Waitabu Marine Park Blog

  The district of Kubulau is taking the lead in managing its marine resources, by putting together a management plan administered by a management committee selected by the communities and trained by NGO’s who are conducting work in the district. This was heard at the St Agnes Parish Community Hall in Samabula East on Friday evening as representatives from environmental NGO’s involved in projects in Kubulau presented to the people of Kubulau living in Suva an update of what was happening back home. The open–forum, which for the first time saw the chiefs from the district coming down to Suva as part of this contingent, proved to be an eye opener for many Kubulau natives living in the Central and Southern division of Viti Levu. The Namena Marine Protected Areas and other MPA’s around Kubulau is today been used as a model for other qoliqoli owners from other districts around Fiji. NGOs who are currently based and conducting projects in Kubulau now for a number of years includ...

Waitabu Marine Park This area of Taveuni has recently been awarded the “International British Airways Eco-Tourism Award” The Waitabu Villagers will welcome you, and are proud of this marine and cultural experience they have worked so hard to establish. The 5-hour visit is a marvellous cultural experience of Fijian village life. The visit includes round trip transport, morning and afternoon tea in the village, snorkelling in the marine reserve , kava ceremony, local island dance and song, and to top it all; a trip up the river on a bamboo “Bilibili” raft. This is a 20-minute ride by taxi from the resort. Taveuni Island Resort & Spa - Fiji

Posted January 19th, 2008 by oceanic in Expeditions Date: 08/26/2008 Snorkeling The Fijian Archipelago encompasses one of the most extensive coral reef systems in the world. , The waters host an extraordinary variety of marinelife, including over 1,200 varieties of fish and countless invertebrates. This program offers snorkeling Fiji's spectacularly colorful coral communities, and includes an introduction to island ecology and Fijian village life. Our snorkeling expedition begins on the island of Taveuni. Shrouded in tropical forests and rich volcanic soils, Taveuni is known as “the Garden Island” of Fiji. Our island resort offers views over the Somosomo Strait which contains extensive coral reefs including the 32-kilometer "Rainbow Reef". We enjoy daily snorkel excursions by private boat in the company of our experienced marine naturalist. Most snorkel sites are within 15 minutes of the resort. Korolevu Island is just 5 minutes by boat from the re...

M. Gitlin Last week it was a plan to save the world . This week, Google is helping to make people realize why the world needs saving. In the past, we've touched on how Google is using its Google Earth platform to help scientists, whether it be better visualizing their data or better explaining what that data mean to the general public. At the International Union for Conservation of Nature's World Conservation Conference , taking place in Barcelona, Spain, it was announced that the IUCN is making use of Google Earth Outreach to launch a new layer to Google Earth that pinpoints the locations of all the protected marine areas on the planet. You can check out the layer online at Protect Planet Ocean , but unfortunately the plugin only works on Windows. It's a neat tool, although the climate change layers I wrote about recently have more bells and whistles. That said, I applaud the move, and despite the Windows-only nature of the API at the moment, I'm sure that more a...

Fiji Protected Marine Areas on the Web July 1, 2008 17:39 by derek.sampson The Coral Reef Alliance has worked very hard with many governments, including the Fijian, to enhance and support coral reef rehabilitation. Their efforts have led to the designation of many marine protected areas. They have worked on many projects to revitalize these protected areas, and bring a higher level of awareness to local and national governments about the importance or coral reef conservation. Their latest project has put two of Fiji’s marine protected areas on the web. Read on to find out more about the locations and the new websites. MAQO. org

7th October - Today at the 4th World Conservation Congress IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas launched a plan to help protect planet ocean using Marine Protected Areas (MPAs ). It is well recognised that despite our best efforts more needs to be done to protect our oceans. Nations of the world have already committed to this task, but so far less than 1% of our seas have been set aside for wildlife, and of that a much smaller amount is adequately managed. Much more needs to be done using MPAs to rise to the challenge of protecting wildlife, combating climate change and sustaining livelihoods and human health. The MPA Plan of Action took two years to develop through an unprecedented global collaboration between leading ocean experts, with funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation . The Plan sets out the key actions that the World Commission will take in the coming years to support a significant increase in protection for our seas and to complement the work alre...

The new logo for Waitabu Marine Park