I knew I was setting out to change a cultural behavior pattern, so I picked the northern island group in Tonga: Vavaâu. There are only 19,000 people there, all Polynesians, all closely related, with cultural ties going back more than 2,000 years. This eliminated the problem found in urban areas, where multicultural mixes and transient people can destroy a project in a few minutes.

I also picked a very simple social/biological problem. The giant clam Tridacna derasa was on the verge of local extinction. There was no commercial or political or social reason against preventing the extinction, so the project would not be controversial (or so I imagined at first). And there was an excellent reason for the Tongans to preserve the species: the people simply loved to eat them.

Biologically, the problem was easy enough to understand. As long ago as 1979, New Zealand marine biologist J. L. McKoy warned the government of Tonga that one species of giant clam, Hippopus hippopus was probably extinct and another, Tridacna derasa, was on the brink of extinction. Juveniles were being collected before they could reproduce in any great numbers. Then, aid projects intent on economic development introduced the equation that Fish Resources = Cash. This formula was applied to giant clams. After a few months of dedicated clamming using modern diving gear, the population of large adults vanished, too.

The biological solution, too, seemed simple enough: gather remaining big adults, put them into a shallow-water sanctuary where they can breed successfully, and leave them alone.

The first lesson I learned was that if I wanted to try something like this, I would have to do it without any official support. SPREP, which even then was the established wholesale broker for conservation aid funds to the region, backed off from the idea instantly. They had two problems. First, what would happen if the people stole the clams? And second, what would happen if the larvae of the clams simply floated off to sea, and there was no local recruitment? The project might fail.

Aid projects are not supposed to fail. This is why seminars, workshops, consultant reports, and surveys are favored; they canât fail. Aid project goals have to be clearly achievable from the start. This one was risky, too risky.

My attempts to get funding stressed that giant clam sanctuaries, in fact, could help Pacific island nations regulate the giant clam and, perhaps, other coastal fisheries. By protecting brood stocks in community-based sanctuaries and letting people catch and eat the young that settle outside the sanctuary, the problem of maintaining the stock is much easier and very inexpensive. Nobody has to feed or care for the big clams; just place them in a sanctuary, and convince everyone to leave them alone. The only maintenance needed is the replacement, once a year, of any big clams that may have died. Since the giant clams may live for more than a century, new ones donât have to be added very often. Providing, of course, nobody steals them from the sanctuaries.

Itâs almost impossible to enforce size limits or other fishery regulations in the small, remote islands of the Pacific, and I couldnât convince anyone that the ordinary people of the islands would be able to overcome the temptation to steal the clams. In fact, everyone thought this would happen, from ten-year-old boys to the king of Tonga. But I didnât give up. At the time, in 1985, Tonga had just set up a very successful Environmental Awareness Week. One of the questions called in over the radio on a talk-back show was, ãWe are planting trees to help the land, what could we do to help the sea?ä When this question was passed along to me by the Secretary of the Tongan Ministry of Lands, Survey, and Natural Resources, Sione Tongilava, I quickly suggested that the people could participate in planting giant clams. This met with the same cool reception and the belief that the project would turn into a giant clambake. But the idea was planted, and they didnât say no. Over the next two years, I kept sliding the idea back into the works at every opportunity. Over coffee breaks at a regional workshop, for example, I told the representatives of all the other countries about the Tongan plan to start giant-clam sanctuaries. The glowing account of their plans was duly admired by all the participants, and eventually, the suggestion moved into action. Unfortunately, it was not the action I had hoped for.

During Environment Awareness Week of June 1986, the Ministry of Lands, Survey, and Natural Resources paid fishermen to collect 100 large adult Tridacna derasa (known in Tonga as Tokanoa molemole) and arrange them in circles on a reef in Nukuâalofa Harbor. This was on the main island of Tonga, not the more remote islands that I wanted to work on. And, because they were sure the clams would be stolen without protection, the government decided they would guard the sanctuary in Nukuâalofa Harbor, with two men in a small boat over the sanctuary every night for two years.

They had a lack of faith in the village people and an ardent desire not to fail (and be laughed at). Thatâs why they didnât do their project in Vavaâu, where they could not afford to keep a constant eye on the clams. I suggested that if I did the project in Vavaâu, it would be my disaster if people took the clams. But I thought that was unlikely to happen, as my original plan was quite different from what the government was doing. I firmly believed (or hoped anyway) that if people fully understood the reason for giant clam sanctuaries, they would voluntarily÷as a community÷set up, protect, and maintain the brood stock of clams.

Finally, in June, 1987, after a year of watching the clams sit on a reef just offshore of their offices, the Ministry of Lands, Survey, and Natural Resources allowed me to begin a public-awareness project in the Vavaâu Island Group. Thatâs where Earthwatch came in. Teams of eight to twelve volunteers came to Tonga to spend two weeks doing surveys of the existing stocks of giant clams. Over five years, more than two hundred volunteers participated. They helped make videos, prepare educational material, and provided some excellent suggestions and insights into the central issue of getting the Tongan people to set up a sanctuary and look after it. The Earthwatch volunteers played another important role. Each team member arrived in the small island community brimming with exactly the qualities we were trying to instill in the islandersâ culture: a love and concern for the environment and all living creatures, a willingness to pitch in and help just for the pleasure of it, and a desire to learn new concepts about the sea.

But communities, like individual people, have habits, and habits are difficult to change. In Tonga, people habitually use the marine resources as common property. According to common law, no person can prevent any other person from taking whatever they like from the sea, especially when it comes to feeding the family. There were few legal restrictions on what could or could not be taken. With the exception of a handful of species listed in the Birds and Fish Preservation Act, there were no seasons, no size limits, and no enforcement.

As long as Tongan people took only what they needed from the reefs to provide food for their families, this wasnât a problem. When they had enough to eat, they stopped fishing. But then fishermen obtained expensive boats and outboard motors with development-bank loans. This created a new kind of fisherman, one who would fish for money and not stop fishing until the desire for cash was satisfied. As everyone knows, the desire for cash is never satisfied.

Commercialism, modern diving equipment, outboard motors and seaworthy fishing boats were common in Tonga when I was starting my project, so the lack of a community conservation ethic was a problem. I had done quite a bit of reading about other projects that tried to change community behavior patterns. One of the most instructive community-based management and monitoring projects was conducted by the University of Manila on Sumilon Island in the central Philippine Islands. The coral-reef fishery there, as in most of the Philippines, was in serious decline from overfishing and destructive fishing techniques. University scientists persuaded the villagers to set aside a portion of the reef as a community coral-reef reserve. Fishers monitored their catch, and after several years it became clear that the reserve was helping. Fishers were catching more fish from less coastal area than before the reserve was set up. After ten years, the university researchers felt the project was a success and they disbanded the project. Shortly thereafter, the villagers held a town meeting and voted to allow fishing in the reserve. It was soon destroyed, and fishing catches fell to the low level experienced before the project started.

The moral of this story is that while the presence and influence of the university researchers persauded the villagers to try the reserve, they also held in check the personal relationships within the community, and left a multitude of issues unresolved. When the researchers left, the relationships resumed exactly where they left off a decade earlier.

Clearly, then, communities have to work out their own social adjustments in advance and do the project because they actually understand the ecological reason behind the plan and agree, as a community, to go ahead with it. So my game plan was to entertain and enlighten the villagers with the Earthwatch expeditions, but put the responsibility for change onto the community. The Earthwatch participants were fully briefed on the plan, and we took the dramatic position that we were documenting the extinction of a species. If the people wanted to prevent the extinction of one of their favorite food species, our team would be happy to give suggestions. But the whole social and legal problem of how people could get the clams, set up a community sanctuary, and protect the clams was their affair, not mine.

I was not friendly. I refused to go to feasts. I did not accept any of the invitations of friendships with local individuals or families. I didnât go to peopleâs homes. I didnât pay any local people to do anything. I studied clams with the express purpose of watching the people of Vavaâu extinguish a valuable species. When Tongan people suggested they would try to set up a giant clam sanctuary, I gave advice on biological questions and scientific matters quickly and publicly. I shrugged when they talked about social and legal issues. Most of the time I was off surveying the reefs÷highly visible with energetic volunteers taking measurements, waving flags, shouting back and forth near the villages. We began baseline surveys to determine the condition of the existing stock of giant clams and to study the environmental conditions suitable for future giant-clam sanctuaries.

The governor of Vavaâu, Dr. S. Maâafu Tupou (later acting Minister of Lands, Survey, and Natural Resources and now deceased), knew all about our project, and understood what I was trying to do, why I was doing it, and what the true issues were. He helped out in every way he could. To overcome the disbelief in the perilous state of the species, the governor arranged, in December, 1987, for the local business community to set up a small fund for cash prizes for the fishermen who could catch the most Tridacna derasa (Tokanoa molemole) and Tridacna squamosa (Matahele) to put into a community sanctuary. Our preliminary surveys were about to be believed.

As part of the public awareness surrounding the contest, we put shells of the already extinct Hippopus hippopus on display at Fisheries. The older fishermen remembered them, said they tasted very good and lived in shallow water. The contest offered $100 cash for any live specimens found. Nobody found any, and the idea of extinction took on a tangible meaning. Fishermen searched for two months and only found 12 Tridacna derasa, underscoring the severe depletion of the local stocks in the inner island group of Vavaâu. Finally, during a calm spell, the fishermen were able to reach more remote reefs and gather more, enough to build a respectable brood stock.

Two community brood stocks were made, one with 72 Tridacna derasa and another with 75 Tridacna squamosa. They were placed in shallow water (three to fifteen meters) directly in front of Falevai village, on Kapa Island, in a centrally located part of the Vavaâu Island Group. The governor chose the village. It was in a central location and offered a good habitat for the clams. Most important, the district officer lived there, a man who was one of those special key people who truly understood and cared about the problem. The fact that the district police station was right there was also an asset.

The clams were arranged in circles so they could be easily counted and so the eggs and sperm would be well mixed during spawning, no matter which direction the water currents were flowing at the time. Each circle had 10 clams: 9 around the circumference spaced at least 2 meters apart and 1 in the center. The circles, each about 10 meters in diameter, were laid out in depths from 4 to 15 meters in a site selected by the village people. Each circle had only one species in it, and the Tridacna derasa circles were grouped in one part of the sanctuary, and the Tridacna squamosa circles in another.

Radio, newspaper, and magazine articles informed the public of the need for, and the benefits of, the brood stock sanctuary. Fonos were held to tell the people in the 31 villages of the Vavaâu Island Group to leave the giant clams alone. In theory, nothing prevented people from using the sanctuary area for fishing or recreation. In practice, however, nobody did, because if some clams were discovered missing, whoever had been seen swimming in the area would be blamed.

In Tonga, social obligations (Fakaâapaâapa) are the most important aspect of a personâs life. The major reason people have left the giant clams in the Falevai Community Giant Clam Sanctuary alone is because it has become a social obligation to do so; a responsibility to maintain a good supply of these sea creatures for the families of all the people of Tonga. ãIf a man allows his farm to go to ruin or spoils the soil, he is not meeting his social obligations to his family,ä explained the district officer, Vanisi Fakatulolo. ãIf anyone takes clams from the community sanctuary, he is spoiling the production of the sea and is not meeting his social obligations to himself, his family, or his community.ä

In 1988, we made an educational video explaining, in English and in Tongan, the concept of the community giant clam sanctuary. Although the literacy rate is high in Tonga, rural island people do not often read, and they donât absorb complex ideas via radio programs. Fonos and churches are ritualized and involve very little opportunity for the introduction of novel, complex ideas. Schools are staffed with underpaid and often transient teachers struggling to deal with the whole range of educational issues. Island people are reluctant to talk with each other about new issues they donât fully understand. But everybody likes to watch videos, and today, video players are common in almost all schools and many homes. Even in the remote island villages in Vavaâu, the people have access to at least one machine. In our video, King Taufaâahau Tupou IV endorsed the project, saying, ãThe giant clam sanctuaries are a benefit to everyone and should not be raided by irresponsible people.ä People saw The Giant Clam Circles of Vavaâu again and again.

Aisea Tuipulotu, an officer with the fisheries department in Vavaâu, said, ãThe video was very helpful for us. It is very difficult to get people to understand something new, and takes a lot of talking. Even then, they donât always believe you. But the video shows them, in pictures, what it is all about, and they understand.ä

Operating according to my itâs-your-problem-and-
your-sanctuary plan, we spent almost no time surveying at the sanctuary itself. Whenever we wanted to go see the clams, I went to the district officer and asked his permission. At one point I suggested perhaps they might operate a little tourism business, setting up an underwater trail through the giant clam sanctuaries, perhaps with a village guide. I was quite surprised at the reaction. Nobody went into the sanctuary. It was not for tourism. It was for the giant clams. The villagers did not even want tourists to know where it was and discouraged cruising yachts from entering the area. The only sign÷on shore÷said simply, ãNo Anchoring North of the Wharf. By Order of the Police.ä