Livelihood Dilemmas on Some Small Islands in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea

This chapter begins by exploring the way in which one group of small islands—the Bwanabwana group—became a focus of ethnographic attention during the brief period, from 2004 to 2006, when the Milne Bay Community-Based Coastal and Marine Conservation Project (MBCP) was being implemented by Conservation International. The rather limited nature of this attention and intervention is placed in the longer historical context of what is known about the lives and livelihoods of the islanders before they became the subjects of an externally funded conservation project that failed to achieve its own objectives. We then proceed to document what little we know about the further transformation of their lives and livelihoods in the wake of this failure. This leads us to reflect on some of the larger questions raised by the divergence of scientific and indigenous beliefs and practices relating to the conservation or exploitation of marine resources, both in Milne Bay Province and in other parts of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

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Small Islands in Peril?: Island Size and Island Lives in Melanesia

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9781760466541

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