The 85 participants included people representing communities from Makira, Malaita, Isabel, Central, Choiseul and Western Province, as well as environmental conservation and development practitioners, researchers, lawyers, provincial planning, fisheries and forestry officers and technical staff from the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources and the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Management.
Facilitated and coordinated by the Ministry of Fisheries, the Ministry of Environment, TNC and the World Fish Centre, the workshop was funded by the US-AID Coral Triangle Support Programme, through the World Wide Fund for Nature, (WWF).
The workshop is a first, intended to pave the way for collaborative relationships between all CTI stakeholders in the country.
The Coral Triangle Initiative was launched in 2007 and is a multilateral partnership to safeguard the region’s extraordinary marine and coastal biological resources.
The initiative spans six countries, including the Solomon Islands.
During the workshop, stakeholders will review community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) programmes in the Solomon Islands and identify current lessons learned that will feed into a best practice guide.
This guide will help with the implementation of community based natural resource management, including assessments, reviews and joint planning.
The workshop will also review proposed Protected Areas regulations, which have been drafted with WWF’s assistance, to support the Solomon Islands’ new Protected Areas Act, 2010.
By focusing on sustainable economic development, on food security and on marine resources conservation, CTI aims to help fragile ecosystems adapt, resist and recover from climate change.
Strategies include setting up marine protected areas, and reducing destructive fishing practices.
Going into its fourth day, the meeting has so far covered overviews of natural resource management in the Solomon Islands, mapping exercises, defining natural resource management in the SI context, as well as looking at lessons learned from conservation project sites.
It also considered the legislative framework for protected areas in Solomon Islands, and alignment with other relevant Acts, such as the Fisheries Act.
WWF Marine Officer Salome Topo said the Solomon Islands comprise one of the most intact and biologically rich oceanic archipelagos on Earth, with high rates of endemism (species not found elsewhere).
“However with a fast-growing population and few economic alternatives to escalating mining and timber industries and fisheries, pressure on our land and seascapes is immense.”
She said establishing a framework for legislating protected areas would be an important step for conservation.
“At present there are no formal protected areas in the Solomons. A legal structure for doing this is very important for future generations,” she said.
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