Pasua and the politics of environmental management, Tongareva, Cook Islands

Abstract

This article presents a summary of findings from an exploration of the politics and practices of environmental management concerning a species of giant clam, pasua (Tridacna maxima) on the island of Tongareva, an atoll in the northern Cook Islands, Eastern South Pacific. The discussion focuses on the variations in what the Tongarevan people see as the ‘problem with pasua’ and the interplay between their conceptions and the acceptance or not of a proposed customary closure on pasua harvest known as rahui. The paper suggests that environmental problems which appear ‘local’ are never about what happens in any one location but are, rather, complex, multiple and situated in networks of competing relations. The article concludes that the ‘problem with pasua’ is in a sense not locatable, because pasua is revealed in this study to be relational, networked and deeply socialised.