Forestry taps into fish farming

COVER STORY

By FAY DUEGA
PAPUA New Guinea Forest Authority (PNGFA) through its’ implementation arm the National Forest Service (NFS) has gone into fish farming as an incentive to attract landowners to give their land for tree planting.
The Ulabo Tree Plantations Project in the Huhu Local Level Government (LLG) of Alotau District in Milne Bay is the first to introduce the concept with seven fish ponds already established since Ulabo began this project in March this year.
The owners of the fish ponds are: Bennerd Bart, Upatau Elementary School, Liliuna Yaune, Mathias Issac, Richard Isaliya, Tani Gaileko and Robert Stevens.
Ulabo, through project supervisor Philip Maniho, established its fish pond in March this year to be a supplier of fish fingerlings to interested tree farmers and any other locals.
Maniho is putting into practice lessons he learnt from a workshop he attended in Japan in 2015 with the theme being ‘Community Participation in Plantation Development’.
“Most of the sites we went to as part of the workshop were not just about plantation development, but collaborating with other agencies, for plantation development,” he said.
The fish pond at Ulabo was set up on a swampy area.
“This used to be a swampy area in this nursery set up. All the run-off from our nursery beds always pile up here and when we are mowing the lawn, this area is normally left out. Saban Enterprise Ltd, the company harvesting mature trees at Ulabo, came and dug our fish pond at our request.

“PNGFA plans to commercialise Ulabo Plantations which means more land for plantation development in order for the project to be sustainable.
“However, when I arrived at Ulabo in 2018, I saw that people were not willing to give their land for plantation development. We then ventured into a study to identify areas to improve for plantation development.
“One of the areas we identified was the need to collaborate with other state agencies. National Fisheries Authority is one of them – thanks to Bubuleta Farm in Milne Bay, and Huhu LLG. The LLG actually invested K50,000 in the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) for inland fish farming for its people but they did not know about the arrangement.
It was by chance that we came across this when we went to NFA to buy fingerlings after constructing the fish pond, and at Bubuleta, we were told that if you are from Huhu, you will get them free.
“NFA then came and inspected our fish pond and were satisfied with it so delivered 156 fingerlings to the Ulabo project free of charge since the Ulabo project deals daily with the Huhu people.
Unfortunately, 2 died so we had 154, and from that, we now have 10,000-20,000 fingerlings here.
We have already supplied almost 5,000 fingerlings to several of our tree farmers. Knowing that forestry is a long-term crop, we have to come up with alternative sources of income for our landowners.
However, it’s not only landowners we are helping to set up fish ponds for, but also our locals,” Maniho said.
He continued: “The thing that encouraged me to introduce to our landowners fish farming in ponds in partnership with forestry and plantation development was when Sharon from Bubuleta told me about one of the original fish farmers in Milne Bay who brought in 100 fishes to a commercial centre one day and people bought one fish each for K10 and he walked away with K1,000 – in a day.
“With our inland fish farming, we don’t feed them with chemicals or anything artificial. It’s all organic, so the market here is for organic fish produce.
“After working in the field, we return with termites found, or on weekend trips, we stop on the road when we see termites, collect them, put them on the vehicle and bring them to the pond and feed the fish.

Some of our workers have kaukau (sweet potato) patches where we grab the leaves and also feed the fish. No money spent so the income is 100 percent profit.
It’s just sweat and sacrifice in the initial stage of constructing the fish pond but otherwise, if you have time to feed them, you feed them. Otherwise, the fish feed on algae and other organic matters inside the pond.
“For the project, most of our time is in plantation development.
This (fish farming) is something we do after hours and it’s fun at the same time as on the weekends, when we don’t want to go out, we bring our hook not to catch them to feast but just for fun.
We catch them, then release them back into the pond. The kids are very fond of this. It’s something we all come to appreciate and do as a pastime – off our normal work routine so quite interesting too.
“The fish pond is the breeding ground. The distribution of fish fingerlings is done from a small pond made from an old tank previously used for water catchment but the top part was removed and the bottom part is now used as storage.
Currently there are between 100-500 fingerlings in the small tank so whenever people come and ask us for fish after hours, we just net them, put them in the bucket and give them to the farmers free of charge.
People say, how much will we buy them for but being a state entity, we cannot charge our landowners.
“We got our fingerlings in March this year, and it’s November now. We now have heaps of fingerlings so I told the landowners to build their fish ponds so we can supply them because the supply is more than the demand.

Hopefully by the end of this year, there would be a lot more fish pond farmers, especially from our tree farmers,” Maniho said.
Super Tilapia is the species currently being raised at Ulabo, thanks to the Bubuleta Agriculture station and Huhu LLG.
The three other species at Bubuleta are Tilapia, Carp Fish and Super Carp Fish.
Maniho added: “The database we collect here will be given back to Fisheries for their reporting purposes. Our aim in fish pond farming is to provide short term income to our farmers.
Regarding the size of the pond, Mr. Maniho said: “This fish pond specifications are from an experience from my homeland Goroka, Eastern Highlands province.
The Super Tilapia and Super Carp Fish are species that grow a depth of not more than the knee height of your body.
The soil you dig up can be used as the wall around the fish pond against any spill off or overflow of water.
We are more into distribution here and the fish pond was constructed by machine and not by men, thanks to Saban Enterprise, so it’s more than the knee height depth.
“But our advice to our farmers is your fish pond must be below your knee height. It must have an inlet of water, and drain out at the bottom.
Most of them are building their fish ponds on swampy areas, which is also encouraging because what are you going to do on your swampy areas so building your fish ponds there is good for landuse purposes.
With the assistance of the NFA at Bubuleta, the Ulabo team was given fingerlings free of charge and so far they have supplied seven different fish ponds set up by interested locals. Apart from Mr. Maniho, I interviewed two other fish pond owners and this is what they had to say:

William Isaliya , head teacher of Upatau Elementary School
Our fish pond was established by the Ulabo project and we are so proud and honoured that we have this project here and are looking forward to improving and building it up so we can have more fishes.
The fish pond had 101 fish supplied by the Ulabo project which we were so happy about.
Unfortunately, one has been taken away by an eagle so currently we have 100 fish in our pond in our school. Every morning students every morning bring feed and throw them in.
We love and enjoy watching the fish come up and feed.
We are also establishing another pond here on my right. Then we’ll maybe get one of the fish from here and put it in the new pond or if Philip and the crew wish to give us some more fish, we would supply this other pond too.
We look forward to dig and line up some more fish ponds out here because we know that this will really support the school solve its problems in terms of keeping the school going.
We are so excited about this fish pond project and look forward to making it bigger and better.
The fish pond was established three months ago and the fish are three months old and as big as the palm of my hand. And I tell you, don’t hesitate to tap into this. Forestry can do more of this – and assist you in one way or the other. Alotau people, and PNG, if you are reading this, fish ponds or fishery could be one of the best business avenues that you can tap into.
At Upatau Elementary School, we believe in this project and look forward to building these children to really grasp this idea, take ownership of it because we know not all of them will be working in offices with high class jobs. Most of them will return home and this is where they can get themselves assisted one way or the other to really utilise their land, not only to grow trees but also to support them in other projects like this. And fish ponds would be one of those best ones to get into.
Upatau Elementary School has 43 pupils, two elementary teachers and four early childhood development (ECD) teachers. ECD sees students from ages 3-5 enrolled. They then go on to do their elementary prep whichcaters for six-year-olds.

Councillor Liliuna Yaune
The good thing about making a fish pond is it can be dug either manually or by using a machine.
Here in the ward we are digging them ourselves,” says Councillor Liliuna Yaune who is a tree plantation owner.
He is the Gibara ward councillor and chairman for Forestry, Fisheries and Agriculture in the Huhu LLG.
“Fish in the pond can be harvested in both rough or calm weather. We don’t need to go out to the open sea to look for fish.
“The fish is right near our houses or where our farms are. And we don’t need lots of technology to harvest the fish.
“We just get down there and throw either a fishing line or a small net that we can construct ourselves either traditionally or buy from the shops to harvest the fish.
“Sometimes we have unexpected visitors and we run around looking for protein for them. With a fish pond, you will just walk out, grab a fish and come and cook it and feed your visitor.
“Fish is nutritious and healthy and can either be caught and eaten by the owner and his/her family or sold for cash.
“The returns for a fish pond are quicker as the fishes can be harvested after three months.”
Yaune has been carrying out awareness in his ward for 52 ponds to be set up so one pond could be harvested per week from January until December following a timetable showing when each fish pond owner would harvest their fish to sell.
Apart from this, the pond owners can also sell to others, but ensure they can meet the demand when their turn on the calendar comes around.
“We can also approach business houses such as hotels, restaurants and shops in Alotau to sell our fishes to them.
“I’d also like the LLG to eventually participate at the provincial and national level because the income from the fish sales will be good.
“Fish farming is worthwhile and is better than doing nothing in the villages or wards.
“I also urge everyone to participate well in this because it brings in money quicker and is very beneficial.
“If you can harvest 500 fish per pond and sell them at K1, that is K500 straight cash in the pocket in a day
K500 today will be very beneficial to any household, especially when it comes to school supplies including uniforms, etc.”

Background to tree plantations
Most tree species take longer to grow before maturity for harvest. This discourages people from giving their land for PNGFA to work in partnership with the landowners for forest plantation development.
For years, the NFS has been encouraging those who want to give their land for tree planting to do inter-cropping, i.e., to plant other crops alongside trees so as to benefit from the shorter-term crops while they wait for the trees to mature.
Balsa is currently said to be the only commercial tree species in PNG that can be harvested within three to five years but it can only be found in certain parts of the country, especially in New Britain.
The other commercial tree species take over 15 years before they are ready to be harvested.
It is with this in mind that the NFS’ Ulabo project started promoting the construction of fish ponds as an incentive to those who want to give their land for tree planting.

• Fay Duega is the public relations officer at the PNG Forest Authority.