WCS-Fiji marine biological handbook. version 3.0

This handbook describes the marine biological monitoring techniques that the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Fiji Country Program is currently using to monitor reef resources inside traditional Fijian fishing grounds (qoliqoli) where networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established. The protocols have built on existing methodologies and have evolved over time to meet the needs of the WCS-Fiji program. In this section, we describe the rationale behind the monitoring approaches and how they have been optimized to fit our staffing capability and cost constraints. As the goals of the Fijian MPA networks surveyed are primarily to increase stock of food fish, we concentrate on methods for surveying relevant coral reef fish communities. We then describe several methods to collect benthic data which we predominantly use to exclude differences in reef fish communities specifically related to habitat. These data also provide valuable baseline information which could be used to monitor recovery in the event of large-scale disturbance to the reef systems.