Marine Atlas: Maximizing Benefits for Solomon Islands

SPECIAL AND UNIQUE MARINE AREAS

To prioritize management and/or protection of Solomon Islands’ waters, local marine experts came together to identify areas in Solomon Islands’ waters that are special and/or unique.

Solomon Islands’ KBAs (see previous chapter) emphasize not only the impor- tance of marine biodiversity to Solomon Islands, but also to the world. Much of Solomon Islands’ waters are pristine and contain very diverse physical and ecolog- ical environments, which in turn support a huge range of marine life, yet a great deal remains undocumented. As the resources of both the nearshore and offshore marine environments are vital to the well-being and prosperity of the country and its people, their sustainable management and conser- vation are in the interests of both resource managers and general population. So how can sustainable management be achieved? One requirement is to set agreed management priorities, which allow for an incremental, inclusive and sustainable management and conservation approach to Solomon Islands’ valuable biodiversity. To help achieve this, the important concept of KBAs was complemented and extended by the identification of Special and Unique Marine Areas (SUMAs) and bioregions (see “Beyond the hotspots”). SUMAs are areas that are particularly important in maintaining Solomon Islands’ biodiversity. They can serve as priority areas for management actions within Solomon Islands’ marine environment. It is important that these areas are identified and agreed upon by a broad cross section of local users and experts to ensure they have validity in relevant decision-making processes. Between 2015 and 2018, local users and subject experts were involved in a process to share their knowledge and identify and map 70 SUMAs. As part of this process, a workshop was held in 2017 to identify and map 65 SUMAs. Prior to this workshop, the Government of Solomon Islands and the Marine and Coastal Biodiversity in Pacific

Island Countries (MACBIO) project team spent two and a half years collating, assess- ing, preparing and mapping open source and freely available data on, among other things, the special and/or unique marine features of the Solomon Islands. In total, there were 60 data sets available for use in the workshop, of which 46 were related to biodiversity and 14 to human use of marine areas. The local users and experts contrib- uted their local knowledge of the area and were guided by four criteria in identifying SUMAs in Solomon Islands’ waters: bio- physical justification, geographic explic- itness, availability of information sources, and international and national obligations.

This effort built upon and updated previous efforts, including the information on EBSAs.

specific information for local or national-lev- el decisions, policies, plans or analyses that refer to marine places. Information relating to each site is intended to inform the follow- ing management responses: 1. Permitting and licensing decisions; 2. Environmental impact assessments; 3. National and local development planning decisions; 4. Decisions by communities and various levels of government about where to locate marine protected/managed areas.

immense variety of marine habitats within the islands, reefs and surrounding oceans of Solomon Islands. Much of this information has been published in formal papers and reports, but there is also a great vein of local knowledge held by the traditional resource owners themselves, which should be taken into account when describing what is spe- cial and unique.

Ranging from mangroves and seagrasses to deep-sea trenches, canyons and sea- mounts, these marine areas are some of Solomon Islands’ most biologically impor- tant. These sites, together with the cor- responding report “Biophysically Special, Unique Marine Areas of Solomon Islands”, will assist in the selection of marine man- aged protected areas, to achieve 10 per cent coverage of Solomon Islands’ waters (see also chapter “Solomon Islands’ com- mitment to marine conservation”) (Daniela et al., 2018). Moreover, they provide site-

The maps show a total of 70 offshore and inshore sites. These SUMAs reflect the

Special and unique: Arnavon Islands

In the Arnavon Islands, a group of islands in Isbael Province, near Wagina Island in Choiseul Province, 20 nesting female Hawksbill turtles have been fitted with satellite trackers in the last two years. These trackers show that the turtles trav- elled almost directly to the relative safety of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, roughly 2,000 kilometres away. Turtle tagging is a prime example of an activity that Solomon Islands is carrying out within a marine protected area that represents one of the Pacific’s most important biodiversity hotspots. The Arnavon Community Marine Conser- vation Area (ACMCA) was established in 1995 with support from The Nature Conservancy and is administered by a group of previously inimical communities with a shared conservation vision. As one of the world’s most important sites for Hawksbill turtle nesting, the primary goal is their protection. Since the creation of the ACMCA, the marine ecosystem of

the Arnavon Islands, which comprises 157 km 2 between the islands of Santa Isabel and Choiseul in the Manning Strait, has experienced a remarkable recovery, including a twofold increase in Hawksbill turtle nests, as well as increases in other species, such as giant clams and sea snails. The Arnavon Islands are truly a special and unique area. Read more: The Arnavon Community Marine Conservation Area in the Sol- omon Islands: a review of successes, challenges, and lessons learned.

MAXIMIZING BENEFITS FOR SOLOMON ISLANDS

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