Fisheries in the Pacific

Socioeconomic significance of fisheries in the Small Island Developing States…
with the State Government of Hawai’i. The latter party ensures that a significant
indigenous voice is represented and empowered in the context of the management
of the Monument.
In 2012 the Cook Islands Government announced the creation of a LSMPA
encompassing the southern half of its entire EEZ, or about 1.1 million km². This
MPA will be zoned for multiple uses tourism, fishing, and possibly seabed mining,
but only if these activities can be carried out sustainably and adhere to the precautionary
principle wherein a new potentially damaging activity must be proven not to
cause harm before it can proceed. The process of creation of this LSMPA was characterized
by wide consultation and the search for consensus between government,
traditional leaders and local communities (Cook Islands Government 2011; Kanwal
2013; Lynch 2011).
Under these strategies many Pacific Island countries and territories (such as
Palau, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Hawaii) 11 have sought to diversify their
income while at the same time protecting their resources. Their view of fish and
the marine environment is changing while the commodity status of fish and the
marine environment is transforming. Compensation measures, sometimes subsidized
by international NGOs and governments, are regularly discussed in order
to find other incomes and benefits for protecting huge areas of fish stocks. In this
regard, viewing fish solely as a commodity becomes unsustainable because food
security constraints may run counter to other paths such as the tourism industry,
the international conservation NGOs’ attention and the “science industry”. Fish
have, and will continue to always occupy, multiple roles in society. The recent
words of T. ‘Aulani Wilhelm, Superintendent of the Papahanāumokuākea Marine
National Monument, also suggests that, more generally, marine biodiversity is a
pluralistic objective:
“The 2010 inscription of Papahānaumokuākea as a World Heritage site by the United
Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) redefines the value
of oceans to the collective heritage of humankind. The designation also recognizes the
multifaceted relationship that indigenous people of Hawai’i still have with this ocean
expanse today. As with prior national designations, first as a Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve
then a Marine National Monument, these distinctions honoring both nature and culture
were not by chance. They were the result of direct engagement by Native Hawaiians, in
partnership with many others, in the design, advocacy and implementation of the management
regime put in place to protect ¾ of the Hawaiian Archipelago.” (T. ‘Aulani Wilhelm
and Randall Kosaki, personal communication to Tamatoa Bambridge).
Marine National Monument Program, http://www.fpir.noaa.gov/MNM/mnm_index.html, and
Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, http://www.fpir.noaa.gov/MNM/mnm_marianastrench.html
(Accessed on October 9, 2015).
11. Many of these initiatives are presented in Bambridge and D’Arcy 2014.
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