Authors
Gillett R.
Topics
Glass properties and applicationsPhotonic Crystal and Fiber OpticsPhotorefractive and Nonlinear OpticsTilapia in the Pacific Islands: are there lessons to be learned? by Robert Gillett FAO/UNDP Regional Fisheries Support Programme Suva, FijiIn the 1950s various fisheries experts encouraged the introduction of tilapia (Oreochromis mossambica) to the Pacific Islands. At that time the fish was hailed as being excellent for human consumption and mosquito control, entirely harmless, and perfectly designed for its role in the South Pacific. In short, tilapia was considered a 'wonder fish' and an answer to many fishery development problems.Several decades later the opinion of the value of tilapia introductions has changed somewhat. 'The introduction of tilapia was a disaster on nearly all Pacific Islands' (Baird 1976) . Although there are a few exceptions, tilapia is now considered a pest in most places where it was introduced. In fact, several Pacific Island governments perceive the eradication of tilapia as a priority fisheries project.Something obviously went wrong with the, tilapia scheme. Are there lessons to be learned from examining that fisheries development exercise with the benefit of hindsight? An historical review of the tilapia situation reveals that there could be points worthy of consideration by individuals contemplating future fisheries development work.The native range of Oreochromis mossambica is restricted to East Africa, but the species has been introduced to many parts of the world. All Pacific introductions seem to have originated from an Irian Jaya river estuary (Devambez 1964) . From there they were introduced to other South-East Asian countries in the 1940s, then to Fiji from Singapore in January 1954 and shortly thereafter to Guam and Saipan from the Philippines (Van Pel 1955 , Eldredge 1988) .From these original Pacific introductions, the fish appear to have been transferred to most other Island areas? One author has indicated that Norfolk and Pitcairn are the only Island groups where tilapia introductions have not been attempted (Devambez 1964) .What were some of the considerations prior to moving tilapia to new areas? Although tfiere is some documentation on the subject, this is mainly in the form of popular accounts appearing in regional news magazines. The best source of information on the subject has proven to be personal accounts by individuals working in the fisheries sector at the time. Ron Powell, a former Fisheries Officer at the South Pacific Commission (SPC), writes:You have probably read about the first days when the South Pacific Commission was first formed. In the beginning, there were apparently requests for some help and advice on any fdrrn of marine resources. Ultimately, in the early 1950 period, they recruited Herbertus Van Pel, a Dutch fisherman who had spent all his early life in Holland fishing as a trawlerman in the North Sea. He worked for many years and travelled widely in Java, Sumatra, and other areas under Dutch administration. When the Dutch left, the SPC recruited Bert to the post of Fisheries Officer. I can well imagine his first day at work as I guess it was much like mine -when I later worked for SPC. The Commission building, as you know, is rather like a scene from an American penitentiary where one is led down a long corridor with one's feet echoing until someone produces a key and opens a dusty office. Well so there it all is. The Pacific is half the world. There are no facilities, no boats, no staff, correspondence takes over six months to the outer islands, there is no money budgeted. Never mind, it's all yours. Just develop fisheries...period. Bert started with enthusiasm. When he surveyed the area, he realised fishermen with any experience of power boats or making gear, mending nets, servicing engines, were scarce. He saw the problems of starting any fishery with modern gear and knew it would take some years to get any kind of operation together anywhere. So he hoped to get it off on a small scale, backyard attempts to grow fish by simple aquaculture, at the grass roots level. Bert Van Pel introduced tilapia everywhere he went with enthusiasm.Luis Devambez worked at the South Pacific Commission a few years after Ron Powell. He comments:Tilapia got around the Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s. I remember an administrative officer in the Lau Group of | Fiji asking for some to put in a marshy area that had exceptionally gone dry one yeqr-his aim was to lower the mosquito population, claiming that it would also help lower tip birth rate in the area, since people would not have to rush under the mosquito nets so early in the evening. The usual argument for tilapia introductions was availability of fish in periods of bad weather, also readily available bait for fishing. I suspect that a lot of tilapia introductions were private efforts. There are still some cases in New Caledonia of people taking tilapia to the Yate Lake "to provide food for the black bass". Most South Pacific countries did not have fisheries departments at the time and fisheries officers, generally speaking, were considered as pretty low specimens if they could not produce miracles on demand.From the above it appears that one of the motivating factors behind the tilapia introductions was a need to produce rapid tangible progress in fisheries development. Tilapia had an intuitive appeal, as it gave results fast, in marked contrast with some of the fisheries projects generally considered to have been successful. The SPC efforts to encourage bottomfishing for deepwater snappers commenced in 1974 and are still continuing. Trochus were transplanted to Aitutaki in the CooE: Islands in 1957; however, 24 years elapsed before the first trochus harvest occurred. A quarter of a century of research has preceded the present-day operations of the commercial pearl-oyster farms in French Polynesia. This time-frame should be borne in mind when considering on-going projects, such as the relatively short history of giant clam culture in the South Pacific. It also suggests that the time required for successful projects can easily outlive short-term target-oriented funding or the employment commitments of a single individual.It is obvious that the benefits of introducing tilapia were exaggerated. Three decades after the introductions Ron Powell writes:At that time tilapia were being written up worldwide as the wonder fish that had all the virtues one could ask for in the tropics. They appeared easy to sex, omnivorous, could be fed on almost anything available. They multiplied fast, would eat mosquito wrigglers, could be introduced into any swamp, where they would clean out mosquitoes fast. As a fresh-water species they offered sport. It was claimed that a backyard pond would make three fish meals a week for the average family. What could possibly go wrong?The fish was also promoted as being entirely harmless, excellent for human consumption, and potentially capable of yielding over one tonne per acre (Van Pel 1954) . It was claimed that young children could catch a kerosene tin full after school (Anon 1960) .The situation turned out a bit different from what Bert anticipated. Although there are exceptions in which tilapia has made a positive contribution (perhaps in areas of Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Fiji), more typically they have been less than beneficial. For example, on Fanning Island, 'The careless and needless introduction of the Mozambique tilapia has had no beneficial results... fishermen claimed that the introduction and subsequent spread of the Mozambique tilapia has resulted in a decrease of mullet, bonefish and milkfish' (Lobel 1980) . In Nauru, tilapia was not well received by the local people (Uwate et al. 1984) . In Tarawa, tilapia is considered as a major constraint in milkfish production (National Planning Office 1988), and has been given as an example of a 'poorly thought-out and poorly researched project with negative effect on the community concerned' by the government minister responsible for fisheries (Iuta 1989) .As far as production figures are concerned, it is quite possible that the one tonne per acre could be achieved. However the size of backyard pond being advocated in the 1950s, about 20 feet square, only amounted to about 1/70 of an acre. According to Ron Powell:This only meant enough fish for a Polynesian family to eat once a year. It was obviously easier to spend one night fishing to get the same amount of fish without the back-breaking job of digging a pond. Like the Arabs, we tilapia farmers slowly folded our tents and disappeared into the night.It can therefore be seen that the potential benefits of tilapia were over-sold. It also appears that risks involved were discounted. Advice was given to the Western Samoa Government on the initiation of tilapia culture:It is evident that it would be preferable to investigate all factors for a whole year, but this would involve great expense and even then, there might be some uncertainty with a few points. It is much cheaper to start with an experimental pond and stock it with tilapia (Van Pel 1954) .Recently the Kiribati Minister for Natural Resources Development gave a different view on the importance of investigations of factors prior to the introduction of tilapia.The well known tilapia fish was introduced into our fish ponds and landlocked lagoons by well-meaning developers to increase the protein supply. The result was that this highly competitive fish, which rarely grows longer than six inches in Kiribati, has replaced the culturally, commercially, and nutritionally important milkflsh, which grows to a considerable size in our atoll environment...If only applied research on the ecology of tilapia had been conducted in Kiribati before the project was operationalised, such negative development could have been avoided' (Iuta 1989) .The above emphasises the need for a critical evaluation of the benefits and risks of proposed fisheries development endeavours. In the years since tilapia was introduced, human nature and institutional pressures still result in the 'selling 1 of fisheries projects. If anything, a general increase in financial resources available for the development of fisheries in the region has exaggerated the situation.At the time when tilapia introductions were being encouraged, there was apparently little opportunity of obtaining alternative opinions on the proposed project Few of the countries had a government fisheries division or access to individuals capable of taking a critical view of what was being offered. Had there been an assessment of the proposed tilapia plans by an unbiased party, it is possible that the outcome would have been differentIn summary, a review of the tilapia project indicates a situation in which fishery workers were expected to produce impressive results in a small amount of time. The benefits of doing what the expert suggested were exaggerated, while the risks were downplayed. Apparently, little has changed in this regard in the last 35 years. A major difference, however, between the 1950s and today is the increased local sophistication in fisheries matters and the additional private, regional, and international expertise available. A review of the tilapia situation suggests that there could be benefits in making full use of this expertise to evaluate proposed fishery plans. Another lesson to be learned from the Pacific Islands tilapia experience is that there can be serious consequences in encouraging unrealistically rapid progress in fisheries development.
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PublishedJan 1, 1989
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