Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

104 The Foi in Papua New Guinea
cent) contributed most by weight. Gill netting
gave the highest catch/unit effort (1085.6 g/hr),
while hand lining gave the lowest (200.5 g/hr).
Sixth, a large proportion of the people (111, or
19 percent of the 5 villages) engaged daily in
fishing activity, indicating its importance to the
Foi. An estimated 370.3 person-hours/day were
spent fishing in the five villages combined.
Seventh, females undertook the majority of fishing
(53–85 percent of the effort, depending on the village).
The average one-way distance traveled to a
fishing ground was 891 meters, but ranged from
50 meters to 7,199 meters.
Eighth, for each village, the monitoring program
identified a number of areas that appeared to be
heavily fished (>10 percent of total catch weight)
and that would require management attention.
Ninth, fish of all weights and lengths were captured;
nothing seemed to be considered too
small. Fish as light as 1 g and as short as 20 mm
were included in the catch.
Tenth, gill-net mesh size ranged from 1" to 3.5".
Fish had to run the gauntlet of being caught in a
gill net at all stages of their life because of the
wide range of mesh sizes being used.
4.4 Development of a Community-Based
Management Strategy
WWF produced a large written report analyzing
the catch monitoring data and made recommendations
for fishery management strategies. In many
cases, WWF presented a number of options.
There were three main recommendations.
• Heavily fished areas should be closed for a
period of time. Four options were discussed
with communities—
1) a two-to-three-year closure of heavily
fished areas;
2) closure of heavily fished areas every
second year;
3) closure of heavily fished areas during the
wetter months (April–September); and
4) a ban on use of gill nets in heavily
fished areas during April–September.
• Small-mesh (