Village by village: recovering Fiji's coastal fisheries

Abstract

In The Early 1990s, Residents Of UCUNIVANUA VILLAGE, On The Eastern Coast Of Fiji’s largest island, realized that the marine resources they depended on were becoming scarce. Village elders remembered when a woman could collect several bags of large kaikoso clams—a food staple and important source of income—in just a few hours. By the 1990s, however, a woman could spend all day on the mudflats and come home with only half a bag of small clams. The decline of Ucunivanua’s marine heritage reflects a larger pattern of depletion repeated throughout the Fiji islands. A combination of greater commercial fishing and larger local subsistence harvests have left most of Fiji’s coastal waters overfished, sometimes heavily so.Rural Fijians, who constitute half of Fiji’s population of nearly 900,000, have been hurt. Most of these villagers still lead a traditional subsistence-based livelihood, communally drawing on local marine resources for at least part of their daily protein and income. In the past, the abundance of the marine catch meant a moderate level of affluence and food security. With that abundance gone, the pressure on village economies has mounted, leaving 30-35 percent of rural households in Fiji below the official poverty line.