Approaches to Establish a Community-based Beach Management in the Pacific Island Country

As a part of the Pilot Gravel Beach Nourishment Project in Tuvalu by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), approaches to establish a community-based beach management had been implemented as the first trial among the Pacific Island countries. A community-based beach management requires an active public participation; however, public awareness on beach seemed to be quite low in the beginning of the Project because of the terrible beach condition with dumped rubbish scattered on the beach. Therefore, raising public awareness on beach and making people understand and experience the benefits from the beach were considered necessary to establish the community-based beach management. In the Project, several public relations and educational activities were implemented for these purposes and one notable effective activity was the beach sports festival that was firstly held in Tuvalu. Public awareness on beach, especially on beach use and environment, was much improved through these activities so that community and residents voluntarily started beach management activities such as periodic beach cleaning and public notification of illegal activities on the beach. These changes contributed to maintain the good condition of the Project beach for almost one and half year after the construction.