The Cook Islands' return to tradition

Fishing Feature

Story and pictures by Paul Miles

Tomasi Bula (name has been changed) is a Fijian who has lived in the Cook Islands most of his life. When he wants to fish for his supper, instead of wandering down to the beach as he used to, he has to walk half a kilometre beyond the boundaries of the ra’ui - a marine reserve. Not far. But Joe is not happy.

“This rau’i is useless,” he fumes. “The family’s wealthy and don’t need to fish. They have a tourism business and just want to keep fishermen out of the water where the tourists swim and snorkel.” To support his claim that they are not as environmentally-minded as may be assumed by dint of’ having established a traditional conservation area, he cites the time he found the land-owner carting away two truck loads of sand from the beach. “No one else is allowed to take away sand”

Sour (sea) grapes? But Joe seems to be in the minority. Perhaps because tourism is Cooks’ biggest income earner, most people seem happy with the traditional fisheries management system revived after 50 years. Chris Wong, chief executive of Cook Islands Tourism Corporation said of the five ra’ui that comprise just eight per cent of Rarotonga’s lagoon area, “it’s been one of the most positive moves towards sustainable tourism development”.

Ra’ui - a traditional way of conserving resources, whether in sea or on land - are still common in the outer islands of the Cooks, but due to increasing westernisation and a decline in traditional values, the practice died out in Rarotonga in the 19505. Two years ago in February, it was revived “We’d noticed a depletion of marine life in our lagoons. Where we’d always had a bounty of fish in our villages, we now had very little,” said Te Tika Mataiapo Dorice Reid, a clan chief and president of the Kotou Nui - a group of traditional leaders. While she doesn’t have to rely on fishing - she too is a wealthy tourism operator - Reid was keen to find ways of calling marine ra’ui to be reinstated. “It had been a long time.

We didn’t know if we could do it using our traditional mana (respect).”

New Zealand Overseas Development Assistance initiated meeting with the Kotou Nui, the Ministry of Natural Resources, NGOs and other stakeholders and funds were committed to

“plan and market a campaign”, said Reid, revealing one way in which the revival of this traditional system has had to be married with modem systems.

It is also through “social marketing”, rather than superstition, that adherence to the ra’ui is being promoted. While Reid acknowledges that there’s still an element of belief in the supernatural - she tells the story of a man who disobeyed a ra’ui in the past and was blinded by his speargun - those involved in the ra’ui know that education is the key.

“We want an understanding of the benefits for people to support the ra’ui for their own beliefs - not to be frightened,” she says. There is no legislation that makes it illegal to fish in ra’ui.

Rather education and awareness and other “modem” marketing techniques such as clearly worded bilingual signs at the borders of the ra’ui in place of the traditional coconut leaf. The Ministry of Natural Resources has been surprised by how much communities want to be educated

about their own local environment. “We never realised how concerned people are,” said Ben Ponia, director of research at the Ministry of Marine resources.

The ministry is responsible for carrying out education and awareness and also monitors the ra’ui to see if there really is any improvement. A high-tech computer programme has the areas, which average 20 hectares, mapped out.

Although two years is “too soon to really see” the monitoring team have noticed different effects in the different ecosystems of the reserves. “In one area - Nikao -, we’ve seen invertebrates such as trochus, clams and sea urchins increase hugely in population.

“People talk of fish eating out of their hands.”

With the Cooks so dependent on tourism, the economic benefits of an improved environment are obvious. But the ministry is keen to promote the social as well as economic importance. It’s not known how many of Rarotonga’s population Continued next page

Continued from previous page of 8000 or so are subsistent or semi-subsistence fisherpeople but many do appreciate the advantages of the reserves. “It’s improved my fishing,” says Tane Terekia, 36. He fishes twice a week for his family and does not have the slight inconvenience of ra’ui bordering his beachfront home. “The ra’ui provide good breeding grounds for the fish.”

It is because of scientific methods have proved that some areas - known traditionally are indeed better breeding grounds than others, that many advocates of the present ra’ui wanted to change the tradition of moving of lifting ra’ui after six months to two years. Especially as modem fishing techniques can so quickly eradicate any improvements.

The two-year anniversary was celebrated in three areas of Rarotonga lagoon last month. In the area of Tikioki, at the village where Reid is chief, the ra’ui was lifted on its second birthday of February 1. On the same day a neighbouring larger area of the lagoon was placed under ra’ui for five years, while a portion of the original ra’ui was made a ra’ui mutukore or permanent sanctuary. “We’ve worked really hard to achieve this. I’m so happy with these results,” said Reid.

Other ra’ui were lifted for a period of one day to just under a week and restricted fishing allowed. The ra’ui were then reinstated. Limited harvesting of the introduced Trochus niloticus is being actively encouraged in some ra’ui. Nikao Village harvested its quota of four tonnes during the period the ra’ui was lifted. While the ra’ui is improving the quantity of marine life in the lagoon, an issue to be addressed now is the quality. Potentially fatal ciguatera fish poisoning is common form reef fish caught in some areas.

“An increase in piggeries around Rarotonga may lead to excess nutrients in the lagoon. This encourages the growth of algae containing toxins. Fish feed on these and this leads to ciguatera,” says Jacqui Evans of Worldwide Fund for Nature. WWF supports the Kotou Nui with an education and awareness campaign for the ra’ui. With Rarotonga restaurateurs able to source uncontaminated fish elsewhere, one wonders whether there will be the same degree of commitment from people involved in tourism to sort out the ciguatera problem as there has been for the ra’ui.

After all, combined with the fruits of conservation, it could be a boon for tourism: plenty of pretty fish that aren’t for eating. ■