The Namena Marine Reserve, located off the southwest coast of the island of Vanua Levu, was created in 1997 to respond to the combined pressures of increased fishing, tourism activity, and poaching on the reef. When CORAL started working with the reserve several years later, the local Kubulau community wanted to improve its resources and management of the reserve.
To this end, CORAL facilitated the development of a successful and transparent user fee system that supports a variety of community initiatives and general management of the marine reserve. User fee revenues have been used to offset school fees and build bus stops in an economically depressed area of the Kubulau District. In addition, CORAL has offered training in Sustainable Marine Recreation (SMR) for local marine recreation providers as a means of increasing knowledge and experience of responsible tourism business practices. With CORAL’s help, the KMRC has created an environment of trust and open communication among local stakeholders. All eight dive operators that currently visit the Namena Marine Reserve support the park and fully comply with its user fee system.
Because CORAL staff and field representatives have consistently delivered on our commitments, we have become a well-regarded partner to the community. As a result, we have recently expanded the geographic focus of our work to include the entire scope of the community’s traditional fishing grounds—known as Qoliqoli—of which the Namena Marine Reserve is a significant portion. Along with such project partners as the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), CORAL has launched several ambitious projects designed to elevate the entire Kubulau Qoliqoli Conservation Corridor (KQCC) to a level of conservation excellence, against which CORAL hopes to measure all future project sites.
No comments:
Post a Comment