Page 23 - Islands Business June 2023

Oceans Oceans

“The intention is basically to try and provide all the qoliqoli
that can be covered in this exercise, the information that
can then be used to build the database that we hope you
can make the basis of marine spatial planning, so in years
to come, hopefully with layers of data, policymakers and
planners can then be assisted by these programmes to make
better decisions.”
The team has approached more than 100 communities to
conduct research in their waters. Those communities have
raised some interesting suggestions during the consultation
process, Dr Veitayaki says.
“One, for instance, is that ‘Okay, the government forms the
i-qoliqoli, but maybe the government should also help with
the enforcement of management arrangements being under-
taken by the local communities’, because they are saying
sometimes they try to enforce, but then they end up on the
wrong side of the law.”
He continues: “We have undertaken the responsibility to
ensure that the data that is shared with the government also
gets returned to the customary owners for their own planning
purposes.” Dr Joeli Veitayaki speaks at the Blue Prosperity expedition launch
Dr Veitayaki says the surveys should address important
questions for the local people regarding their fishing areas,
whether they think the environment is as productive as in the
past and how it has changed, how they can use the informa- Such equipment helps make data collection more efficient.
tion to protect the interests of their future generations. Lubarsky adds: “From our photos, we get to understand how
much of the reef is coral, how much is algae, and how much
Early results is invertebrate, which is a really important indicator of reef
Arthur Sokimi notes that the scientists are already seeing health.”
clear differences in data collected between Nadi, Suva and Sokimi says more than 40 sites have been completed,
Kadavu waters to the south. although some site surveys were cancelled due to weather
“We were in Kadavu yesterday (May 24), and it was abso- changes and surges.
lutely pristine, with very nice reefs with fish. The team also includes Pacific Blue Foundation environmen-
“We started off in Nadi on the 15th (May) and we made tal officer and USP Masters student, Ulamila Matairakula, who
our way slowly towards Suva for the launch [of the expedi- was part of the group tasked with collecting coral data.
tion], and just as a general observation, there are differences Matairakula said: “The coral data is collected and extracted
we’ve observed; some areas have plenty of fish, others not so from the pictures in the camera, and they will analyse the
much,” he said. data in terms of coral growth, different diversity of corals,
A Scripps Institute of Oceanography marine biologist with and all the coral diseases.
the expedition, Katie Lubarsky, says there are several factors “So different areas have different coral structures; for ex-
affecting fish size. ample, if you go to Malolo and compare it to Beqa, you would
“Overfishing is one of the reasons, particularly the big fish, have different types of corals in those different areas, differ-
get fished out because they are more desirable; the habitat ent diseases of corals, and you will understand that maybe
is also important; more complex habitats give more place these waters are more polluted, or maybe people close to
for the fish to live, and so depending on the structure of the Malolo are using this kind of fertiliser that disrupts coral reef
reefs, you may see more or less fish. structure.”.
“And also [it depends] on the health of the coral, because Sokimi says it may take a while to synthesise and present
as the coral degrades, the habitat degrades,” she notes. their findings due to the amount of data to be collected and
The expedition team consists of marine biologists, local ex- analysed.
perts, WWF and government representatives. Islands Business “That is going to be quite a process, because we don’t want
interviewed them as they were preparing to get back into the to rush the site, so things will get back to the lab, submit all
water to continue their scientific observations. the photos, all the data, all of its own analysis, the process,
“We’ve got cameras, slates for fish identification, for inver- and so we cannot give a fixed date,” he said.
tebrates, and other equipment to help set up plots underwa- “Everything (the data) that comes from this belongs to the
ter around 10 metres deep that allow us to do photo mosaic,” government of Fiji, so the government will store it safely lo-
Sokimi said. cally and make it available to partners.”

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