Reef
resilience Two day Workshop
Luganville, Espiritu
Santo, Vanuatu
16th
– 17th August 2013
Produced by the
OceansWatch 2013 Vanuatu team: Glenn Edney, Shelly Feduniw, Amick
Haissoune-Bedard and Jordan Smith-Newman.
Workshop Details:
Location:
Vanuatu Fisheries Department, Northern regional
headquarters, Luganville, Santo.
Facilitator/Presenter:
Glenn Edney MSc, OceansWatch Marine Ecologist and
Reef Check trainer. Assisted by OceansWatch Volunteers, Shelly Feduniw,
Amick Haissoune-Bedard and Jordan Smith-Newman.
Attendees:
Olsen Obed; Fisheries manager, northern region.
George Amos; Fisheries Officer, Sanma Province.
Dominique; Director and Principal, Port Olry primary
school.
Tarcisius Alget; Manager of Beach front Bungalows,
Port Olry and custodian of the three existing Community marine conservation
areas.
Michel Gislapno; Aore Island Resort.
Esline Turner; Santo Cruise Safaris; Glass bottom
boat tours.
Remo Lomi; Tasiriki Village, community conservation
area custodian.
Christina Shaw; Co-owner of Big Blue Diving, Port
Vila, Vanuatu.
Ian; Vanua Lava resort, Torba Province.
Course
Structure:
Friday:
Coral Reefs
What is Resilience?
Identifying a resilient reef
Principles of Reef
Resilience (4)
Saturday morning:
Components of Reef
Resilience
Threats to Reef Resilience
Saturday afternoon:
MPA design
Social Resilience
Communicating Resilience
Feedback/discussion.
Materials Used:
Presentation Power Points;
Reef resilience, Climate change key issues, Components of resilience, MPA
design, Preparing and responding to Bleaching.
Other reference material; Monitoring
Functional Groups of Herbivorous Reef Fishes as Indicators of Coral Reef
Resilience. A practical guide for coral reef
managers in the Asia Pacific Region.Alison L. Green and David R.
Bellwood.
OceansWatch would
like to acknowledge the support of The Nature Conservancy in making this
workshop possible.
Workshop description and Outcomes
This workshop was initiated partly as a response to interest from local stakeholders in increasing response potential to the perceived threats facing their local reef ecosystems and partly to fulfill the funding requirements from TNC for OceansWatch to run this course. It was originally intended that Kym Lincoln would facilitate this workshop as she had completed the Reef resilience trainers program funded by TNC. However, due to travel logistics it was not possible for her to get to Luganville in time to run the workshop. As a result OceansWatch marine ecologist and Vanuatu project coordinator, Glenn Edney undertook to run the workshop in her absence.The workshop was reasonably well attended although there were some late with-drawls and no-shows, which was not entirely unexpected due to travel difficulties for some of the people invited from communities in and around the South Santo area.As much as possible we tried to maintain a strong link to the local situation and especially for those from communities in the area, we asked for stories of their local reefs. This gave us a good idea of the varying levels of knowledge and understanding of coral reef ecology and lead to us spending a little more time than expected explaining the basics of reef ecology.A major topic of discussion was crown of thorns starfish as the area is currently suffering a substantial outbreak and many individual reefs are being affected. There is obviously a strong interest in what can be done to limit the damage from an outbreak. The two main problems that limit response capability in this region are resources and manpower. Resources a very limited and diving manpower is limited to the dive operators who struggle to free up staff during much of the year. The fisheries department has a response plan but lack the resources to initiate their response plan. While we were unable to offer any solutions to these issues, it did provide an opportunity to discuss the potential of the network approach to MPAs to improve the resilience potential to future outbreaks. Later in the workshop COT outbreaks were used as a factor in the MPA network design exercise.A topic that we emphasized was the importance of the herbivorous guilds as there is substantial artesian fishing of herbivores in the area. This led to much discussion amongst the group about traditional taboos on fishing for particular species and size limits as well as complete closure of areas. Most traditional taboo areas were for specific time periods and this again provided for good discussion around the merits of permanent MPAs as opposed to temporary closures and the potential for a combined approach using both.
For the MPA network design exercise we used a Google earth map of the South Santo area which includes several islands and reef areas and provided opportunities to discuss and plan for the concept of connectivity in network design (Figure 1)
Our discussions included consideration of
current patterns, trade winds, and anthropogenic influences from the regional
capital of Luganville as well as the localised influences on specific reefs
adjacent to various small villages.
Outcomes
There are three potential outcomes from
this workshop, one of which OceansWatch will be directly involved with in Port
Olry as an addition to the work already being carried out with the community
there. This involves a project being initiated by Dominique, the principal of
the local primary school. His original plan was to create a coral restoration
area adjacent to the school and close to one of the existing conservation
areas. As a result of attending this workshop Dominique has secured approval
from the village chiefs to create another conservation area that will encompass
the coral restoration project. OceansWatch will provide the site assessment and
make recommendations about the most suitable area that meets the criteria of
accessibility for the school project, the highest likelihood of recruitment,
network enhancement and resilience to storm events.
The second potential outcome is the
inclusion of reef resilience as part of the relationship and dialogue between
the Department of Fisheries and local communities. The third potential outcome
is the formation of some kind of working committee to further the concept of
developing a network approach to marine protection in the area.
The feedback from the course was positive
from those who filled in the feedback form (Figure 2) as well as those who only
commented verbally. It appears there is a strong recognition of the threats to
local reef resilience and a desire to do something to lessen the risks.
However, it is also clear that a lack of support and resources is a major hurdle
to achieving these goals.
