Mamanuca Resorts celebrate World Fisheries Day
The World Fisheries Day celebration serves as an important reminder that we must focus on changing the way the world manages global fisheries to ensure sustainable stocks and healthy ocean ecosystem. World Fisheries Day is celebrated annually on the 21st of November every year which serves as a platform to draw attention to overfishing, habitat destruction, and other serious threats to the sustainability of our marine and freshwater resources, highlight the critical importance to human lives of water and the lives it sustains.
Mamanuca Environment Society worked closely with several of its member resorts in celebrating the world marked event. These include Mana Island Resort and Spa, Castaway Island Resort, Malolo Island Resort and Likuliku Lagoon Resort. At Mana Island Resort and Spa, the celebrations were held in conjunction with its monthly E – DAY. It was celebrated on the 21st of November. Coral planting, turtle tag and release were activities of the day to mark the event. A juvenile turtle was tagged and released to mark the event and was witnessed by Mana guests, staff and students of Mana SDA Primary School. The turtle had spent a couple of months in the Mana Turtle Rehabilitation pond after it was found injured on the beach. A short briefing on the significance of the world mark event highlighting the best practices and guidelines during this sea turtle nesting season and the importance of rehabilitation program for injured turtles at Mana Island Resort as contribution towards the Fiji Sea Turtle recovery plan.
At Castaway Island Resort. The world Fisheries day was celebrated in conjunction with the resorts weekly Environment Thursday program The display booth containing marine awareness materials for guest and staff was set up, a briefing was conducted by MES staff on the importance of the marine ecosystem, followed by a guided snorkel conducting Butterfly fish count at the Castaway house reef. The guests also got to learn about the characteristic of butterfly fish population and how they are associated with healthy coral reefs. The programme ended with a guest awareness marine presentation in the evening highlighting endangered marine species, dangerous marine organisms and conservation efforts in the region.
At Malolo Island Resort, the world marked event was celebrated on the 21st of November, 2014. The resort staff and guest took time out to celebrate the event by doing coral planting and underwater clean up. According to an in-house guest, Mr. Hajiv, the coral planting activity was interesting and fun in such a way that it teaches his kids the importance of marine life. “I really enjoyed the coral planting activity as it teaches my children the value of protecting the marine environment”, Mr Hajiv said.
At Likuliku Lagoon Resort, the Fisheries Day was celebrated on the 25th of November. The world mark event was celebrated together with the Marine Environment Day activities. The event was celebrated by doing underwater clean up and Crown of Thorns removal. Resort staffs and guest took time out to take part. According to an in-house guest, Mrs. Tiffany Thompson, removing crown of thorns – a natural predator of coral is an excellent environmental activity that promotes survival of coral reefs.
Mamanuca Environment Society hopes to continue to promote the importance of sustainable management of natural resources through education and best practices in resorts and local communities including schools in the Mamanuca region.
