Measuring Impact

Research that works for developing countries and Australia

 

Developing aquaculture based livelihoods in the Pacific Islands region and tropical Australia

Project ID:
FIS/2006/138
Collaborating Countries:
Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu
Project Locations
Commissioned Organisation:
James Cook University, Australia
Project Leader
Professor Paul Southgate
Phone: (07) 4781 5737
Fax: (07) 4781 4585
Email: paul.southgate@jcu.edu.au
Collaborating Institutions:
  • Secretariat of the Pacific Community, New Caledonia
  • WorldFish Center, New Caledonia
  • University of the South Pacific, Fiji
Project Budget:
$1,229,660
Project Duration:
01/10/2007 - 30/09/2011
ACIAR Research Program Manager
Mr Barney Smith
Project Overview

As a component of the previous ACIAR project (FIS/2001/75 Sustainable aquaculture development in the Pacific Islands region and northern Australia), managed by QDPI&F, a total of 14 'mini-projects' were successfully implemented. The mini-project concept was a novel approach to target specific bottlenecks to regional aquaculture. They led to significant capacity-building and generated widespread support for their continuation. The final project review in November 2006 specifically recommended that ACIAR consider funding a follow-on project to extend the mini-project concept.

The overall aim of the project is to support economically, socially and environmentally sustainable aquaculture in the Pacific Islands region, and to assist indigenous aquaculture in tropical Australia. The project will support the SPC's Regional Aquaculture Strategy and supplement the R&D activities of the SPC Aquaculture Action Plan.

The specific objectives are to; identify and implement targeted research activities and technology transfer in response to priority issues identified by Pacific Island countries, where possible by drawing on results and expertise developed through completed and on-going ACIAR, WorldFish and other aquaculture projects; increase institutional capacity amongst Pacific Island countries to support and manage research, particularly Papua New Guinea; and provide technical support for indigenous Australian aquaculture ventures.

Project Progress Reports
Year One

The project commenced in October 2007 and has been running for eight months. No specific milestones have been met yet but progress has been made towards achieving a number of them. The developments of the project to date are detailed in the main body of the report below.

Two Project Team meetings to discuss ideas for mini-projects have been held. The first was held in Noumea, New Caledonia, in Oct/Nov 2007 in conjunction with the SPC Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management and Biosecurity Workshops. The second was in Fiji, at USP Suva and Savusavu, in February 2008. As a result of the meetings, a number of mini-projects have been conceived and approved for development, two of these have progressed to full funding stage. At the time of this report, one had commenced. The mini-projects approved by the project team and submitted to ACIAR for approval are:

No. Title
1 Half pearl ('mabe') production in Fiji, Tonga and Kiribati
2 Culture of juvenile sandfish (Holothuria scabra) for restocking and sea ranching trials in Fiji
3 Local feed source assessment for subsistence farmers
4 Clownfish aquaculture and village grow-out trials in Vanuatu
5 Bivalve and other invertebrate spat collection trials
6 Improved farming of Macrobrachium lar
7 Assess local feed formulation for herbivorous finfish mariculture
8 Capturing juvenile fish for food security
9 Improved access to credit and grant funding for PNG fish farmers
10 Viability of the Pacific to establish specific pathogen free stocks of shrimp
11 Economic assessment of commerical-scale cage culture of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in a PNG reservoir
12 Growth potential of existing tilapia strains under local conditions in PICs

For more complete details of these mini-projects, refer to Appendix 1.

Various trips were carried out by project personnel and these are summarised in Appendix 2.

Several activities from FIS 2001/075 Sustainable aquaculture development in the Pacific Islands region and northern Australia have been progressed or completed during this period:
Sea Cucumber Manager's Toolbox (coordinated by Ms Hair) has been submitted to the ACIAR Publications Unit, although it won't be published until next financial year.
The compilation of all miniproject reports from FIS 2001/075 into a single large document has been almost completed (primarily by Ms Marie-Ange Hnaujie at SPC) and will soon be available in PDF format on the SPC Aquaculture Portal.
Juvenile sandfish produced in the final year of the hatchery component were on-grown in unused shrimp ponds in Ayr, north Queensland.

Ms Hair's role as Northern territory node co-ordinator of ACIAR Project FIS/2003/059 "Sea ranching and restocking sandfish (Holothuria scabra) in Asia-Pacific" has not commenced due to delays in release of funding from the Australian side of the project.