Main Objectives for the Women's Traditional Marine Tenure Project
The overall objective of the Women's TMT Project is to assist the sustainable management of Vanuatu’s nearshore marine resources at the community level through the documentation and promotion of women’s use of traditional marine tenure practices.
Tasks Carried Out by the Women's Traditional Marine Tenure Project
The WTMT project team has been visiting villages in Northern, Central and Southern Vanuatu. In each village we have been spending time talking and working with women. We record various aspects of custom for the Cultural Centre including women’s knowledge and traditions related to reef resources.
These include what women collect from the sea, the methods they use, how they use the animals and plants, customary ways seafood is prepared, beliefs and knowledge about the sea and its resources, and traditional stories about the sea and its animals. Women’s stories, activities, and knowledge are recorded on audio and videotapes and in written notes. Samples of the shellfish which are used by people in Vanuatu are collected, along with samples of baskets and tools women use to catch and process marine animals. The information will be shared with Vanuatu communities by producing a video and information booklets. A report will be produced to inform policy-makers. All activities of the project (with the exception of staff salaries) are funded by the Canada Fund.
Importance of the Women's Traditional Marine Tenure Project
In many areas of Vanuatu, traditional knowledge still plays a crucial role in the community management of nearshore marine resources. Most of this wisdom is passed down orally and is based on long term associations with nearshore reefs. Although useful, this knowledge is at risk of dying out. The Vanuatu Cultural Centre is running projects to record, preserve, and protect this knowledge.
The Traditional Marine Tenure Project (TMT), which started in July 1996, has accumulated an extensive body of information about the traditional management of Vanuatu’s marine resources. However, the researchers involved in the project have found it difficult to acquire information from women. Reef gleaning, mainly done by women, is an important community-level fishing activity and a source of smaller fish, numerous shellfish, crabs, octopii, chitons and other invertebrates collected at low tide for family consumption. Almost half of the rural households of Vanuatu collect shellfish (Smallholder Agricultural Survey, 1991). Women’s contribution to Marine Management is therefore significant and documenting it will fill out the body of knowledge on traditional resource management (TRM) collected through the Cultural Centre.
The Women’s Traditional Marine Tenure Project (WTMT), started in March 1999, is a specifically women-oriented TMT Project. Women and men’s spheres of activity in village life in Vanuatu have been quite separate and distinct, resulting in specialized women-only and men-only rituals and sacred knowledge. The WTMT project recognizes that different approaches and strategies are required to learn about traditional marine knowledge from women at the community level. The all-women project team has spent time living and working with rural women and is involved in many of their daily activities in order to understand the role of marine resources in daily life. We hope to learn about the traditions of women throughout Vanuatu and how they use and look after their reef resources.
