from the International Monetary Fund
— this post authored by DAPHNE EWING-CHOW
It’s just before noon, and Calixte Yip, mayor of the remote coral-fringed atoll of Anaa in French Polynesia’s Tuamotu Archipelago, sits behind an aged wooden desk littered with items commonly found in an agricultural lab.
Among them are vials containing caterpillars – pests that pose a major threat to the island’s copra, or coconut, industry, a foundation of the atoll’s economy. At the root of the problem is a warming climate that encourages the growth of pest populations and breaks down the resilience of host plants.
At the same time, the island’s fisherfolk are struggling with stocks that have been decimated by indiscriminate fishing practices. These stresses are further exacerbated by limited education and employment opportunities.
But Anaa’s people, the Pa‘umotu, who were renowned in ancient times for their martial prowess, have risen to the challenge. Although the island’s population plummeted from 2,000 to 500 after a devastating hurricane in the 1980s, the remaining inhabitants continue to push back against large-scale commercial development, opting instead to live symbiotically with nature. Recently, they rejected a major developer’s proposal to build a hotel on the island.
With support from the Island Initiative, a regional charity committed to sustainable development, Anaa’s Pa‘umotu are seeking to improve the island’s food security by taking only what is needed from the ocean and at the right times. They have established a protected marine educational area and are retraining the people who fish the region to offer a sustainable catch-and-release fly-fishing tourism industry.
At the heart of this project is Raphael Ravieno, a guide whose legendary expertise has helped turn the island’s clear, shallow lagoon into a fly-fishing mecca. Enthusiasts from around the world come to stalk triggerfish, trevally, and most importantly, the island’s famous bonefish, known locally as kiokio.
“Everyone wants to fish with Raphael,” says US-based fisheries biologist Alex Filous, who has been educating the island’s children and teachers about the value of conservation and sustainable fishing.
Filous’s research has been instrumental in efforts to halt the decline of kiokio stocks. He determined that the number of viable offspring produced by the spawning stock was too low to ensure a sustainable population. The reason: female kiokio were being caught in large numbers during the spawning season.
He responded by recruiting children from the local school, where Ravieno’s wife works, to persuade adults to adopt conservation measures. The most important step was to restore the rāhui, a traditional ban on fishing during the kiokio’s spawning season, which provided a connection to the culture of the region and has been widely embraced.
To gain support for the ban, the Island Initiative is compensating fisherfolk for the income lost during the rāhui period. It has also given local craftspeople and fly makers a guaranteed income by setting up package agreements with foreign tourism providers.
“This system is in line with ancient traditions of the Pa‘umotu that rely on symbolic values to manage the sustainable distribution of scarce resources,” says a local photographer and guide Moana Kauti. “It also brings in valuable ecotourism income.”
Although overfishing has undeniably played a role in the decline of Anaa’s kiokio population, Ravieno says other factors are also at play. For example, the time of spawning is no longer as predictable as it once was. Climate variability is a major contributor to such seasonal biological shifts, undercutting the effectiveness of the rāhui.
Challenges aside, Filous believes that Anaa is proof that an ailing small-island economy can be resuscitated by community-driven, environmentally sustainable industries. He is optimistic that tourists drawn by fly-fishing will be a major part of the solution.
“I’m confident in what is to come,” he says. “This entire atoll is one giant bonefish paradise.”
PHOTOS:
COURTESY OF ALEX FILOUS
Source
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Opinions expressed in articles and other materials are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect IMF policy.
