Tonga: Enabling Coastal Communities to Protect Marine Resources and Secure the Livelihoods of Small-Scale Fishers

Coastal fisheries are the food basket of Pacific Islanders, and fishing is deeply rooted in Pacific Islands’ cultures and traditions. In Tonga, during the past century, marine resource management has been the sole responsibility of the government under the law. Although management measures aim to ensure the sustainability of small-scale fisheries, compliance is often a challenge. In 2002 and 2009, Tonga passed new fishery legislation that reformed access to marine resources for local fishers (particularly in lagoons and reef areas) with the introduction of its own community-based fishery management approach, known as the Special Management Area (SMA) program. The SMA program and supporting legislation allow coastal communities and local fishers, with assistance from the Ministry of Fisheries, to regulate adjacent marine areas through local fishery management plans that grant preferential access and assign stewardship duties to community members. Tonga has made a commitment to following the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines), with the SMA program representing an important step forward. This chapter explores the main venues and opportunities for Tonga to implement the SSF Guidelines while completing the SMA scaling-up process, in line with recent policy commitments made at a Pacific regional level, (In 2021, the members of the Pacific Community (SPC) adopted the Pacific Framework for Action on Scaling up Community-based Fisheries Management: 2021–2025.) to ultimately provide sustainable access for small-scale fishers to marine resources and markets (SDG 14b).