Sea Cucumber Moratorium and Livelihood Diversity in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT

Livelihood diversity factors such as flexibility within fisheries, geographical mobility, reallocation of fishing effort into the broader economy, and the non-material benefits that fisheries provide are important areas of research in marine policy. We use two small-scale fisheries related socio-economic surveys of communities in the Tigak Islands of Papua New Guinea. The first conducted 5 years before a ban on the harvesting of sea cucumbers was imposed and the second from the present day, 5 years after the initiation of the ban—with the objectives of exploring changes in household fishing strategies (types and numbers of species targeted) and to identify any important socioeconomic factors that help explain those changes. Fishing's contribution to total household income has increased significantly (p = 0.019) up from 61% in 2004 to 73% in 2014 with the percentage of female residents living in a household now positively and significantly (p = 0.018) associated with fishing income. The average number of species categories targeted per household increased insignificantly while households with more women are significantly (p = 0.018) less likely to target more species than households with more men. Moreover, customary management practices contribute to this difference. Together, these results show that households are not worse off financially 5 years after the ban on sea cucumber harvesting and that gendered seascape use has implications for the role of livelihood diversity as a marine policy tool.

KEYWORDS:

• customary marine tenure
• fisheries moratorium
• gender in fisheries
• livelihood diversity
• small-scale fisheries

Acknowledgments

Firstly, thank you to the two anonymous examiners for their positive and constructive comments that have improved this paper considerably. We are most grateful to the people and leaders of the Tigak Islands for allowing us to work in their communities and for participating in this research. Thanks to the Nago Island Mariculture and Research Facility for providing accommodation as well as a motor boat for data collection; the National Fisheries Authority for providing access to the original 2004 survey data; and the Nature Conservancy for providing air travel and visa related expenses. Thanks very much to Mr. Ian Ling Stuckey a former Governor of New Ireland Province for making the time to discuss political and development contexts as well as the CMT arrangements of the Tigak people. Finally, we are very grateful to Mr. Tony Pukuntap, our Research Assistant for his insightful suggestions and incredible boat driving skills. “Won bel em stap.”