Collected sea cucumbers were filled in 4 big buckets.
Sea cucumbers released.
Waiting the darkness on the boat.
Sea cucumber farm.
On January 24, Ken, Janice of TRCT, David of Meerur village, Elijan and Salven of College of Micronesia, COM, conducted sea cucumber collection work in night time at the sea cucumber farm just out of the beach of the village. Jun and myself of ECOPLUS joined the operation.
It was very clear evening. We waited until it was getting dark on the boat, since sea cucumbers would come out from the sand in the darkness. The depth of the water was about chest level. the farm area was like 100 meters square, and was separated by net from outside.
Inside of the net, we put our head into the water. Janice and I made a pair, and I helped her carrying a flash light. With flashlight we tried to find sea cucumbers. It was difficult to identify sea cucumbers inside of dense long sea weed leaves. We also needed to walk and dive gently not to disturb water and sands to keep the visibility.
I surprised how fast Janice was to find and catch sea cucumbers. However, later, she said that she could not touch a sea cucumber when the project started three years ago.
Through out four hours in the ocean, we collected 686 sea cucumbers. After counting numbers, we released those into open water area.
This was the final work of the sea cucumber farming project. After releasing all grown sea cucumbers from the farm, the net wall will be reported and another farming project will be started.
It was really tough work. But we observed see so many stars over the ocean.
Reported by GOTO Haruka, a volunteer staff of ECOPLUS/TRCT, a student of WASEDA University, Tokyo
Rain Water Harvesting, RWH, system under Readiness for El Niño, RENI, project held by The Pacific Community, SPC, at Tamil community was completed and the training session was held on Jan 28, 2020.
As a part of RENi, supported by European Union, the tanks were set in November 2019 at Tamil Elementary School and since then the experimental operation of the system has been conducted until now. Specialists from Fiji checked the status of the system this time and also conducted the training session toward the community members.
On Tuesday, school teachers, coordinators of Tamil Resources Conservation Trust, TRCT, and other community members joined the specialists and Mr. Sean Gaarad, the country coordinator for SPC as well as the president of TRCT, at the cafeteria of the school and learnt the mechanism of and ways to maintain the system.
Rain over the roof is gathered through gutter and objects, like leaves, are removed through meshed funnel called “leaf eater” then water is filtered by sand. After the purification, water is stored in four tanks which can hold 1,500 litters in each. The full amount of water will support community members providing 3 littles of clean water for each for up to three weeks.
In the Pacific region, a serious El Niño was recorded in 2016 and raise serious droughts in several islands for up to 11 months. In Yap, no rain was recorded for months in the year and in Tamil serious wild fires burnt almost 1 kilometer square area.
EU set the project RENi from 2017-2020, providing 4 million Euro to set water tanks for the emergency in several island communities through SPC.
Reported by GOTO Haruka, a volunteer staff of ECOPLUS/TRCT, a student of WASEDA University, Tokyo
1月20、21日、TRCTは、College of Micronesia（COM）のCooperative Research & Extention（CRE）と共同で、これまで養殖をしてきたナマコの計測作業をサポートしました。 3年前から、COM-CREとTRCTはタミル地区西方のメルール村の沖合いに養殖場を設置し、Sand fish（学名:Holothuria scarba）という種類のナマコを養殖してきました。養殖の初期は小さな受精卵でしたが、今では20cm前後の個体もあるほど見事に成長しました。
On Jan 20 and 21, TRCT members supported measuring operation of sea cucumbers by Cooperative Research & Extension (CRE) of College of Micronesia (COM).
Off the beach of Meerur village, COM-CRE and TRCT set a farming area and many cucumbers, called Sandfish, or “Holothuria scabra,” were farmed in past three years. At the beginning of the faming, those were just tiny fertilized eggs, now they grew big up to 8-inch or 20-cm long.
Through the operation in two days, over 700 cucumbers were collected from the shallow farming area and were brought back to the men’s house of the village for the measurement. After checking the size and weight of all, they were released to the open water.
The aim of the research is to identify the growth rate of the sea cucumber. Originally the sea cucumbers were very common in Yap water, however over catch of those intended to ship to China made those almost extinct in the ocean.
In 2017, the project started by COM-CRE with TRCT as a partner. Sea cucumbers are called as an “ocean cleaner,” according to specialists at COM-CRE. They eat sedimentation, and discharge sand, like a sand filter. Sea cucumbers play an important role to keep the ocean healthy. Without healthy number of sea cucumbers, the ocean would be dirty and dark, and coral could not grow. Healthy corals support healthier habitat of fishes and other sea creatures.
(Reported by GOTO Haruka, student of Waseda University)
On Saturday, 19 October, 2019, TRCT conducted clam distribution operation with 12 children with the support of Tamil Youth Organization, TYO, and Yap Community Action Program, YapCAP, releasing 92 giant clams which were raised in farming beds for three years.
In advance to the operation, TRCT distributed 63 clams on October 7, and 92 clams on 8. In total 174 clams were released into the Marine Protected Area in the lagoon of Tamil municipality. Now we have 225 clams in farming cases.
In old days, lagoon of Yap was fully covered by giant clams, according to old persons. TRCT is now trying to recover the number of clams. From baby status with the size of thumbnail, clams grow to bigger than 220 millimeter width and it is now maturing stage. With less risk to be bitten by predicators like puffin fish, TRCT decided to release those to wide spread protected area for natural hatching process.
Jeff was drawing the map of the area with machete!
Big tree “QAW.”
Bamboos.
Dialogue after the walk.
Map was completed.
On October 5, 2019, Jeff Marbey, vice chair person of TRCT, Mr. KAWAGUCHI Daisuke, human resource specialist and OHMAE Junichi, board member of ECOPLUS, conducted trial village walk and mapping activity in Teb village of Tamil.
The activity was intended to re-identify resources and assets of the place for sustainable future. Through the walk, Jeff, originally from the village, identify different plants, historical sites, traditional stories and life in old days. During the walk a huge lizard with more than 1 meter long appeared just in front of us.
Along the coast side, Jeff told the story about sea level rise. Taro patches next to the coastal road was having salty water coming through high tide. Because of the salty water, those places became to be abandoned. When we stepped into mountain side through the old stone path, several remains of stone platform, or “daef,” where people were setting their houses were identified. A huge tall tree called “QAW” was also identified. Jeff told that fruit-bats liked the fruit of the tree.
For just a couple of hundred meters walk, we joyfully enjoyed exploration for more than one hour. For Mr. KAWAGUCHI, it was the second visit to this island, and he told that it was quite exciting to walk the place with local people.
After coming back from the walk, other staff at TRCT joined in the dialogue. Specially on the issue of fruit-bats, Jeff and Ken told the place of their nests in the area. They also mentioned about the habitat of the animal and how people of Yap had been hunting those in with ways. We all agreed to have such walk and dialogue would visualize what the area was having in the relation with the nature and human and it would show the potential of the area in this modernized society.
United Nations’ “Equators Prize” was given to TRCT on September 24, 2019, in New York during its general assembly. The prize is given to communities in tropic area to promote their efforts to conserve and to use biodiversity sustainably in every two years.
This year TRCT was chosen with other 21 communities. TRCT is very honored for this award and recognizes that the award is for all the community members and many related bodies including The Nature Conservation, BMUB, North Pacific Development Fund,US Forestry Service, Micronesia Conservation Trust, Risona Foundation, JICA, ECOPLUS, YapCAP, Yap State EPA, R&D, Marine Resources, Agriculture and others.
The awarding ceremony was held at Town Hall of central New York in the evening of September 24. The representatives from TRCT, Mr. Vitus Faneg and Ms. Wenifred Faimau were attended on the stage with other winners with local attire. They were introduced to the audience including leaders from different countries.
In advance of the ceremony, UNDP organized several workshops to connect each awardees. Not only the two representatives, but also Mr. and Mrs. Fetan of Tamil were joined in the workshops at their expense.
12 beacon light has been installed within our Marine Conservation Area (MCA) on February 22,2019 , Thanks to Ridge to Reef (R2R) for the funding and also special thanks to Marine Resources and Yapcap for helping out to install.
Tamil Resources Conservation Trust 