who are local fishers?

For the purposes of this research, local fishers are defined as fishers belonging to communities which are neighbours to a dive operation. Local fishers and communities are those who traditionally fish the areas surrounding a dive operators’ dive sites. That might mean right next door to a dive operation, many kilometres/miles away, up the coast, or on another island. A dive operation may have more than one local fishing community.

The reason for defining local fisher in this way is to allow focus on the relationship between a dive operator, the coral reefs they dive on and the local fishers and communities who live along those coral reefs and rely on them for food and income security. This definition also allows us to separate the impacts of local fishers and fishers from further away on destructive fishing. Some forms of destructive fishing are usually done by fishers from further away, not local fishers.

Speeding home from fishing in the early morning, past a fishing bagan, in southern Raja Ampat.