Mangroves For Fiji - Beqa Adventure Divers

Mangroves are the rainforests by the Sea, and equally threatened.
They are vital habitats that not only protect the coasts against tsunamis, hurricanes and Sea level change, but directly benefit the adjacent reefs by exporting life-building carbon and above all, by being the nursery areas of countless marine organisms from crustaceans all the way to Sharks. They are also largely overlooked excellent carbon sinks that sequester multiple amounts of carbon when compared to tropical and temperate forests.

2010 has been declared the Year of Biodiversity.
Beqa Adventure Divers are one of Fiji’s premier ecotourism operators and have decided to make a contribution. This is a privately funded project that combines the advantages of planting Mangroves with the advantages of offsetting one’s carbon footprint.

Global carbon trading is on the increase and BAD could have easily paid money to an intermediary who would have then financed a forest or windmills in a far away country. Being however beholden to Fiji, BAD has searched for a home-grown alternative, alas in vain.
BAD has decided to run such a project. See blog post

More information at  Mangroves For Fiji.

Long live the shark 

by Samuela Loanakadavu

Sunday, July 18, 2010

FIJI'S Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) is close to 1.3 million square kilometres compared to the land area of about 18,300 square kilometres.

With a population of about 850,000, more than half of our people live in rural areas - depending on land and sea for their survival.

Like most of the other parts of the Pacific, the most challenging food security towards the next 20 to 40 years is to sustain food production levels in line with food demand. In Fiji, marine lives are predominant given that we have more sea space than land. But too little has been done to protect it. EEZs are vast and the region is rich in coral reefs and marine life.

It also has unique biodiversity values.

Mangroves and coral reefs provide fish and shellfish for subsistence and commercial sale. Offshore waters provide fish for exports while coral islands and reefs support growing tourism industries.

In fact, our marine environment is under pressure from growing human populations and development.

Mismanagement of ocean resources is rife and new approaches are needed to assist communities, the private sector and national governments in sustainable development of marine resources.

Unfortunately, very few are taking their time to look into the very nature of our existence taking into account the livelihood of our children in the future.

While they enjoy their fish in meals, most are not aware of what is really happening to their food security.

The writing was on the wall in Galoa Island when I caught up with a group of man who had slaughtered 11 different sizes of two species of sharks.

I was stunned because I had never seen a large number of sharks caught in a single fishing trip in recent years.

It was also a shame to see the lack of awareness on what they were doing as their commercial need overgrew their care for the environment.

I discovered the problem was rooted in the lack of knowledge and mere ignorance.

It's a failure because there doesn't seem to be any laws against shark finning in Fiji and we probably have not considered the long term implications of the extinction of sharks.

Last year, Mike Neumann the owner of the Beqa Adventure Divers came to the fore advocating a ban on the shark fin trade. Mr Neumann believes sharks play a very important role in the survival of coral reefs which are home to other marine species.

"Sharks are keystone species, meaning they have a disproportionate effect on their environment relative to their biomass," he said.

"Such species affect many other organisms in an ecosystem and help to determine the types and numbers of various other species in a community."

More here on Fiji Times

More here on Beqa Adventure Divers blog

In Fiji, Dancing With Sharks - NY Times

In Fiji, Dancing With Sharks

By GREG WINTER

Published: January 17, 2010

THERE’S a moment when the sheer awe of being arm’s length from a procession of hungry sharks — so close that you lock eyes with each one as it blitzes by your head — gives way to a sudden burst of clarity, and all your thoughts coalesce into a single edifying idea: “Maybe I should duck.”

Scuba diving in Fiji, a collection of some 300 islands strewn across the South Pacific, poses a kind of recreational Sophie’s Choice for anyone with less than a month on his hands. Do I chase manta rays across the famed Astrolabe Reef off Kadavu Island? Can I make it to the pristine, remote waters between the big islands? What about the legendary soft corals carpeting the Great White Wall in the Somosomo Strait? Shark diving in Pacific Harbor, a couple of hours’ drive from the international airport on Viti Levu, elbowed its way onto my list because it offers a fairly certain chance of seeing what any honest diver will admit to yearn for: lots and lots of big fish.

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Fiji International Year of the Shark

As the hands of the clock approach midnight for Sharks, organizations working for their protection have joined forces and declared 2009 The International Year of the Shark.

As part of the International Year of the Shark, Beqa Adventure Divers and Shark Reef Marine Reserve have partnered with local and international organizations to offer you the Fiji Shark Conservation and Awareness Project.

The motion aims to raise global awareness of their imminent extinction and the oceanic crisis at hand.

Recent findings of the Global Shark Assessment indicate that at current rates of decline, extinction of the most threatened species of Shark is forecast in 10 to 15 years. In large regions, species that were once numerous have virtually disappeared, in a massacre comparable to that of the buffalo on the North American plains 200 years ago, but on a much larger scale. For example, studies of oceanic Sharks estimate 80 to 90% of heavily fished species are gone. Yet these intelligent animals are still fished intensively, and finned, usually while still alive, for shark fin soup.

DIVESHARE with Beqa Adventure Divers

Beqa Adventure Divers in Pacific Harbour, Fiji are the operators of what is known to be "The Best Shark Dive in the WORLD".

They have now started a DIVESHARE, the first of its kind in the Diving World.

Dive Share owners purchase the right to go diving with the BAD team for one week each during the next fifteen years. The entitlement is fully negotiable, enabling the owners to sell, gift or even rent it out, either as a whole or in yearly installments. There's even a double money-back Guarantee... dive share!

Want to know more? Check out the Q&A page and learn about Beqa Adventure Divers DIVESHARE.