Sustaining Community Livelihoods

WWF believes effective sustainable livelihood, development and conservation effort is when community groups adopt conservation initiatives and make their own management decisions.
Enhancing skills at community and inter-community levels
Through its programmes, WWF builds the conservation practitioner's skills at community level, establishes a network of community-based organisations which are dedicated to learning collaboratively and achieving the best practice conservation action.

LMMAs proven to increase household incomes
The development of community marine reserves in Fiji, or Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) and other conservation interventions have proven to raise household incomes as much as 35%. The LMMAs both reduce poverty in coastal communities and protect environmental services - vital to the long term health of the people and biodiversity.

Environment impact assessment of Tourism plan
Through the Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) of Fiji's Tourism Development Plan, WWF assessed the environmental and sustainable development impacts of the Plan enabling the Ministry of Tourism and its partners to make future plans sustainable.

Sustainable fisheries project
WWF has established a new regional fisheries project as part of the WWF Oceania Marine Programme. The project, called "Consumer Choices for Sustainable Seafood" is a partnership project involving WWF South Pacific, WWF New Zealand and WWF Australia that works to improve fisheries management by working with fisheries stakeholders in the region.

Marine Stewardship Council helps market acceptance
Also by working with fishers to develop responsible fishing practices and reward them through the market place, making the market work for conservation will help turn the tide on overfishing. Together with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), WWF is creating economic incentives for sustainable fishing by promoting a new certification and ecolabelling initiative in regions known for their rich biodiversity.

WWF SPP represented at Tuna Commission

The Second Session of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, officially established 12 months ago, convened in Pohnpei from the 5 - 17th December, 2005. WWF Fisheries Conservation Officer, Seremaia Tuqiri, participated at this meeting after having gained Independent Observer status in the WCPF Commission. In past meetings of the WCPFC up to December 2005, WWF had participated as an observer with the Fiji Government delegation.
At the meeting, Mr. Tuqiri delivered a WWF statement in noting that:
  • management measures for declining tuna stocks particularly for bigeye tuna and yellowfin tuna are based on the best scientific evidence taking into consideration the precautionary approach and the principles of EBM;
  • we strongly support the draft resolutions on by-catch. Apart from tuna, 3 other species whose populations are being endangered are marine turtles, seabirds and sharks. Draft resolutions have been formulated on mitigation of longline fishing on sea turtles, shark conservation, and the incidental mortality of seabirds in the WCPO region;
  • we support the requirements laid out in the WCPF Convention recognizing that it will only be as effective as the members’ collective responsibility to make it work. Tuna is a shared resource and crucial to its sustainability is the recognition that we are managing people.
The issue of allocation of access to fisheries resources is one of the short term priorities of the Commission. The Commission has tasked the Executive Director to produce a discussion paper on allocation issues in the WCPFC taking into account relevant provisions on international law; the experience of other RFMOs dealing with allocation; potential models for allocation within the WCPFC; and processes that the Commission can use to progress the issue of allocation.

WWF has also developed a detailed business plan for supporting and tackling the sustainable resource management of tuna fisheries in the Western Central Pacific and is set to increase activities in this area over the coming years.

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Photos and graphics © WWF or used with permission. Text available under a Creative Commons licence.