1

June 2014 Yasawa Hub

Matacawalevu Marine Resource Inventory Completion

Objective: Marine Ecosystem Conservation and Food Security

Background Matacawalevu is a small village community with a population of around 200 people based on the eastern coast of Matacawalevu Island in the Yasawa group of islands. The coastal ar-ea in question is home to a diverse mix of rare invertebrates and fish species and plays an important role in local fishing habits. The GVI marine program has been concentrating sur-vey efforts around this communitys tabu area (traditional no-fish zone) to assist the com-munity with management planning and to help decision makers better understand existing marine resources through a program of awareness workshops and the accessible communi-cation of survey findings. With the data collected and analyzed, GVI will be able to assist in the process of selecting areas to protect and help inform the general management plan for the area with the hopes of empowering this community to sustainably manage the re-sources they rely upon.

Surveys completed across 18 sites. 72 Invertebrate Transects and 144

Benthic & Fish Transects completed. Over 200 Survey Hours

2

Throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific, coastal communities are experiencing decreasing fish abundance, Coral damage, and a general decline in biodiversity. Over the last 10 years it has been generally recognized that conventional, top down costal protection and management strategies do not meet the needs of island communities across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The Locally Man-aged Marine Area network (LMMA) was formed to help coastal communities to take ownership over the management of their marine resources with the general goals being to increase fishing stocks, improve habitat quality, improve the local capacity to manage resources, improve community co-hesion and increase income from marine resources.

As a participatory member of FLMMA (The Fiji Locally Marine Managed Area Network) GVI Fiji has focused on carrying out FLMMA objectives within the Yasawa group of islands. Over the last six months GVIs Marine Research and Conservation volunteers have been concentrating survey efforts around the traditional fishing grounds associated with the community of Matacawalevu village, sur-veying a 3.5 mile stretch of coastline

Learn more about the LMMA network here: http://www.lmmanetwork.org/

Figure 1 Matacawlevu Survey Sites

3

Figure 2 Comparison of Mean Percentage of Benthic Cover between sites within and outside of current Tabu area

Survey Results The GVI research team has surveyed outside the southern limits of the current tabu area at site M-Rf 001 (see image above) through to sites west of and beyond the northern extreme of the Tabu at site M-Rf 018. The team surveyed 18 sites and conducted over 215 survey transects focusing on benthic life forms, commercially important invertebrate species abundance, and commercially im-portant fish species abundance. The benthic surveys GVI volunteers conducted measured the per-centage cover of key benthic lifeforms such as hard coral, soft coral, algaes & other crucial life forms. With this data the team has compared the percentage of coverage at specific sites located both in-side and outside of the current Tabu area. Sites of particular interest were those that showed high hard & soft coral coverage with low algal coverage.

The above graph compares the amount of key benthic life form coverage between the sites within the current village Tabu areas and outside the no-take zone. Both hard coral & soft coral cover were found to be greater outside of the tabu area, while sand & macro algae cover was found to be great-er inside the tabu area.

4

Figure 3 Comparison of Targeted Fish Species Abundance Categories between sites within Tabu area and outside of Tabu Area

The above graph shows the abundance levels of a selection of commercially targeted fish species And compares the abundance between the sites found inside the Tabu area and the sites that lie outside of the tabu area. The abundance categories translate to the average number of fish found over the reefs, the higher the abundance category, the higher number of fish. It is clear from the survey data that within the tabu area abundance categories for the majority of this selection of tar-geted fish species are higher though some of the abundance levels within the Tabu area may be ac-credited more to the oceanography itself, and the overall level of abundance in some fish categories is higher outside of the Tabu and in others equal to that of the Tabu area sites, the general finding is that the Tabu area is in areas successful in protecting targeting marine assets. With the data compiled & results analyzed, GVIs next step is to assist Matacawalevu Village in creat-ing their own LMMA and management plant. The basic findings above will be presented to the community and this data will be used to help inform the direction a structured management plan which will help the community to implement and successfully monitor their own LMMA. This set of survey data for this area can now be used as comparative baseline for future surveys and help to track the progress of management activities while also providing a comparative data set in relation to other LMMAs in the area.

5

This important step towards effective marine resource management for the Matacawalevu commu-nity would not be possible without the support and funding from our volunteers, valuable consulta-tion from GVIs partners and the ongoing support of the communities of the central Yasawa Islands. GVI Fiji

The GVI Fiji Marine Conservation Program

Mission Statement: To ensure food security in Fiji for future generations through the protection and conservation of marine resources.

Objective: To assist local communities to effectively manage marine resources through the es-tablishment of effective community based management strategies for locally managed marine

areas

To find out more about our Fiji programs please visit

www.gvi.co.uk

To make a donation to our programs in Fiji please visit

www.gvi.org

For more information on our global impact please visit

www.gviworld.com

@GVIFIJI GVI Fiji Islands