A guide for planners and managers - IUCN

302 MARINE AND COASTAL
PROTECTED AREAS
tourism industry to some of its outlying communities, such as Kayangel, and
2) provide an alternative occupation as fishing guides, to local commercial fishermen,
with the idea that less fish would be extracted from the reef, lessening the threats
associated with overfishing (Division of Marine Resources, 1996).
The community of Kayangel became involved in the sportfishing project. The
prospect of developing sportfishing in Kayangel’s waters, and the recognized need to
both control the activity and to ensure the continued provision of productive fishing
grounds, meshed with community concerns over Ngeruangel. It provided some of the
impetus needed for the chiefs to declare the bul and it provided an opportunity for
the community to address a range of ongoing concerns.
With the sportfishing project now under the lead of the Palau Conservation Society
(PCS), Ngeruangel became the focus and sportfishing became one of the underlying
factors in the development of the management plan for Ngeruangel. The plan is
being prepared by the state with assistance from TNC and PCS and will be implemented
at the end of 1999. It will likely keep the atoll off-limits to fishing except catch-andrelease
sportfishing, harvesting of trochus, and probably some level of fishing for limited
purposes, such as specified community events.
Effectiveness of the reserve
After almost three years of closure, it is difficult to know how well Ngeruangel has
met the community’s objectives of seeing the recovery of depleted fishes and the
exclusion of outside fishermen. So far, the perception in the community is very
favorable. There also appears to be more agreement within the community now,
compared to three years ago, that the closure and reserve are good ideas and beneficial
to Kayangel.
Kayangel conservation officers and local leaders are confident that while they
have not completely stopped incursions into the reserve, knowledge of the reserve and
its restrictions is almost universal throughout Palau and they have reduced fishing
effort there substantially.
Systematic, but limited, underwater fish surveys conducted during each of the
last three years have not revealed any significant changes in the fish populations. Local
fishermen, after performing timed swims in coordination with the systematic surveys,
perceived slight but not dramatic increases in the numbers and sizes of some of their
preferred species, as well as changes in the behavior of the fish, with the fish becoming
much less wary of swimmers. Data from catch-and-release spin-casting trials on the
reef revealed an increase in catch rates over a period of three years. But as with the
results of the underwater surveys, the limited number of catch data, combined with
the many temporal and other factors that affect the location and behavior of fishes,
have made it difficult to identify changes in fish abundance or sizes with any
confidence.