What can the experiences of rural women in Solomon Islands teach us about innovation in aquatic food systems?

In Solomon Islands, women's groups play an important role in promoting socially inclusive development and women's empowerment. In this paper, we summarise the experiences of a 5-year participatory action research partnership to enhance rural livelihood activities based on aquatic foods. The women's savings groups that participated in this research identified solar-powered freezers as an innovation suitable to their skills and environment. The 12 freezers we used in our partnership to pilot this innovation had tangible benefits. More than 700 unique users accessed the freezers, 3900 kg of fish was stored and over USD6,000 was saved in total; however, accumulation of savings varied greatly between groups. The women's groups demonstrated that operating solar-powered freezers can be financially viable, and the innovation integrated well with their livelihood activities. This conclusion provides an alternative to dominant development narratives, which tend to focus on building large-scale infrastructure, and often exclude women. Existing marketing skills and cooperation were strengths on which the women built. Poor-quality technology was the biggest impediment to success. Solving this basic problem should be a priority for any future cold-storage initiative

Nourishing island food systems in Solomon Islands: Operational Plan 2023

The WorldFish program in Solomon Islands is organized around four main research pathways (see figure). The first three are the agreed-upon impact areas of WorldFish, which aligns toward our adopted goal from the Solomon Islands National Fisheries Policy 2019–2029 of the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR). The fourth research pathway places a deliberate emphasis on integrated planning and partnerships. Although WorldFish in Solomon Islands has many partners, we particularly integrate our research with MFMR to support national strategies toward its policy goal

Sinking Islands, drowned logic; Climate change and community-based adaptation discourses in Solomon Islands

2020 by the authors. The saltwater people of Solomon Islands are often portrayed to be at the frontline of climate change. In media, policy, and development discourses, the erosion and abandonment of the small, man-made islands along the coast of Malaita is attributed to climate change induced sea-level rise. This paper investigates this sinking islands narrative, and argues that a narrow focus on the projected impacts of climate change distracts attention and resources from more pressing environmental and development problems that are threatening rural livelihoods

Livelihoods and fisheries governance in a contemporary Pacific Island setting

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Inshore marine resources play an important role in the livelihoods of Pacific Island coastal communities. However, such reliance can be detrimental to inshore marine ecosystems. Understanding the livelihoods of coastal communities is important for devising relevant and effective fisheries management strategies. Semi-structured household interviews were conducted with householders in Langalanga Lagoon, Solomon Islands, to understand household livelihoods and resource governance in fishing-dependent communities. Households were engaged in a diverse range of livelihoods. Fishing, shell money production and gardening were the most important livelihoods. Proximity to an urban centre influenced how households accessed some livelihoods. Perceptions of management rules varied and different reasons were cited for why rules were broken, the most common reason being to meet livelihood needs. Current models of inshore small-scale fisheries management that are based on the notion of community-based resource management may not work in locations where customary management systems are weak and livelihoods are heavily reliant on marine resources. An important step for fisheries management in such locations should include elucidating community priorities through participatory development planning, taking into consideration livelihoods as well as governance and development aspirations

Patterns of catch and trophic signatures illustrate diverse management requirements of coastal fisheries at island scale in Solomon Islands

Coastal fisheries are a critical component of Pacific island food systems; they power village economies and provide nutritious aquatic foods. Many coastal women and men actively fishing in this region rely on multi-species fisheries, which given their extraordinary diversity are notoriously difficult to both characterize, and to manage. Understanding patterns of fishing, diversity of target species and drivers of these patterns can help define requirements for sustainable management and enhanced livelihoods. Here we use a 12-month data set of 8535 fishing trips undertaken by fishers across Malaita province, Solomon Islands, to create fisheries signatures for 13 communities based on the combination of two metrics; catch per unit effort (CPUE) and catch trophic levels. These signatures are in turn used as a framework for guiding suitable management recommendations in the context of community-based resource management. While a key proximate driver of these patterns was fishing gear (e.g. angling, nets or spearguns), market surveys and qualitative environmental information suggest that community fishing characteristics are coupled to local environmental features more than the market value of specific species they target. Our results demonstrate that even within a single island not all small-scale fisheries are equal, and effective management solutions ultimately depend on catering to the specific environmental characteristics around individual communities

Patterns of catch and trophic signatures illustrate diverse management requirements of coastal fisheries in Solomon Islands

Coastal fisheries are a critical component of Pacific island food systems; they power village economies and provide nutritious aquatic foods. Many coastal women and men actively fishing in this region rely on multi-species fisheries, which given their extraordinary diversity are notoriously difficult to both characterize, and to manage. Understanding patterns of fishing, diversity of target species and drivers of these patterns can help define requirements for sustainable management and enhanced livelihoods. Here we use a 12-month data set of 8535 fishing trips undertaken by fishers across Malaita province, Solomon Islands, to create fisheries signatures for 13 communities based on the combination of two metrics; catch per unit effort (CPUE) and catch trophic levels. These signatures are in turn used as a framework for guiding suitable management recommendations in the context of community-based resource management. While a key proximate driver of these patterns was fishing gear (e.g. angling, nets or spearguns), market surveys and qualitative environmental information suggest that community fishing characteristics are coupled to local environmental features more than the market value of specific species they target. Our results demonstrate that even within a single island not all small-scale fisheries are equal, and effective management solutions ultimately depend on catering to the specific environmental characteristics around individual communities

Map of Langalanga Lagoon, Solomon Islands.

<p>(A) Solomon Islands are located in the Western Pacific. (B) Langalanga lagoon is situated on the west coast of Malaita Province. (C) Many communities in the lagoon live on the high-water mark on artificial islands. (D) The lagoon extends south of the provincial capital Auki; twelve communities were included in the study.</p

Frequency distribution of mean weekly income.

<p>Reported household mean weekly income, in USD.</p

Livelihood diversity in Langalanga Lagoon.

<p>Percent of island and mainland households engaged in a number of livelihood activities.</p

Reasons for rule violation.

<p>Categories of reasons why resource management rules were violated.</p