Cepa to develop marine guide

THE Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (Cepa) is embarking on developing a step by step guide for establishing marine protected areas in Papua New Guinea, an official says.
Joe Opu, a local marine expert with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (Jica), said developing the guide was part of the new policy on protected areas which Cepa was implementing in partnership with Jica. He said the new policy was recently endorsed by the Government and Bootless Bay
in Central has been chosen as the pilot site for implementing the project.
“We believe that through the successful completion of this project, the process can be replicated throughout Papua New Guinea in assisting local communities in setting up marine protected areas,” Opu said. He said the project sites had a wide range of issues that included environmental degradation causing ecological imbalances, influx of human settlements along
the narrow coastal fringes, overfishing in the mangroves and inter-tidal zones, and proposed major
developments including a new wharf and a fuel terminal, among others.
Opu said there was no coordinated effort from bottom up or top down planning to take all the above issues into account and develop a plan to compromise the fragile marine environment.
“Therefore, we had an inception workshop last week that brought together key stakeholders to discuss and recommend ways forward to address the above issues,” he said.
Opu said the participants established network for Bootless Bay conservation initiative where they would have series of workshops and information exchange.
“From the workshop, stakeholders’ interests in the bay were identified and Tahira Mangrove area was further zoned in for bird watching, research activities and an interim working committee was formed to provide technical advice and input into the project,” he said.