MPA's in the Morovo Lagoon

MPA stands for Marine Protected Areas. Such concept is no novelty to us in Australia but what may seem a relatively simple undertaking in our country (despite the strong lobbies of recreational and commercial fishermen, for example on the Great Barrier Reef) is much more complex in the Solomon Islands.

Marine protected areas in fact are no novelty to Solomon Islanders either, but the islanders have mostly forgotten this. Traditionally, the chiefs were also closing certain reefs areas to protect them from fishing for periods of time and let them replenish. In older times, the chiefs had more power than nowadays and their will was respected. Recently though, there has been a drop in leadership quality within many communities and the push by outside initiatives is necessary to help conservation. As part of its water quality monitoring of the Morovo Lagoon, the University of Queensland team found out that fishing practices were the predominant threat to the coral reef ecosystems and that there was a need to reduce harvesting to help the reef recover. So they pushed for the communities to create a number of MPA’s. A tedious work undertaken by the UQ team with local boat driver and community educator Morgan.

Most people live on or by the water and use the resource



Though very traditional, fishing by a growing population pressures the reef



Morgan is helping the local villagers marking their MPAs with rope and buoys. Lots of buoys are needed shaping a very well defined line, says Morgan, because if only one or two mark the corners, they are likely to get stolen. This is one of many other difficulties and oppositions to the establishment of MPAs. Jealousy and greed are crippling the process, with some community members gossiping that Morgan is personally benefiting from the MPAs. Many of these MPA projects do not have their own dynamism: too often, an NGO comes in, provides all materials and does it all. As a result, people do not appropriate the project fully and if the NGO resigns activity in the area, MPA does not continue. The lack of good leadership is often the problem.



If no longline fishing buoys are available, a clever way to make some floats is to use bamboo stick, ballasted with cement at the bottom. A small flag is strapped at the top.



Morgan conduct underwater monitoring training sessions


In each MPA, regular monitoring is conducted by trained locals. For fish and coral census transects, a simple exercise for a marine bio in Oz, takes a bit of patience to train the locals. But they have the advantage of knowing their reef perfectly.


In particular, the overharvesting of grazing fish, enabled excessive algae cover to impend on coral growth, leading to coral death and the loss of habitat for other species of fish.


Together with excessive nutrient and sediment input from erosion caused by logging, macroalgae are getting a boost to invasion after every major rain event. With Morovo lagoon being very enclosed, with its double barrier, plumes get trapped inside, covering the coral with layers of mud.


Of course this is intermittent and in dry periods, the rivers are pristinely clean


Going up one of the rivers on Vangunu with driver Morgan



But the damage created by large ares of clear fell land is obvious in heavy rainfall. This reef is straight of the oil plantation of Meresu on SE Vangunu

Jericho Harbour, Kula Gulf, New Georgia

Oct 5th
Jericho
S8º 07.398 E157º 19.989
The winds have died overnight but there was nothing more satisfying than lifting up anchor without starting the engine and slowly exiting Mbaeni harbour at 2 knots of speed! Creeping along to round the NW coast of New Georgia, a few surprisingly large buildings appeared: the churches built by the CFC (Christian Fellowship Church). Tacking in light winds in the Kula Gulf, a nice flat body of water that lays between Kolombangara and New Georgia, KUNA took 6 hours to cover less than 20 miles.


Cloud formation over Kolombangara


The valley into the crater of the Kolombangara is clearly visible

Didn’t get to go to Paradise (another very populated CFC village) this time as a huge squall helped creeping another few miles:

The clouds accumulated over New Georgia generated just enough wind for KUNA to make way at first, then suddenly picked up to 15 knots, getting KUNA to 7 knots of speed in zero visibility due to bucketing rain!! Far too fast near the harbour entrance of Jericho. Though there are no boats around, the unsurveyed reef areas are always a daunting prospect but the entrance was wide and straight.

The soundings in the middle of the channel on Dirk’s Sieling guide are accurate but the mud bank comes up very quickly just beyond the village so slow down and drop the pick in about 7-10 m to keep some swinging room! Very few yachts visit this village so the excitement of the kids on the shore was huge.

Arriving in Jericho...
There is no privacy to be had as this anchorage, which is just 100 m off the village. Just a good stopover and fruit and veg can be traded but watch that the kids don’t try to sell the golden papaw for 30 or 40$sols!!! Soon enough the KUNA was surrounded by a cohort of young men in canoe. The turkey brain age, they call it here: 12 to 25 years old, these just didn’t have much conversation so everyone sat quietly looking at eachother in the eyes, but all were good and didn’t ask for anything, they were just happy to be near the yacht. I’ve got used to that uncomfortable silence from shy visitors by now, and later a few educated women came to have a chat. There is a local canoe builder there too, who was very curious of the plastic kayak.

In the morning, the women depart for Noro market, with a cargo load of vegetables

Second visit to Nukufero, North West Russell

KUNA anchored at Nukufero -


West Bay



Nukufeo inlet map -

S9º01.719 E159º04.830 marks the passage through the reefy entrance of this deep inlet. The Garmin electronic chart above is not very exact (the paperchart is not rectified for WGS84), this is why the waypoint sits on the reef! The reef extends on either side, and has very shallow spots so enter in good sunlight. The village side is marked by a stick, but stay well clear as it is for canoe draft! One can anchor in the bay on the northern side of the inlet in about 15m , opposite Samata village, but the holding, on hard rubble, was pretty average. This spot is pretty protected, though so it still would be safe in light NE- SE winds.



Having been in and out of this reef guarded inlet during the BBC crocodile project, it was easy to revisit it, this time with the excitement of sailing the flat waters all the way to Nukufero, and the joy of finding deep mud and all round protected anchorage!! While it was very stuffy there in May, the August tradewinds reached all the way, providing a fresh breeze and no mosquitoes, yay! This pristine mangrove anchorage with views over the rainsforest of Pavuvu is most peaceful, surrounded by bird and frog calls at night and it would be a good cyclone hole too.

looking for crocs in May!

S9º03.212 E159º05.218 is the Nukufero anchorage.
Any further south into the inlet, the mud bank rises rapidly to a depth of 1m, don’t go too far!

Conveniently placed between the village of Nukufero and its gardens, a traffic of canoes constantly comes in and out of a mangrove creek at the end of the inlet. Intercepting them to trade some foods is easier than going to the market! There is a market to in NUkufero on Saturdays and Wednesdays. It takes place in “the club” an old corrugated shed, at 7 am, just after morning prayer, so hurry up as soon as you hear the prayer bell and you may get a chance to buy some fresh bun cake (bread)! Other goods, apart form betelnut, are rare and generally intercepted and sold half was through the football field before their seller reaches the market! So I found easier to send the children to hunt of some fruit and vegetables and trade pencils!

A lot of people friendily visited the KUNA in their outrigger canoes, offering coconuts, etc.. none of them as timid and reserved as their melanesian counterparts, a friendly trait that I found even more on Tikopia!


going out with the girls!



Young girls even dragged me into their play area in the bush for eating germinated coconut and to teach me how to make Tikopian baskets-



Tunnelled by tall mangrove trees, a magic shaded creek extends 1.5 km inland from the end of the inlet and is a great dusk trip. With night guides on dug out canoes, we explored it for the BBC croc hunt, and it is certainly croc infested as every one we passed gave us a warning for crocodiles. In the next inlet East (Kukunaon Inlet) a young man who was diving at night on the coral to catch fish, was killed and they only found its legs, which they buried.


Later, a walk further up the river to a waterfall was guided by David and Muriel, a local young couple. Muriel is 26 and has not got any children yet (this, I was surprised about), which leaves her the time to come on strolls, unlike many other women.

David and Muriel




The waterfall is locater in between the two main hills of Pavuvu. There is very little gradient there, so it is not so specky but refreshing!!!!

Walking up the freshwater end of the river was certainly a bit daunting due to crocs, but most obvious threat was this little freshwater snail whose nasty spikes quickly got into my feet before I could put on any shoes.


A freshwater snail with a nasty spine!


The people in Nukufero are Polynesians, and very different from their melanesian neighbours in Samata village or Kukunaon Inlet.




so are their canoes, melanesian canoes do not have an outrigger, as below, a lot more dangerous in crocodile country.




People settled from Tikopia in the 1950’s when there was a lot of work in the coprah plantations. Although so remote from their mother island (800 miles away), they keep a close contact and their Tikopian customs. During the KUNA’s first visit, all were mourning the loss of their older chief number One, Late Kafika, on Tikopia. They keep contact with the mother island by HF radio, message are relayed via Lata in the Temotu Province. People from Nukufero rarely get the chance to visit their mother island, because transport by ship is virtually inexistent. People from Tikopia who come to Nukufero, rarely go back there either. The same tribal lines are present in Nukufero and Tikopia and I found fair resemblance between this Tafua man, Tomas, and Chief Edward so I asked if they were related and of course they were!

- Thomas in his house -
So, having visited Tikopia myself for two weeks, it was great to come back to Nukufero and bring them some news and photos. I burnt a DVD of pictures and a music CD with the sing sings I recorded on the beach with the Ipod and gave it to the community, which was well appreciated. The trick was for them to organize viewing sessions of the DVD and sharing generator fuel costs for this very purpose. I was amazed at how many DVD players were in the village (Tikopia has not even a CD player!)

a village house, on high posts

The negative impact of exposure to modern customs was problematic for Chairman Andrew, the community leader: whilst any alcohol is banned on Tikopia, and it is also in Nukufero, but young men found a way around by using Cava (the traditional Vanuatu root drink) and fermenting it into alcohol, sometimes adding quinine or other drugs to make the mix more explosive. Now the community is all getting off on it: in May, there was not a sound to be heard at night, but this time, party music was doofing in the distance every night the so called “Cava” was available and we’d sadly hear of sore heads the next day.

Russell revisit, on holiday now!

The Russells are an interesting group of islands, 60 miles North West of Guadalcanal. Once a volcano, it got eroded and sank under sea level, became covered in coral reefs but later got uplifted again dramatically, creating an amazing undersea geomorphology and some limestone islands.


Most of them are old reefs now sticking out of the water. One can still see the old corals. Once submitted to rains and winds, the coral erodes into some very sharp stones, making it virtually impossible to walk on it. Thankfully a few sandy beaches are there inside the shallow reef lagoons.


This steep ountry makes it all very hard for anchoring, as it is either too deep or to shallow, so the Russells only show a few anchorages, some may have to be only day ones, or if one is prepared to leave at any time the wind turns!

Note Chart UK1714, large scale of the Russells has an offset to WGS84 (GPS positions need to be corrected, read chart instructions before plotting!)

Ufaon Island lagoon slope
S09º04.11, E159º15.137


This lagoon is beautiful in sunny light, sparsed with bommies. For a day anchorage, it is possible to go and anchor on its edge in 3 m of water and have enough clearance over the bommies (if drawing less than 1.6 m, with a centreboard it would be easy!!). For a night anchorage, anchoring on the 45 degrees sand and rubble slope of the lagoon is possible in light southerly winds only! 10m of water can be found on a steep slope at approximately S09º04.11, E159º15.137.


While the KUNA was anchored there, the winds turned Easterly, then Northerly, with a squall, putting the boat right onshore, and though there was not much of a chance that the CQR was going to climb up the sandy slope, it was a somewhat disconcerting experience! With a shorter scope, there was still enough water under the keel but it was nice to move to the nearest more protected shoal in the channel between Faila and Ufaon Islands.

The first time we visited this gorgeous lagoon, I swam right around and that’s only the morning after we checked the anchor this time that a 3m crocodile swam around the KUNA about 70-100m away, unafraid in the daytime! Yet another disconcerting experience.

The narrow passage charted South of Kuaofa Point is about 10m deep. Dived with the right current, it has a lot of big fish, gropers, barras, batfishes, longtoms with some nice gorgonians and the outer wall is rich in small reef fishes. This place is probably far enough from the crocodile to swim (!).



Ufaon channel shoal
S09º03.554, E159º15.010 app.
13 m depth, or less (depends how close to the reef you feel like dropping the pic!), on sand and rubble with some coral heads though didn’t dive to have a look as this corner is the home of a crocodile.
This place in the channel is well protected from S to NE winds, and being an open corner, it leaves a fair swing room if the wind direction changes to North.
At both these anchorages, the children from the nearby village, at the coprah plantation, came around and could trade for a bit of bushlime and coconut but they quickly stopped bugging after KUNA showed up for the second time.

Crocodiles of the Weathercoast

The first flight attempt to AvuAvu near Lauvi lagoon was a failure: it is indeed hard to reach the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal in a small plane … due to weather! The local “airport terminal” there does not have a radio so there was no way to know that a huge rain cloud had formed, so when the plane arrived on the south Eastern side of the island, after flying over 1800m high hills, it was hit by a squall and the pilot had to climb high to escape the cloud. It was raining in the plane, which attest for the visibility at the airfield! So the pilot turned back as he was low in fuel.

Second attempt two days later was successful and the mass of pelican cases was happily transferred by quad and canoe to the small house of our host Fred Laku located on s trip of sand between the beach and Lauvi lagoon. A comfortable spot with an outdoor kitchen but the insects made the hammock in the garden more appealing!



Two canoe reccies proved that looking for a crocodile in the lagoon was like searching for a needle in a haystack, despite the fact that the four square kilometres body of water contains about 1500 of the buggers. The heavy rain had made the water level rise, removing any beach or visible haul out spot for them.

The lagoon from the air

vegetation not unlike the australian coast


One large dominant crocodile from the lagoon was recently killed by the locals and RAMSI police force: they baited a large hook with a dead dog, the crocodile ate it and later the RAMSI came and shot it. His skin was so thick that the bullets bounced several time. It was 15 feet long and when they open its tummy, the bone remains of two recent human victims were revealed. No doubt this crocodile deserved his fate. About 50 people are killed every year by crocodiles in the Solomons. See other blog entries about the problem (in May)


The crocodiles do not find enough food in the lagoon and are now crossing into the sea to find some other river deltas along the coast, where people live and have pigs and dogs (potential preys for the crocodiles).

Exploring the small island opposite the lagoon, we found that another large croc had elected his territory in the coral lagoon recently formed when the island was born 30 years ago in an earthquake. The thick and bushy vegetation and steep beach attest of the recent uplifting: before 1977 the island was a reef, emerging at low tide, and does not appear on marine charts!

look closer: it's camouflaged



The crocodile hauled out on the beach, making it easy to film and over a couple of days got accustomed to our presence. This first – and last!- shot marked the end of a 3000 miles crocodile search in the Solomons, yay!


some basket making session ... to prevent boredom...

May 6th A Crocodile reccie

Between Liapare Island and Vella Lavella, lays an
incredibly beautiful channel bordered by mangrove
with clear turquoise blue water running over sand
and coral. We boated through at night and saw the
eyes of one small crocodile glow in the torch beams.
Confirmed unfilmable.

The following day, after a couple of hours walk to
the closest village on Vella, the BBC croc hunters
learned that quite a few of the crocs can be seen in
a freshwater lake behind the village. Of course the
custom fee to see the lake was rather prohibitive and
had to be re-negociated. Accompanied by a bunch of
locals, the team made it to the lake, an old volcanoe
caldera lifted out of the sea surrounded by thick
forested shores growing on the limestone of the
uplifted coral reef.



Nested in old coral plate, the lake is surrounded by high cliffs.





Lots of fossils shells (young
fossils) are scattered through the forest and also
a pile of human skulls, remnants of the time of the
head hunters. (Not longer than a century ago, Solomon
islanders used to cuts head of enemy tribes members,
but I don't know the details of that custom).
Access to the custom hulls was agreed upon after long
deliberations and an extra fee which suddenly made
local villager Joel remember where the skull site was!