#PHDCHAT - PIA HARKNESS
You see a sign that says, “Do not touch”. Despite knowing that you shouldn’t, a desire comes over you and you almost can’t resist. You check no one is watching and you quickly touch it. What about if the sign is in a different language? Do you know you shouldn’t touch it? Or what about if there isn’t a sign at all, or it is something you need, would you take it? Regardless of the policies put in place the likelihood is that someone is still going to touch it so if we know this to be true why do we expect that National Protected Areas and Wilderness areas are the way to go about protecting our environment and resources?
Indonesia had a 100,000-square kilometre National Protected Area (NPA) target by 2010 that was supported by one of the world’s biggest international conservation NGO’s. One of the areas declared NPA was near the small island of Savu-Raijua; it was the last area declared, the biggest area declared, and it made the 100,000-kilometre target. The catch was that none of the people in that area knew about it. The creation of the NPA meant there wasn’t meant to be any fishing, so Pia Harkness lived on Savu-Raijua for a year and a half, talking with focus groups and interviewing fisherman to discover how the NPA was negatively affecting the livelihoods of the local people. She found out quickly that initially it wasn’t because; 1) they didn’t know it existed; 2) it wasn’t enforced so they were still fishing in those grounds.
Most people have various activities they are involved in to support their livelihood including fishing, farming, tapping palms, farming seaweed, and looking after livestock. Using interviews, Pia wanted to determine exactly what role fishing had within the livelihood system of the local people. Like most developing nations the locals rely on fish for their direct protein diet, but is also creates excess to the cash market. Extra catch goes towards "buying vegetables and other kitchen food" and additional expenses such as "smokes and fuel for the boat". This means if you can’t catch fish, households are left "just eating rice." Although farmers reported that they earnt more from seaweed stocks, Pia found once she stacked the numbers they would earn just as much from their fishing enterprises although it was more spread out over the season. Finally, Savu-Raijua is a really dry island, so when the environmental conditions aren’t favourable it is important to have fishing as a constant available option to sustain livelihoods in the community.
Although no commercial fishing was experienced in this area and fishing practices mainly comprised of hook and line by local fisherman, all the signs of overfishing turn out to be present so the threat of losing access to their livelihood resource still existed. In comparison to most NPA areas, it "doesn’t appear to be a highly productive fishery." "It’s a small island, it’s really dry so there isn’t many land based nutrients entering the ecosystem and not many upwellings that have been heard of." There had been some history of bombing, which damaged the reef and it is currently recovering, but would probably recover quicker if livelihood management was put in place. “Local fishers were reporting to me that there were fewer fish, but according to their world view it was because there are more motorboats scaring the fish,” Pia said. “They also know [that] when the fish breed they have thousands of young, so there is heaps of fish and as small fishers there isn’t anything they could be doing to affect the population.” You then have a conflicting view that conservation wouldn’t be required, because there are plenty of fish in the sea; just a lot of scared fish it would seem. You can’t simply apply a western view of conservation (which doesn’t always work anyway); expecting people to know what it means; expecting them to give up one of their most important livelihoods; and expecting them to immediately understand the signs of overfishing. Rather than a top-down management approach, the management of this area for local fisheries and livelihoods should have been the approach. Management, such as size limits to ensure the population can breed; and targeting protection on spawning zones would promote the conservation of the reef, conservation of the fishery, and ultimately, improve the livelihoods of the local people.
Consultation was critically missed in this situation, legislation was rushed to reach targets and for influential organisations to take claim of major conservation ‘achievements.’ Ultimately all of those that rely on these fishing grounds have lost. We could pretend that the creation of the NPA doesn’t matter, because they are still able to fish there without enforcement, but the reality is then that there is no opportunity for legal management of the fishery to ensure its survival. Or the survival of those that depend on it. This social injustice that Pia Harkness stumbled on is a particularly bad example of "wrong time, wrong place," but is happening on varying scales around the world with inadequate NPA programs to address livelihood issues, the reality of corruption in local governments limiting their capacity to assist locals, and the conflict of interest with international conservation NGO’s.
Do we need to rethink conservation management as a whole? It is naïve to expect that we won’t touch, simply because there is a sign or lines on a map. Human nature is to touch, but what if that area contains your livelihood, the food on your plate? The correct management of resources is context specific and involves more money and time invested in the communities utilising those resources, but it could also be the only way to ensure future generations can also touch the untouchable.
Cara Penton is a PhD student at the University studying tree-rats and possums on Melville Island. If you are undertaking your PhD here at CDU and would like to be part of #PhDChat please reach out to Flycatcher to celebrate the research efforts of our students.
