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International Waters Project

The People of the Reef - Strengthening the Management of Niue’s Coastal Resources

8/1/2005

By Niu Tauevihi

Niue, 261 square kilometres in area, is the largest a raised coral atoll in the world. It sits atop a dormant volcano and slopes down to a base five miles below on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Composed mainly of solid rock the island is surrounded by a rugged, fringing, reef shelf, some 20-60 metres wide. Imposing cliffs rise straight up from the reef 20-27 metres above the high tide watermark.

Niue does not have rivers, lakes, or mountains, nor do the reef formations allow for white sandy beaches that most Pacific Islands are blessed with. Without the man-made access points, such as the wharf at Alofi, the logistics of a landing a vessel at any point on the island ranges anywhere from extremely difficult to impossible.

Although Niue is much larger than most small Pacific islands it currently supports a population of less than two thousand people. The trials of sustaining a livelihood on the island, combined with the frequent cyclones and severe droughts, has proved too precarious an existence for the twenty thousand people who have now migrated to live in New Zealand.

Given the absence of a large population Niue’s reef resources cannot be said to be under extreme pressure from overuse like those of other atolls such as Kiribati. In any case natural, physical, and social conditions have always dictated when and where local communities could fish or glean from the reef.

On the west coast harvesting from the reef and ocean fishing in canoes are regular activities. But on the eastern side, access to the reefs is difficult and dangerous for local communities, even at low tide.

‘Nature guards and grants its gifts sparingly,’ is a well-known local belief that reflects a local acceptance and respect for the islands’ own self-regulating and sustainable use of the reefs’ resources.

Many local people believe that nothing much has changed to the reef environment since the first settlement of the island. Niue’s population has never exceeded 6000 at any time in the past two centuries and the access to many of the reef resources is hostile enough to discourage even the most ardent seafood addict.

But changes are coming and this tiny island state will benefit from recent measures to protect the health of the reef and many fragile bio-habitats. Initiatives from the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the Forum Fisheries Agency and Niue’s own Department of Fisheries Forestry and Agriculture, are now helping to strengthen the sustainable management of Niue’s coastal resources.

The advent of the Europeans and their user-friendly imported goods relieved the regular need to go hunting and fishing for protein loaded food, causing a dramatic change in the local dietary patterns, and eventually the general health of the local population. The incidences of serious diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and chronic heart conditions have increased proportionately to the amount of processed food that local people consume every day.

Local health professionals believe Niueans should be advocating the use of naturally unprocessed foods from the sea, not limiting their availability with conservation. Herein lies the paradox that the Niue International Waters Project (IWP) is trying to justify in its attempts to limit traditional harvesting and conserve reef fauna and flora.

Mr Sioneheke Leolahi, National Coordinator of the Niue IWP says the primary objectives of the project are the sustainable management and conservation of coastal reef environments from overuse and degradation.

“The general health of our marine resources, both off-shore and in-shore, is of vital importance to the economy, the livelihood and to the health of our people. What we are ultimately working towards is for the empowerment of local communities to manage and use their reef resources in a sustainable manner,” he says.

Premier Vivian, for one, firmly believes and supports what IWP Niue is trying to achieve.

“There are economic and social advantages to be gained from the measures that the IWP team is trying to accomplish. Our reef environment is unique in that its resources have sustained the health of our people many years. We need to understand how we can combine traditional and modern management systems if we are to secure the resources that we have,” he says.

Mr Tauevihi Nukanuka, a 79-year old resident from the village of Hakupu says he fed his seven children during the 1950s and 1960s on a diet consisting almost entirely of food from the reef and from the bush.

“Occasionally we would buy a tin of fish or corned beef for our evening meals when we could afford it, but for most of the time we ate shell fish, reef fish and land crabs,” he says.

“There were no fridges or freezers in those days so I would get just enough for us for two or three days and when we run out I would go back for more. We used to hunt and fish together as a community and given the number of people that lived in Hakupu in those days nature always seemed to provide in abundance and regularly replenish these resources. These bountiful resources are given to us by God. What IWP is doing does not comply with how nature regulates its gifts but I share their concern, I applaud their forward thinking, and I support what they are doing,” he says

In March 2003 the IWP carried out a “Participatory Situation Analysis” and this revealed that the depletion of coastal resources and degradation of habitats had been experienced by many villages. One of the main root causes of the problem was seen to be the introduction of modern fishing gear and unsustainable practices. Since 2003 the Niue IWP has worked to encourage local communities, government agencies, village councils, non-government organisations, and interested stakeholders, to work together to find practical ways to strengthen the management of the country’s coastal resources.

Over the past two and a half years the Niue IWP has conducted public meetings and awareness programmes to develop a rapport with the village communities and advertise the projects’ commitment to the sustainable management of coastal resources. It has also conducted transect reef exercises to determine base population counts, and initiated socio-economic surveys to try and understand the key social and economic factors governing the use of these resources.

Mr Leolahi says the IWP has always looked for ways to combine traditional knowledge and modern science to strengthen the management of these vital resources.

“There is plenty of room to include traditional practices in plans to enable the sustainable management of these resources. But community attitudes will have to change if we want to realise the overall vision of this project. For example, simply flaunting the law in indiscriminate harvesting of undersize or female coconut crabs is a sure recipe for depleting our coconut crab stocks,” he says.

The IWP is working together with the communities of Makefu and Alofi North to develop and implement new “Village-based Fisheries Management Plans” which include tools such as Marine Protected Areas. Makefu (which already had a Fisheries Management Plan in place with the Niue Department of Fisheries) and Alofi North are currently working together to establish a Marine Protected Area from Namoui to Vailoapu. It is hoped that this MPA can be officially and securely sanctioned under the Domestic Fishing Act (1995) and the Village Council Ordinance (1967).

Spear fishing in and around reef environments is now forbidden and visiting yachts are not permitted to moor anywhere, except in designated areas where special anchorages are constructed for this purpose. The New Zealand Defence Force upgraded sea tracks to make it easier for local communities to access and engage in their traditional reef fishing and gleaning for shellfish. Mr Leohahi hopes these tracks will also provide greater opportunities for locals to set up reef tours for tourists and earning enough to supplement their incomes.

These are significant beginnings for the project and, if successful, similar measures could extend to other village communities in the future.

In January 2004 the arrival of Cyclone Heta brought 300km per hour winds and swollen seas that combined to storm over the islands seemingly impenetrable 20-metre cliffs. The cyclone and swept everything in its path and in some places it carried huge rocks and buildings up to 200 meters inland. The sea destroyed bio-habitats by burying them under thousands of tons of rock and shearing off coral formations on the reef.

Somewhat perversely this extreme weather event gave the Niue IWP increased justification and mandate for finding practical ways to protect and preserve the island’s fragile reef environments.

Alapasa Nemaia lives directly across the road from Kalaone Sea Track, less than 100 meters from the Kalaone Reef. Kalaone, like most reef environments in Niue, no longer shows the visible scars of the Cyclone Heta’s wrath, but the coral will take years to fully regenerate.

Now in her 70’s, Alapasa says she has spent more than 50 years gleaning and fishing from the Kalone Reef. “My husband, a retired Doctor, is over 80 years old and he owes his long life to eating more fresh fish and shellfish than anything else. What IWP Niue is doing can only be good for our reef resources and we are fully supportive of what they are doing,” she says.

Sioneheke says the Niue IWP will keep pushing hard to gain community commitment to conserve and use their reef resources in a sustainable manner.

“We will look at whatever amendments to the existing legislation and by-laws are necessary to safeguard and preserve our marine environments. We have to look at whatever tools we need to manage and sustain our marine resources. We don’t want to have to start twenty years down the road when it may simply be too late to take action,” he says.

ENDS

Contact Name	Steve Menzies
e-mail	stevem@sprep.org
Phone	(685) 21929
Fax	(685) 20231

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