Helping villages like Kavewa realize what they’re blessed with—and protect it by addressing localized threats—is critical to WWF’s community-led approach to natural resource management along the Great Sea Reef and throughout the Pacific.
“These communities have a vast knowledge, things we don’t learn in classrooms,” says Apolosa Robaigau, a community development officer with WWF-Pacific. “Working with them, learning from them,” he says, “is the best experience.”
Indigenous peoples have custodial ownership of most land in Fiji and control customary fishing areas known as qoliqoli. Robaigau helps communities interpret the issues they face and create management plans for their lands and waters that marry traditional knowledge, often passed down orally, with scientific data, like that gained through biological surveys.
WWF acts as a convener, says WWF’s Malani, “bringing together communities and government stakeholders in a participatory process to put together district-wide management plans.” The communities drive the priorities, and the plans allow decision-makers at community and national levels to arrive at informed choices about natural resource management.
WWF initiated this consultative process in the district of Nadogo, which includes Kavewa and nine other villages, in 2018. In late 2022 district representatives unveiled a fisheries management plan that includes marine protected areas, new fishing regulations in line with national policies, and proposed mangrove restoration areas.
Then in 2023, the district took the historic step of declaring two uninhabited islands in its qoliqoli, Katawaqa and Nukuvadra, as community protected areas, safeguarding intact mangroves and Fiji’s largest turtle nesting site.
The people of Kavewa have worked with WWF on turtle conservation and research for more than two decades. But whereas once decisions were made largely by traditional, male leaders, now women and young people increasingly have a say in determining community priorities. And the inclusivity of the process is no accident: WWF facilitates community workshops and intergenerational discussions as part of a concerted effort to engage marginalized groups like women and young people in the process.
The current work is different, says Saviri, who in addition to being headman of Kavewa also serves as district representative for Nadogo. For example, he says, “It’s actually a first for me and my team to . . . learn from our women the different species and fishes that are found in these areas.”