Shark Report Fiji - brilliant Job by Art!

Yes this would be a pile of Fiji Bull Sharks - epic pic by DaMary. Click for detail!

Nice!

First time I see it - but I had heard about it as it has been doing the UW film festival circuit for a while now, and finally, Ocean Geographic has posted it online. 

If I remember correctly, Ed Snijders was only here for a couple of days so the images are what they are - so thanks to Arthur for adding all of the substance with his rather stellar interview. Art is not with us anymore but has moved on to CORAL where he is spearheading their Fiji Shark campaign.

Enjoy!

As to the forefathers having protected their reefs?

Well yes, maybe, sometimes.

But now, things have changed.

The village populations have grown - but the fishing grounds have not, meaning that the pressure by mere subsistence fishing is now too big. And to top it off, fishing has now become a commercial business whereby the fishermen are now catching many more Fish than they would require for their own consumption, and the reefs are increasingly being affected by anthropogenic threats like pollution, physical habitat degradation all the way to Global Warming and Acidification.

The FLMMA?

It's the continuation of the tabu tradition, and if the map alone were an indication for its success, things would very much be on the mend.
But those locally protected marine areas are not legislated, and their scientific monitoring and enforcement are generally poor - so much still needs to be done to turn them into effective management and conservation tools. As always, it's a matter of disposing of the necessary resources - but more than that, it's a matter of accountability and there, things do not look good.
That is one of the reasons why the SRMR is not part of FLMMA.

But it is a beginning and as such, certainly nice.

A lot of good people are working on this, so at least, there are grounds for hope.

As always, we shall see!