastal marine resources is supposed to be implemented locally by the resource owners themselves. They have to be convicted somehow and thats gonna come from within themselves. Stakeholders involved such as NGO groups, Donor agencies, and the Government of the day are to be the facilitators. Coastal people need to feel they can earn something from their effort or that they may make a livelihood out of a sustainable use of the particular resource base. If the Donor agencies can fund and government can make legislation, the role of NGO groups become vital in coordinating and making sure the people’s concerns, and views are integrated into any conservation strategy that might seem to work in the local communities.

My New Blog site!

Hi all;

I have long wondered how i can blog like others do.. I have read blogging in the news and media and never thought creating my own blog site. untill i researched it on the net and started this site, thanks to eblog. I will start posting stuff a little later..... and will share with all..


Cheers!