Vanua-tai (Species) Monitors

Community participation is the hallmark of this programme. In response to the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP)'s declaration that 1995 was "the year of the turtle", Wan Smolbag travelled around Efate (the island where the capital is based), collecting stories and anecdotes and asking people to share their perspectives on the turtle situation (e.g., the number of turtles being killed) in their village. Wan Smolbag then created a play reflecting these ideas and returned to the villages to perform it. Organisers suggested that if the villagers wanted to keep in touch about this issue, they should appoint a 'turtle monitor'. Many villages did so. At the post-play discussion, some villages imposed 10-year bans on turtle killing. SPREP then supported efforts to bring the monitors into town for workshops that featured people from fisheries, forestry, and other areas.

Volunteer effort is another key programme facet. The village-based turtle monitors report on the numbers of turtles coming ashore to lay eggs and encourage fellow villagers to help the sea turtles recover. This programme has a inter- (as well as intra-) community focus. When the monitors said they wanted to talk to people on other islands about what they were doing, Wan Smolbag carried out a series of theatre tours, taking monitors along to talk with villagers after the play. The 200 volunteer monitors around the country meet at a village on Efate once a year. Wan Smolbag recently trained some of the monitors to use its video "A Piece of Land" so that, even when not accompanied by Smolbag actors, they can use these materials as an interactive way of looking at resource management. Monitors also teach outer-island turtle monitors to tag turtles.

In recent years, the network expanded its focus beyond turtles - it now mobilises around other coastal issues, such as over-harvesting of beche-de-mer and unsustainable logging.

Environment.

Sea turtles are endangered everywhere in the world; Wan Smolbag explains that getting rural fishers to consider not killing them or people to refrain from raiding their nesting sites is a complex and difficult issue. In most Pacific islands, they say, there is no enforcement of fisheries' regulations or laws - even where these exist. In the course of performing plays to address this issue, Wan Smolbag found that many people in Vanuatu did not fully understand the plight of the turtles or why they were endangered.

Wan Smolbag claims that the monitor programme has led most villages to ban the killing and eating of turtles and their eggs; they also say that the monitors have been instrumental in enforcing bans on the reefs around Efate. For example, some villages went from killing 30 a month to zero. On one island, where turtle killing plays a part in in yam festivals, some communities have dropped from 130 to 20 over the festival time. More qualitatively, Wan Smolbag cites a general agreement among monitors that many more young turtles are swimming around the lagoons off the main island.

SPREP is a regional organisation established by the governments and administrations of the Pacific region to look after its environment. SPREP's members total 26, consisting of all 22 Pacific island countries and territories, and 4 countries with direct interests in the region: Australia, France, New Zealand, and the United States.