Coastal fisheries in New Ireland Province are increasingly being depleted – in some places more than others, but all in all, fishing and collecting is taking longer and yielding smaller catches. This is making life harder for us, making it harder to earn the income we need but also to provide our families with healthy diets. Reasons for the decline include our increasing populations (more mouths t
o feed) and increasing costs of living (school fees, medicine, store brought food, PMV fares and boat fares). But overfishing today is also the result of a breakdown of customs and tradition, of not respecting our traditions of living in harmony with the giraun na solwara na sky. Our culture of living in harmony with the bush na solwara na sky has allowed New Irelanders to live and thrive for 33,000 years. We came together through our traditional systems, agreed to rules to protect our resources, obeyed those rules, and we thrived. Singaut Blo Solwara is a grassroots movement to encourage and support communities to come together once again in the old ways, reviving our traditional ways of managing the sea, while also using new research and information, to encourage practical local actions to help increase what we catch and collect from the sea. But make no mistake, this movement is designed to help community champions, or what we call our Solwara Champions, take the lead. We will share information and community stories on things like marine protected areas, and reducing harmful fishing practices. We will share information on avoiding undersize fish and critters, avoiding peak spawning seasons, and protecting key habitats, to ensure our fish breed, restock our fishing grounds and give us bigger, better catches year after year. But none of this works without local people stepping up. Because we can’t wait for someone from the outside to solve these problems. We have to take ownership and make decisions that are best for our families and our communities. So will you join us? Special thanks to cChange, who is coordinating Singaut Blo Solwara in partnership with the New Ireland Provincial Government, Wildlife Conservation Society, the National Fisheries College, the Locally-Managed Marine Management Area Network International (LMMA) and the Pacific Community (SPC), through the Pacific-European Union Marine Partnership (PEUMP) programme, with financial support from the European Union and the Government of Sweden. The contents of this page does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union and the Government of Sweden.
