Local women start coastline rehabilitation

Main Stories

By LUKE KAMA
A WOMEN’s group at Pari village in Central has launched a project on mangrove and coral reef rehabilitation.
The Pari Women’s Development Association has embarked on planting mangroves along the coast of Pari, including a nursery, and transplanting coral on reefs along their coastline.
Association president Geua Sasala said the coral reef rehabilitation was the first along the coastal Motuan villages.
“As coastal people, we depend on the sea for food and income,” Sasala said.
“We depend on them for our livelihood.
“But it is important to know that those very marine animals we depend on, depend on something else — and that is the coral reefs and the mangroves.”
She said the short-term benefit of the project was to empower women and youths to participate in the project, earn an income and provide awareness on the environment.
The long-term benefit was to increase the fish stock.
“Destruction to coral reefs by dynamite fishing, industrial and human waste and the cutting down of mangroves has seen a decrease in the fish stock,” Sasala said.
“We must act now so that these resources continue to meet our needs in the future.”
The project is funded by the UNDP and supported by the National Fisheries Authority, Conservation and Environment Protection Authority and community-based NGOs.