Kuma village project is intended to add value to its current fisheries management initiative as mentioned earlier and preserve its threatened culture and traditions that have been neglected. Kuma has long been engaged in sustainable fisheries management project for almost a decade and is now finding a way to sustain its fisheries management practice. Eco-tourism is one way that will ensure the ongoing management of the fisheries resources by villagers with less or no impact to the marine resources, economically empower Kuma people and sustain important cultural values and traditions. Kuma village would like to attract tourists to tour in its MPA, uninhabited islands and share their cultural values through their stories, dances and the food. Kuma village would like to start with the revival of their old outrigger canoes, taking tourists on sail within its lagoon to site see. Sailing in traditional canoe is a traditional skill that is threatened due to the introduction of boats and are now no longer used. Kuma wants to revive this practice by refabricating 2 old outrigger canoes and have the young people taught how to sail and this plan will be form part of their tourism package.
The other issue that this project seeks to address is the shortage of fuel that has inhibited fishing for many families in Kuma. Another activity under this project is to build 10 traditional fishing canoe, to enable people go fishing and not have to rely on outboard.
Lastly, the effective monitoring and patrolling in the Marine protected Area is currently undermined as Kuma is not well - equipped with a boat to monitor these protected areas including fishing during the bonefish spawning fishing. The people of Kuma are well aware of their fisheries management rules, but the only issue is for fishermen from other villages and the nearby Makin island. Kuma has been given a pair of binoculars to help with their monitoring, and this is still not adequately supporting their monitoring. Therefore, in this project, Kuma requests a dedicated boat to effective provide surveillance to the marine protected area and fishing during the spawning season of bonefish. The boat can also support Kuma?s eco-tourism ambition as a rescue transport.