In response to the challenge of poaching in tabu areas, communities are taking a variety of actions, including installing buoys and signs to mark boundaries and having fish wardens trained by the Fisheries Department. Most communities locate their tabu areas in plain sight of the village, but others with more distant areas need boats and trained fish wardens empowered to arrest outsiders coming into their village waters. Usually a boat with a fish warden and other community members will simply approach an encroaching boat and tell it to leave. On occasion, they have apprehended people and confiscated boat and gear.
Another option to protect against encroachment is to gazette protected areas, legally delineating them as no-fishing zones. This would allow police to patrol the area and make arrests. To date, only two of the FLMMA-inspired tabu areas have chosen the gazetting route. FLMMA has had meetings with the national government to clarify the steps in the gazetting process and has written this up in the local language.
The Fiji LMMA approach has broadened beyond just helping villages establish tabu areas and protect them from outsiders. Its participatory techniques and co-management methods are proving to be effective in improving local governance in general and the delivery of government services. In order to maintain the momentum of this work, FLMMA is continually identifying and addressing needs as they arise and conducting participatory workshops to help local communities to address new challenges.
As FLMMA emphasizes the need to involve all sectors of the community in a project, the inequitable representation of gender and youth needs to be further explored. Efforts are underway to find the best methods for mainstreaming women and youth into projects without violating traditional societal norms. In some communities, youths are encouraged to monitor the LMMAs or develop plays with environmental themes for presentation on special village occasions or at workshops. Women may be involved in waste management, such as composting or monitoring of the marine areas in which they glean or fish. Holding separate women’s meetings has inspired women to participate and discuss issues in a way that they would not when men are present. Having the voices of women heard at the decision-making level of coastal management, however, continues to be a challenge.
LMMA implementation in Fiji has led to increased resources and a corresponding reduction of poverty in rural communities that depend on marine resources. Equally important, the LMMA process has improved community solidarity as well as regional and national policy. The challenge now is to sustain the LMMA movement and decentralize it as it spreads throughout Fiji and other parts of the Pacific .
