The Fisheries Science Division held a one-week training on Socioeconomic assessment on Special Management Areas (SMA) & Land-locked sites and Enumerator training which was held on the 22nd -26th of February 2021. Socioeconomic assessment is one of the main activities of the Ministry’s Inshore Resource Assessment Section. This assessment was designed as one of the mechanisms to assess the status and well being of SMAs. This training was led by Dr. Tuíkolongahau Halafihi, CEO for Fisheries.
Over the years, the number of SMAs has rapidly been increasing and this assessment helps to understand the type and extend of impacts (positive/benefit and negative/cost) that the SMA management has on people.
The main purpose of this training was to;
- Train staff and enumerators the right way of how to do the socio-economic assessment survey
- Teach them how to input data online using the rugged tablets
- Assist the Ministry to have and informed resource management, conversation strategies and activities that support human well-being, ecologically and socially sustainable development at the very minimum without cause no harm or make reasonable trade off.
This survey will start here in Tongatapu and will continue on to Vavaú, Haápai and Éua.
Attended in this training were Fisheries staff from the Science Division, Vavaú, Haápai , Éua also Ms. Karen Stone and few staff from Vavaú Environmental Protection Association (VEPA).
