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Traditional Information Bulletin #12
Traditions-OK
Number 12 - December 2000

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Group Co-ordinator and Bulletin Editor:
Kenneth Ruddle, Asahigaoka-cho 7-22-511, Ashiya-shi, Hyogo-ken, Japan 659-0012.

Production:
Information Section, Marine Resources Division, SPC, B.P. D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia. Fax: (687) 263818

Produced with financial assistance from Australia, France and New Zealand.


Note from the editor

apologise for the delay in getting this issue to you. We had several contributions lined-up from Fiji, but then none materialised, owing to political turmoil there. Instead, we are going to press with another issue focussing on Solomon Islands, a reflection of the great interest that nation has for this "Special Interest Group".

The first of the three articles is by Daisuke Takekawa of the Kitakyushu University, Japan. His paper, "Hunting method and the ecological knowledge of dolphins among the Fanalei villagers of Malaita, Solomon Islands" is based on nine months field research in Fanalei village, during the early 1990s. In the Solomon Islands, men of particular villages hunt dolphins to obtain the teeth, which are used as the traditional currency, for bride price and for personal adornment. Dolphin teeth are one of the items used to form a network among the people of the area. The Fanalei villagers produce some 100,000 dolphin teeth, almost all of which are sent to other parts of Malaita and neighbouring islands. Fanalei village is intimately concerned with the circulation of dolphin teeth. To hunt dolphins, groups of men go by dugout canoe to the open sea early in the morning, and drive individual schools of dolphins to the beach by hitting two stones together below the water surface.

In the second article, "Women, rural development and community-based resource management in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands: establishing marine invertebrate refugia", Shankar Aswani notes that in some places, historical use, cultural affiliation and societal attitudes can provide a basis for modern management of marine areas. This idea has been widely promoted. But, in practice, different systems of marine resources governance and management can co-exist in a single region. This then raises the fundamental question of which institutional arrangements are best able to produce precautionary management programs, such as marine reserves and spatio-temporal refugia? Aswani, who is from the University of California, Santa Barbara, attempts to answer that question by summarising a case study from Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. The case elucidates variables between different sea tenure institutions and core historical and social tenets that distinguish adaptable and successful regimes from those that are not. Dr Aswani also examines a small-scale women's rural development project that is involved in the establishment of spatio-temporal refugia and a marine reserve in a mangrove habitat. The project’s initial success indicates sea tenure governance arrangements that may favour the establishment of successful management regimes. Further, the case shows how anthropologists can integrate their empirical research results with the objectives of local people for the purpose of participatory environmental management.

Robert E. Johannes and Edvard Hviding complete the contributions to this issue with their article "Traditional knowledge possessed by the fishers of Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands, concerning fish aggregating behaviour". In May 1987, Johannes was asked by the Marovo Area Council to record important aspects of the exceptionally rich traditional knowledge of Marovo Lagoon fishermen concerning their marine resources. His fieldwork was done with the assistance of Edvard Hviding. Hviding, then a graduate student at the University of Bergen, Norway, who had been living in Marovo for a year and was studying other aspects of traditional fishing and marine resource management, including customary marine tenure and its associated knowledge. Marovo people have a very impressive knowledge of sea animals. Some of their most important practical information concerns where fish and other marine organisms are found in large numbers; when they are found there (that is, season, lunar period, tidal stage, time of day); and their behaviour and movements. Many reef and lagoon fishes come together in large numbers during particular months, during particular moon phases and at special places. Some of these aggregations are described in Marovo by such names as bobili, baini, rovana, and sakoto. Knowing this makes it easier for the fishermen to be at the right place at the right time for good fishing. Sometimes these aggregations form for the purpose of spawning, as when groupers mass in certain reef passes, or mullet school and swim in tight circles. In other cases, fish aggregate for the purpose of feeding, or for protection. In other cases, neither Marovo fishermen nor biologists know why the fish come together.

Kenneth Ruddle


Contents

Hunting method and the ecological knowledge of dolphins among the Fanalei villagers of Malaita, Solomon Islands
Takekawa D. (pdf: 130 KB)
Women, rural development and community-based resource management in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands: Establishing marine invertebrate refugia
Aswani S. (pdf: 145 KB)
Traditional knowledge possessed by the fishers of Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands, concerning fish aggregating behaviour
Johannes R.E., Hviding E. (pdf: 49 KB)
 

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