Why protecting coral reefs is more than just fisheries management

Sunil Prasad and Stacy Jupiter




What is the connection between healthy forests and healthy coral reefs? Answer: the two types of ecosystems are intimately linked by the networks of streams and rivers that originate in the highlands and drain into the sea.
With an intact forest lining stream banks, the canopy cools the streams to provide necessary conditions for abundant freshwater fish life. Additionally, the tree shadows enable the fish to hide from predatory birds. The roots of trees and forest shrubs stabilise the soil and prevent erosion, thus protecting water quality. Meanwhile, leaf litter dropped into forest streams forms the basis for an entire freshwater ecosystem food chain.
How does this affect coral reef communities? Surveys by Aaron Jenkins, programme director for Wetlands International-Oceania (WI-O) in Fiji, suggest that around 10-12% of Fiji’s coral reef fish use freshwater habitat at some stage in their life cycle. On the flip side, almost 97% of Fiji’s freshwater fish spend part of their life in marine or estuarine waters, which means that there is an extremely high degree of connectivity between the land and sea. 
One group of these fish is termed amphidromous, meaning that the eggs are fertilised in freshwater and then development of larvae (2-6 months) and hatching occurs in the sea. The larvae then re-colonise freshwater streams as juveniles and spend rest of the life cycle growing and feeding. This type of lifestyle is predominant on islands rather than continents and it is estimated that at least 88% of the endemic freshwater fishes in the Western Pacific are amphidromous species. Endemic species are those species which are unique to the country and are a very important part of the natural heritage.
“Fiji has 26 known endemic fishes from coral reef, estuarine and freshwater environments. Eleven of the endemics are found in freshwater and estuarine environments, and 75% of these are amphidromous fishes,” says Jenkins.
According to Jenkins, “The global extinction crisis that we are facing for many of the world’s biota is chillingly illustrated by the current plight of freshwater fishes, whose freshwater habitats are the most threatened and heavily utilised in the world”.
Studies by Jenkins and his team reveal that when forests adjacent to streams are degraded, the streams support fewer fish species, especially the migratory species.
“The mechanism for this is likely to be that removal of forest alters the stream habitat through increased erosion, increased temperature (lack of shade), decreased food availability, change of flow regime, removal of transitional nursery habitat, and increased susceptibility to pollutants which then reduces the availability of these watersheds to re-colonization by larvae,” explains Jenkins.
The factors listed above also destroy critical riparian and mangrove nursery and juvenile feeding habitats for important marine food fishes that spend their adult stages on coral reefs. Therefore, restoration of buffer zones along rivers and streams are essential for the restoration of watersheds to promote healthy fish assemblages.
Not only does forest degradation affect within-stream habitat for fish when forests are cleared or logged, exposed topsoil enters waterways during heavy rain. The sediment is then carried downstream and distributed within the marine environment via river plumes. Excessive sediment can bury corals and associated reef organisms, thus destroying precious habitat for reef fish and commercially valuable invertebrates, such as sea cucumber.
The situation may be exacerbated when river plumes contain high concentrations of nutrients from agricultural runoff. Scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science have shown that sediments will aggregate together in nutrient-rich waters to form “sticky flocs”, also known as marine snow. These large particles will settle on the seafloor and can smother small reef organisms, such as juvenile corals.
In order to address these issues, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), WWF and WI-O jointly received generous grants from the Moore and Packard Foundations in 2005 and 2007 to trial large-scale Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) projects in the Kubulau and Macuata districts of Vanua Levu.
As applied to Fiji’s unique islands environments, Ecosystem-Based Management calls for holistic conservation of a network of upstream forests areas as well as downstream estuarine and marine areas to protect the integrity of the entire ridge to reef seascape.
The communities of Kubulau and Macuata have been more than willing to develop protected area networks to protect their natural resources. “Kubulau has been experiencing perceived decrease in food fishes and since 2005 has been involved with the EBM project to address the issues” says Paulo Kolikata, the chairman of the Kubulau Resource management Committee.
Sanivalalati Navuku, socio-economic officer of WWF, explains how Ecosystem-Based Management differs from traditional Fijian management of marine resources, whereby coastal communities issue temporary closures of their customary fishing grounds.
“Historically, marine managed areas did not look at how the whole system is connected. They were based largely on traditional knowledge, not necessarily driven by conservation but for food security and livelihoods.”
He adds, “Ecosystem-Based Management incorporates those goals, but also uses science to understand the connectivity between adjacent ecosystems in order to prioritize areas for protection.”
A significant part of the project involves using scientific findings to educate local communities about the consequences of clearing forests and planting crops too close to streams. At a workshop in Naduri in May 2008, communities from the Mali, Sasa, Macuata and Dreketi districts were shown satellite images of brown, sediment-laden river plumes extending from the land over inshore reef habitats of northern Vanua Levu. The presentation resulted in a formal apology by the turaga ni koro (spokesperson) of the upstream villages to their downstream compatriots. This recognition of the linkage between terrestrial and marine habitats represents the first step toward community-driven catchment restoration, which may include revegetating river banks and estuarine mangroves, and protection of existing remnant forest habitat.
Fiji EBM is defined as “Preservation of functional integrity of Fiji’s ecoscapes through community based management”, with a project vision “Healthy People, Processes and Systems”.
The goal of ecosystem-based management is to maintain an Ecosystem in a healthy, productive and resilient condition so that it can provide the services humans want and need.
The 5 key messages of Fiji EBM are:
•    Successful EBM relies on cross sectoral management.
•    Upland and lowland communities need to manage resources together.
•    EBM protects habitat for all stages of life.
•    Improving land and fishing practices helps protect natural resources.
•    Public health and livelihoods depends on environmental health.
The Fiji EBM project is funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
The project is led by WCS, with the partners WWF-Fiji and Wetlands International.