Unpacking pathways to diversified livelihoods from projects in Pacific Island coastal fisheries.

Livelihood diversification has become an integral focus of policies and investments aiming to reduce poverty, vulnerability, and pressure on fishery resources in coastal communities around the globe. In this regard, coastal fisheries in the Pacific Islands have long been a sector where livelihood diversification has featured prominently. Yet, despite the widespread promotion and international investment in this strategy, the ability of externally funded livelihood diversification projects to facilitate improved resource management and rural development outcomes often remains inconsistent. We argue these inconsistencies can be attributed to a conceptual ambiguity stemming from a lack of attention and awareness to the complexity of livelihood diversification. There is still much to learn about the process of livelihood diversification, both in its theoretical conceptualizations and its practical applications. Herein, we utilize a common diversity framework to clarify some of this ambiguity by distinguishing three diversification pathways. These pathways are illustrated using an ideal-typical Pacific Island coastal household and supported by examples provided in the literature that detail livelihood diversification projects in the Pacific. Through this perspective, we seek a more nuanced understanding of what is meant within the policy and practice goal of livelihood diversification. Thereby enabling more targeted and deliberate planning for development investments that facilitates outcomes in support of sustainable livelihoods.

Tectus (Trochus) niloticus search for suitable habitats can cause equivocal benefits of protection in village-based marine reserves.

In the Pacific, the protection of coral reef resources is often achieved through the implementation of village-based marine reserves (VBMRs). While substantial fisheries benefits are often reported, results of quantitative approaches are controversial for benthic macroinvertebrates, whose life history traits may cause low congruence with protective measures implemented at non-ecologically relevant scales. This study investigated the structural and behavioral responses of the exploited topshell Tectus niloticus within a very small (0.2 km2) VBMR in Vanuatu, south Pacific. The results of underwater surveys and a nine-month tagging experiment emphasized contrasted, scale-dependent responses. At the reserve scale, our results failed to demonstrate any positive effect of protection after three years of closure. In contrast, abundance, density and biomass increased more than ten-fold in the southern part of the reserve, along with significantly larger (25%) individual sizes. The dispersal of tagged specimens was also consistently lower after 2, 4 and 9 months in the latter zone. Analyses of 17 substratum variables revealed a marked small-scale patchiness delineating contrasted benthic microhabitats, the distribution of which closely matched that of trochus. We advocate that i) VBMRs have inherently unequal ecological potentials for protecting and managing highly habitat-dependent species such as trochus; ii) 'success' or 'failure' is to a certain extent pre-determined by the trajectory of species-specific microhabitats, which may outreach protection effects. This has strong implications in the Pacific where the location and size of reserves primarily depends upon marine tenure, and communities have little flexibility in setting reserve boundaries.