Organization: Locally Managed Marine Area Network
Country: Fiji
Peoples: Lao, others
The Indigenous Peoples of Fiji are repatriating information through the mapping of marine protected areas, the monitoring of sea resources, the assertion of traditional conservation practices, and information-sharing among previously separate projects throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The network of local efforts, combined with Fiji’s strong local tenure rights to reef, sea and coast, are helping Indigenous subsistence fishing communities to survive modern methods and technologies for over-fishing – a threat faced by all coastal ocean-fishing cultures. The tabu of tradition – the temporary closure of fishing sites until stocks could revive – is joining a broader coalition of marine defenses.
