June 2004
|
RECOGNISING TRADITIONAL LAWCustomary law has been used for thousands of years to manage both land and sea in the Pacific region. A workshop co-ordinated by the International Marine Project Activities Centre (IMPAC) in April focussed on how Melanesian countries could incorporate traditional laws into modern legislation. Subsistence fishing is vitally important in 21 of 22 Pacific Island countries, accounting for about 80% of total production. Many Pacific islanders have traditional management practices to ensure the sustainability of fisheries, which are based on detailed knowledge of the biology of the species involved. However, much of this customary knowledge is being lost.
“Because customary laws were never written down, they have not become part of modern legislation in most countries,” said Dr Clive Wilkinson, co-ordinator of IMPAC and senior research scientist with the Australian Institute of Marine Science. “Governments are now seeing the potential benefits of recognising traditional law.” Government regulations in the Pacific tend to be based on management concepts and models developed internationally, which do not take account of customary practices or traditional knowledge. Recognising traditional management, knowledge and laws can enable better involvement of communities in sustainable development. Representatives from Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, international institutions, academics and a representative from the Christensen Fund attended the workshop at IMPAC in Townsville. Debate centred on a series of case studies demonstrating the incorporation of traditional law into codified national and local government law. Delegates drafted a series of principles for the recognition of customary law. These principles will be finalised and made available to people and governments in the region to help in coastal resource management, especially nearshore fisheries. “Customary law underpins everything in Papua New Guinea. It is the soul and spirit and lifeblood of Papua New Guineans,” according to John Genolagani, First Assistant Secretary on National Conservation Matters for the Department of Environment and Conservation in PNG. “Ninety-seven per cent of our country, our coasts and marine areas have traditional laws acknowledging the ownership of resources, and it is one of the goals of our constitution to recognise these laws,” he said. The workshop was co-ordinated by IMPAC and supported by the Christensen
Fund, CRC Reef, Institute of Advanced Studies at the United Nations
University, International Ocean Institute (Australia), IUCN Law
Commission, South Pacific Regional Environment Program, and the
World Bank. For more information see the Workshops and Training pages on the IMPAC website, or contact Dr Clive Wilkinson, clive.wilkinson@impac.org.au
|
|||
|
||||
|
PO Box 772 Townsville Created with recycled HTML Code |
