I have eaten fish all my life. Like so many in my island nation of Palau, eating fish defines me as a Palauan.
Here, you grow up with an almost intuitive
understanding of the value of fish. A Palauan man’s duty is to fish to
feed his family and to provide the fish for cultural obligations,
including: giving fish to his daughter’s husband and his family,
providing for first child birth ceremony, and funerals.
These are events that bring families together to
exchange food and money. Palauans never used to have bank accounts;
savings were invested within families and in-laws through exchanges of
food and fish is a huge part of that equation — a man gives fish and in
exchange he gets money, which is then given to his wife’s brothers and
cousins who give fish to her. And the cycle continues. Fish is an
investment.
But despite the cultural importance of fish for
Palauans, fish are still in decline and we know it. For many years we
have watched our catch get smaller and smaller, including fish that are
too small to have had any chance to reproduce. Like farmers who eat
their own seeds, we are eating away our future. We are eating tomorrow’s fish.
How can we turn this cycle around? A tale of two small
fishing villages in Palau is giving me hope — a tale based on science
and community action. But we have to scale up this approach quickly,
before it’s too late.
A Tale of Two Fishing Villages
For generations, fishermen from Kayangel and
Ngarchelong fished for food and worked together for common good of their
communities.
Though the villages are separated by vast fishing
grounds, starting in the 1980s fisherman began following the advent of
commercial fishing in my nation to see the impact of irresponsible
fishing in other fishing grounds throughout Palau. They resisted live
grouper traders from Hong Kong offering to move into their fishing
grounds. But some of these fishermen eventually started to fish
commercially in the 1990s as Palau began to develop from a
subsistence-based economy to a cash-based one.
And a few years later, fishermen from Kayangel and
Ngarchelong noticed a decline in the size of fish they were catching and
recognized that they were now catching smaller and fewer fish.
Concerned, they took action to reverse the decline.
Traditional chiefs imposed a ban on fishing in eight channels where fish
aggregate to spawn. And they established two of the largest Marine
Protected Areas (MPAs) in the main Palau archipelago, which closed off
areas to fishing. Soon, these MPAs were showing more fish, spurring
excitement in the fishermen that their fish stocks would return to
normal levels.
Instead, the fishermen continued to see declines in
their catch. The MPAs were not enough to address continued fishing
pressure. But these communities didn’t give up hope. Instead, they
wanted data — data that was lacking on the status of their fisheries,
but that could confirm what their eyes told them.
When the fishermen began working with scientists from
The Nature Conservancy to collect that data, they began to understand
exactly why the size of fish was critical for the health of their fish
population.
We trained fishermen to measure the size of the fish
and to examine the reproductive organs to determine if they are male or
female and if they are mature or not. This was a very simple technique
that the fishermen easily understood because it built upon their
existing knowledge of these species.
For example, they could identify
female fish based on their experience of seeing fish eggs when they
clean their catch – experienced fishermen knew that the presence of eggs
usually relate to moon phase. These measurements determined the size at
maturity for their fish — the size at which a fish is big enough to
reproduce.
Eventually, what the data showed shocked the
fishermen: more than 60 percent of fish they are catching have not had
any chance to reproduce.
From Data to Management So how did fishermen from Kayangel and Ngarchelong get from data to action?
The data were a huge wake-up call. The fishermen
realized that better gear and increased market demand had led to a
decimation of their fishing grounds. As Baudista Sato, fisherman from
Ngarchelong said: “kid a kekedel ra bodo ngemoes,” meaning “we have been
catching young fish.”
But with the help of Conservancy scientists, the
fishermen were able to use the data to go a step further anddetermine a
management scheme. They worked with their state legislature to pass a
fisheries management framework law in July 2015 that has put a 3 year
moratorium on five species of grouper (Plectropomus aerolatus,
Plectropomus leopardus, Pleactropomus leavis, Epinephelus fuscoguttatus,
and Epinephelus polyphekaidon). The law also mandates promulgation of
additional fish regulations on size and other management approaches.
The fishermen then formed a fishery cooperative as a
non-profit organization with the aim of increasing their participation
in management and ensuring improved benefits from the fishery to their
community. They recognized that it was hard to make change happen
working as individuals. But a cooperative approach will allow them to
leverage change and improve benefits to them and save their fish for
tomorrow.
And it’s not just about fish — it’s about saving their way of life and culture.
The cooperative currently has 41 members from the two
fishing villages. Katsushi Skang, the co-op president, says: “Together
we can chart a course that helps our fishermen thrive today and our
culture thrive for generations to come.”
Can This Tale of Two Communities Inspire More Success? Using the size of a fish to estimate its reproductive
potential is still a developing science, but even so it was powerful
enough evidence to motivate fishermen to take action based on what they
know.
There is an ongoing effort by the Science for Nature and People (SNAP) working group to provide a broader process on how small-scale fisheries
can be assessed using fewer data sets that involved fishermen to set
their own goals and targets for managing their fishery. This approach
would be revolutionary, allowing accurate assessments of small-scale
fisheries and speeding up the advance of fishermen-led reform that will
could help more fishing communities restore their resources.
Even though it has been tried in just two villages,
the approach that the Conservancy provided lays the foundation for
fishermen and communities to make changes in how fishing today can
ensure fish for tomorrow, in Palau and elsewhere.
The basic principles:
Empowering fishermen to understand their fishery
Exploring other management approach beyond MPAs
Improving enforcement and compliance
Offer alternative livelihood opportunities
Ensuring that improved fishery benefits fishermen
Different communities will respond differently
to change, however, these basic principles can ensure that we identify
the agent of change within the community. The Conservancy’s work in
Palau is about empowering the fishermen with the tools and knowledge
they need to stop catching tomorrow’s fish, and to eventually restore
thriving fisheries.
Empowering communities is the way to scale up
fisheries reform and have a large impact across many fishing
communities, not only in Palau but in other places where fishermen are
facing decimation of their fish.
