Breeding Season For Kawakawa And Donu Start

The 4FJ campaign is asking its supporters to forego kawakawa and donu during the peak breeding months, to protect the nation’s food security as more people struggle with the impacts of COVID-19.

The peak breeding months run from the 1st of June to the 30th September.

“With Fijians facing more and more prolonged challenges from COVID-19, it becomes even more critical to protect the nation’s food security, and to do that, Fijians are better off letting these fish breed,” said Mafa Qiolele, program manager for cChange, the organisation that

created the campaign.

“It’s simple: Save them now, have more later,” Qiolele added.

“We also understand how challenging time are now, so we ask everyone to ‘Keep the Pledge,’ if you can.”

Kawakawa and donu, known as grouper in English, are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because they gather predictably each year in the same channels to breed.

Those sites are often fished heavily, particularly for high-volume commercial fishing, leaving few fish behind to restock Fiji reefs. Of the known breeding sites in Fiji, 80 percent are declining or gone, Fiji government reported.

Fishing breeding sites potentially shifts the benefits to a smaller number of commercial fishers who can take large volumes of fish during the breeding months, Qiolele said.

Instead, letting the fish release their eggs and return to community fishing grounds across Fiji can provide more people access to the fish, the rest of the year and for years to come.

In 2018, faced with declining catches nationwide, the Government of Fiji established a legal ban on catching, selling, transporting and exporting kawakawa and donu, June through September, each year. In 2020, the Government lifted the ban for part of August and all of

September last year, because it said it wanted to provide relief to fishers.

The Government has not made any announcement that it will pursue similar actions this year.

The 4FJ campaign relaunched in 2020 as the 4FJ Fish Smart campaign, promoting, in addition to foregoing kawakawa and donu, provides a list of Fish Smart practices that can help revive fishing grounds and help Fijians better meet their food and income needs.