Biodiversity Conservation Network
20. Biodiversity Prospecting in the Seas around Verata Tikina
Location: Verata Tikina, Fiji Partners: University of the South Pacific (USP)
The Rainforest Alliance
SPACHEEBCN Funding: $348,045 Partner Contribution: USP $100,000
MacArthur Foundation $35,000
WWF-South Pacific $10,000Grant Period: January 1, 1994 - December 31, 1998
What's at Stake?
Fiji has one of the best developed coral reef systems in the Pacific. Today, more than even the much touted rainforests, reefs are attracting attention as a source of novel chemicals that may hold cures for cancer, AIDS and drug resistant bacteria. Yet coral reefs are under severe pressure. Destructive natural processes such as reef bleaching and hurricanes have increased in recent years -- possibly due to global warming. Some fishers use poisons to stun and catch fish which kill the corals. Land-based activities such as forestry and agriculture lead to siltation which smother the reefs -- the foundations of the ecosystems.
The growing interest from pharmaceutical companies to prospect for chemicals with medicinal potential is a new source of potentially significant economic returns from marine resources. In general, the pharmaceutical company compensates the country for the intellectual property rights contained in its biodiversity in return for exclusive rights to screen the biodiversity for pharmaceutical compounds. If such screening leads to the development of a major drug, the agreements provide the host country with a share of the profits.
The University of the South Pacific (USP) and BCN are trying to set up bioprospecting agreements which benefit local communities rather than operating exclusively at the national level. Effective community-based coastal management can support biodiversity preservation as well as sustainable resource use. Fiji is a relatively small country and the project participants have close contacts with the appropriate government officials so the project has a good potential to influence government policy regarding prospecting issues.
1997 Update
In 1996 the project experienced a major set-back when our bioprospecting partner, SmithKline Beecham shut down their natural products branch just as we were about to finalize the deal. After a long search for a new bioprospecting partner and extensive negotiation, on 7 May 1997, the University of the South Pacific (USP) signed a bioprospecting agreement with the Strathclyde Institute of Drug Research (SIDR) based in Glasgow, Scotland. This agreement was subject to considerable scrutiny on a regional, national and international level, including review by a panel of bioprospecting experts.
Rather than selling the plant and marine samples, these extracts are licensed for evaluation by a drug company. After one year, the samples may be further licensed by SIDR or returned. The USP in turn has an agreement with Verata Tikina, a county near Suva consisting of 7 villages, for priority supply of the organisms to be licensed. To date, about one hundred samples have been collected and supplied to SIDR from one sampling event. The expected cash benefit from these samples is approximately $US 20,000. The Verata Development Council will decide how to use this money after consultation with the project advisory committee.
As part of the project, USP students are learning how to evaluate extracts. Successful local screening of extracts and isolation of active components would greatly increase the potential returns from the commercial development of the active ingredient. Two screening methods have been developed to study the anti-cancer potential of these extracts. Efforts have begun to try to test the extracts for tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.
A highly successful two-week workshop in participatory, village-based biological monitoring was held in Verata in April. Local project staff and John Parks, BCN consultant, facilitated the workshop. The workshop generated such interest that, although only two representatives each from the seven Verata villages had been invited, twenty participants were attending by the end of the first week. Participants identified local marine resource management problems, developed action plans to meet these challenges and established monitoring plans to judge the success of these interventions. As part of this workshop, two tabu sites (off-limits areas) have been identified and approved by village meetings and leaders to help conserve biodiversity and also to allow comparison of the levels of organisms in harvested and nonharvested sites. The monitoring results will be reported to village meetings. Several monitoring exercises, counting a salt-water cockle important to the people of Verata have been carried out with excellent results.
The Government and NGO representatives who assisted in this workshop were impressed and enthusiastic. They felt the methodologies were effective for biodiversity conservation in Fiji, and asked for a training workshop to be held for representatives of relevant government departments and NGOs. This workshop was held in July. Thirty participants learned the techniques and theory of participatory biological monitoring methods and assisted the Verata people in a monitoring exercise.
On the policy side, in the first half of 1997, both USP and the government of Fiji approved detailed guidelines for research using biodiversity. We believe that these guidelines will help ensure that such research is carried out responsibly and that benefits are equitably shared. Participation in the BCN project has acted as a catalyst to speed the development of these policies and the international project advisory panel has made useful comments on the proposals in their draft form.
Success Stories
Strong leadership is a powerful force for change. Through his participation in various project workshops, Tomujani Boginivalu, the administrative leader of one of the seven Verata villages, has developed a passionate commitment to monitoring and sustainable resource use. Tomujani recently presented his concerns about coral harvesting in an area near Verata, to a Verata council meeting. The council endorsed these concerns, and presented a motion for a ban on coral harvesting to the Tailevu Provincial Council meeting, to which Verata belongs.
The council also asked the South Pacific Action Committee for Human Ecology and Environment (SPACHEE), which is the local NGO counterpart of the BCN project, to conduct a training workshop on the uses of coral. With the assistance of the Fisheries Department, the coral workshop was held for representatives of all Tailevu. The workshop recommended that coral harvesting cease in Tailevu and this was endorsed by the Provincial Council.
Malakai Tuiloa, the assistant director of the Fisheries Department in Fiji, was one of the 30 NGO and government representatives who participated in the workshop on the use of community-based participatory methods in resource management and monitoring. At the end of the meeting he declared, "In sixteen years of government service, I have never attended a workshop in which I worked like this with members of NGOs. I had previously viewed their intentions with suspicion but now realize they can be valuable partners in our conservation work."
All workshop participants were amazed at the skills of the Verata people -- their ability to monitor their resources and explain the importance of the results. The participants exclaimed that they thought such skills could only be developed through formal university education. The development of these monitoring skills certainly represents a major success for the project.
The Fisheries Department also called a meeting with the BCN project personnel to discuss the regulation of marine bioprospecting. The Department had previously allowed fairly unlimited collection of non-edible resources by researchers, not appreciating their potential worth. A policy of consultation has now been developed between the Department and USP to discuss any proposed marine collections.
Challenges
The major challenge of this project at this point is time. The project start-up was delayed due to protracted negotiations first with the pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham, which eventually dropped out of the project, and then with SIDR. Hence the project implementation period is only two years. The BCN project needs to complete many activities in a relatively short time. The level of activity needed to accomplish the project goals is often difficult to accomplish if we seek to respect the communities' many other demands on their time. Community members have busy schedules made even busier by often unexpected traditional obligations. We have sought to meet this challenge by having project meetings dovetail with scheduled village meetings, but these meeting times often change at short notice.
Lack of leadership in some villages is also a challenge. Two of the seven villages have seemingly less effective leadership than the others, and it is difficult to work through them to include the participation of members of their villages in tikina-wide activities. We hope to address this constraint by making them the focus of some of the socioeconomic development activities.
Author: Dr. Bill Aalbersberg is Professor of Natural Products Chemistry at the University of the South Pacific which operates in twelve Pacific island nations and has its main campus in Suva, Fiji. He has been on staff there for thirteen years. He first came to Fiji as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1970 and taught in rural Fiji and learned the local languages. He has welcomed the chance through the BCN project to combine his work with a long time interest in environmental matters and development as well as the chance to escape from the laboratory. Bill is also a food chemist and has recently published a book of nutrient composition of local island foods which he has helped analyze over the past decade.
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