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Arnavon Islands

© Amy Carol/TNC
Student diver measures giant clam

Learn more about this project with the Online Field Guide.
  • In 1991, at the invitation of three nearby villages on Choiseul and Santa Isabel islands and in partnership with the Solomon Islands government, The Nature Conservancy began work to establish the Arnavon Islands Marine Conservation Area—the first community-managed marine conservation project in the entire South Pacific. Its Management Committee, which includes two representatives from each of the three villages, is the primary partner organization for the Conservancy.
     
  • In just a few short years, the Management Committee has made remarkable progress in the Arnavon Islands toward the communities’ shared goal of conservation and sustainable resource management. Given the social and cultural differences between these communities, this development represents a major success.
     
  • To allow the marine environment to recover, the Management Committee closed the conservation area to harvesting for three years and established protection for the nesting hawksbill turtles. To enforce the management rules and monitor the ecological impact of the conservation area, six young men (two from each village) were hired and trained as Community Conservation Officers.
     
  • Management Committee members then worked with the communities to establish a sustainable fisheries enterprise that targeted the area’s plentiful deep-water fin fish as an alternative source of cash income. The Conservancy is helping the partners improve the commercial viability of the fisheries business.
     
  • During the next several years, the Conservancy will work to consolidate the management of the marine conservation area; continue monitoring of the recovery of marine resources and the status of the turtle population; review the conservation area’s management plans; and expand conservation strategies to the nearby island groups that are also rich in marine and lowland rain forest diversity.