The call for fish from the chief’s household in Naweni Village in Cakaudrove, Fiji, has come and Titilia Koula looks down at her catch in frustration. Titilia, on her mother’s side, descends from the traditional line of fishermen called gonedau. These are the people who, for generations, when the chief calls, always bring him fish. It’s an honour for her family.
Typically, only men are gonedau, but in Naweni, there were no longer any men in line to fulfil that role. So Titilia, who lived in her father’s village, in Vunivesi, Wailevu, Cakaudrove, moved back to Naweni, to fulfil her family’s role of the gonedau.
After all, she has been fishing since she was a child. But while her fishing skill is not in question, the fishing grounds are not what they once were. Like villages across Fiji, fish catches have steadily declined, yielding smaller and smaller catches, and fishermen travelling further and further for less.
That brings Titilia to her current state of frustration. She fished the day before and last night again, but all she had to show for it were a catch of small fish. Her husband, rather unhelpfully, asks her if she is embarrassed to bring the chief that catch.
“What else can I take? The call from my chief has come and I have to take it because he wants to eat fish!” Titilia said.
“I don’t feel good at all taking them and it makes me feel that I am not fulfilling my duties.”
It wasn’t always this way. “Before we used to take big saqa (trevally) to Valelevu (chief’s residence) but it’s rare that I catch them now. At the time, it would only take me two hours to have a good catch but now it would take the whole day and I would only take six or seven small kawakawa,” she said.
Titilia said she only went as far as Class 4 in school, but fishing is part of who she is, since she was a child. In fishing, she might as well be awarded a PhD. She uses kilivati (fishing rod with a rubber), fishing net, and two-pronged spear, and line fishing.
“When I go fishing on the boat, I use five fishing lines at one time. Three on my feet and two on both hands. Sometimes my husband will fall over laughing when all those lines are being pulled by fish at the same time,” she said.
That sight, all the lines tugging at once, is rare today. As Fiji’s population has grown, and community income needs have increased, fishing has been relied on more and more heavily. That has meant fewer and fewer fish left to restock the fishing grounds.
That’s why Titilia is sharing her story, as part of the Set Size campaign, an initiative to boost fish populations in Fiji, to help communities better support their food and income needs. If action is not taken, Fiji will face dire conditions as fishing is a core source for protein for communities and income for increasing needs around schooling and health care, among other needs.
“Everyone in the village is using the sea and more so for us women because we need to feed our families. Good eating fish that we used to catch before are rarely found like dokonivudi, ululoa or kawago and now we are ending up with fish that we don’t really like eating like ulavi (parrot fish),” she said.
“I think the problem is that of people using gas to catch fish and night diving. Before we would just fish along the shores around here but now with the modern fishing gears they are going out into the deep. I now have to go fishing at night and would be lucky if I could even fill my esky nowadays,” she said.
Titilia also puts the blame on middlemen in Savusavu, who would buy any size of fish at one rate. She said they would buy small fish like kake or kabatia at the same price as for the big ones at a flat rate of $5 a kilogram.
“I think they should be stopped from buying those small fish because they are encouraging us to sell the small fish that should be left in the ocean to breed first,” she said. The Ministry of Fisheries, which leads the Set Size campaign, is reaching out to communities, fish buyers and sellers, and consumers to support common sense solutions to reviving Fiji’s fishing grounds, such as avoiding undersize fish. The ministry wants to avoid challenges such as the sea cucumber fisheries and kawakawa and donu, both which face collapse now.
For Titilia, she is also worried that as traditional gonedau her children and grandchildren would not be able continue the tradition set before them by her ancestors.
“Fishing is ingrained in us because it’s in our blood but where can we get the fish from if we keep taking it out at the rate we are going on now?” asks Titilia.
“I am teaching my daughter her role as the gonedau to provide for the chiefly household but we need fish and all other delicacies in our qoliqoli to fulfil that otherwise our role is useless,” she said.
“I hope we could use our resources wisely so that we can leave some for our children and their children.”
2014, Fiji Times Limited