Sustaining Community Livelihoods
WWF believes effective sustainable livelihood, development and conservation effort is when community groups adopt conservation initiatives and make their own management decisions.
Through its programmes, WWF builds the conservation practitioner's skills at community level, establishes a network of community-based organisations which are dedicated to learning collaboratively and achieving the best practice conservation action.
The development of community marine reserves in Fiji, or Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) and other conservation interventions have proven to raise household incomes as much as 35%. The LMMAs both reduce poverty in coastal communities and protect environmental services - vital to the long term health of the people and biodiversity.
Aquarium Trade
Tourism
Through the Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) of Fiji's Tourism Development Plan, WWF assessed the environmental and sustainable development impacts of the Plan enabling the Ministry of Tourism and its partners to make future plans sustainable.
Commercial Fishing
WWF has established a new regional fisheries project as part of the WWF Oceania Marine Programme. The project, called "Consumer Choices for Sustainable Seafood" is a partnership project involving WWF South Pacific, WWF New Zealand and WWF Australia that works to improve fisheries management by working with fisheries stakeholders in the region.
Also by working with fishers to develop responsible fishing practices and reward them through the market place, making the market work for conservation will help turn the tide on overfishing. Together with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), WWF is creating economic incentives for sustainable fishing by promoting a new certification and ecolabelling initiative in regions known for their rich biodiversity.
WWF's sustainable fisheries target is to halve the number of fish stocks which are currently categorized by FAO as over- exploited or depleted, by 2020, and to maintain the status of all sustainably exploited fish stocks. Market incentives include the certification of fisheries in key product areas such as salmon, tunas, shrimp and whitefish.