raonraonpng: July 2016

Jonah Bobogi is a self taught aquaculture expert who started the inland Super Tilapia Farming at Sirinumu Dam and now distributing fingerlings throughout PNG. His hard work and sheer determination have paid him off and now a proud owner of a semi-modern and improvised nursery and hatchery for Super Tilapia and Fresh Water Prawns on his Bausaka Island.

‘Our livelihood of the past in the valley have been tormented and we moving on after the water has taken over our dwelling places’; Jonah.

Jonah Bobogi is currently into a village based fisheries business from Bausaka Island located on the southern edge of the Sirinumu Dam. He comes from Berebai village and moved on to the island to try out his local expertise in inland Super Tilapia fish farming. According to encyclopedia, the Super Tilapia are mainly freshwater fish inhabits the shallow streams, ponds, rivers and lakes and less commonly found living in brackish water.

With little knowledge about the breeding procedures of Super Tilapia from his training stints with National Fisheries Authority (NFA). The local Koari villager has overcome the obstacles in illiteracy and remoteness of his location with a determined heart to achieve what he has dreamt of in his life.

Apart from rest of the Sirinumu Catchment area hamlets and villages which are connected with electricity, his island is far from the main PNG Power grid line that connects the surrounding villages. Jonah on his small and remote island uses solar panels that he ordered from China though some friends and he uses them to pump water into the breeding ponds and light up his area. From the dugout ground ponds for breeding to now he has two NFA donated 4x4 platoons with 12 cages having five thousand Super Tilapia in each cage. Apart from Super Tilapia he also breeds Freshwater Prawns that are really doing well with the help of University of PNG Marine and Biology Department serving with hatchery toil and providing incubation support. The breeding of Golden Curb species has also been a successful story in the trial phase and his clients from all over PNG have started ordering from him.

Apart from the successful journey that he is heading with skills in aquaculture, farming and carpentry, there were setbacks that affects his farming yet he is determined and a never give-up Koari bloke with 2 daughters, 3 sons and a grandson. Sadly his second son passed away for unknown reasons but he said; ‘I accepted the fact that the Man above is the provider of everything and that was His plan for my son,’ Jonah sobs off softly.

Few times his Super Tilapia nets have been broken into by crocodiles and freed the bulk of the fish in the cages but that was not the end of his fish farming project. His never give up stamina has given him the courage to get the remaining ones into the cage and continued with the breeding of the fingerlings and now he is more watchful of crocodiles to never intrude again.

He is a charismatic man of virtue and he talks from the start of the conversation to the ending to make people understand in detail, whilst into the depth of the conversation with anyone, he can stand, sit or walk or include jokes to make you understand the full message. You can start a conversation and he has the words to complete for you and makes it interesting with his soft gestures and never fading smiles. He is devoted and a serious talker and means what he says but others feel it’s too much for them to absorb. I had a chance chatting with him during my feasibility study tour of his island facilities and had a conversation for nearly three hours and should have continued but my research team with dinghy arrived to pick me up so I have to bid him farewell in the middle of the conversation and departed in the afternoon for the campsite.

While walking with him to the jetty he stopped me and said, ‘Son look out to the lake from here and what is the view like’; I replied, ‘it’s amazing and perfect million dollar view,’ and he smiled away when I spoke out the words that he has been looking to describe the view every time he sits under his Kunai Hauswin and takes a glimpse on the sun setting when sipping a warm cup of tea to ease off the tensions from working on his three trades each day.

During the tour of his facilities around the island with him, I found him to be one hardworking Koiari man with skills in agriculture, carpentry and aquaculture which does not require him to look for any expertise help, hence his survival is alone on his own island world that has potential to attract Super Tilapia lovers as well as tourists for site seeing, camping and picnic. He told me, ‘he was alone developing the island and its facilities including the barbecue area, guesthouse and Super Tilapia breeding ponds since 2006 and now he expects visitors to come visit his Bausaka Island to buy fish or for leisure and use the available facilities.

Even Jonah is isolated from the Sirinumu Catchment communities, he always had the heart for his people and through his own initiative he has trained some locals with inland Super Tilapia breeding skills and given off fingerlings to the local community for start up. His enthusiasm to teach and share knowledge with the Sirinumu catchment community was recognized by NFA and selected the locals under his project support training to go for further training under NFA viability training on inland fish farming.

Although the project seems so little on the remote island, he has a vision and dream that he is into a massive project that will link up with Sirinumu Cooperative’s Ecotourism Development which is progressing with feasibility studies by a combined technical team from Kokoda Track Authority, Central Provincial Tourism, NCDC Tourism Bureau and PNG Tourism Promotion Authority. Jonah has a keen interest to link his products into tourism and he has already existing facilities for tourist to go camping or for a weekend picnic and return. His facilities include a four room guest house, a big kitchen area, barbecue facilities, toilet and a shelter (Hauswin) to get a good view of the dam from the island.

Jonah is continuing to build a hatchery and nursery which he said to utilize his local expertise in water reticulation system to improvise what is on the island to ensure it delivers the expected result. He said he got the training from Thailand under NFA funding and he was the one who was more competent and he can actually put up the skills he learnt into use by constructing for himself a hatchery and nursery for his fish farming project. In between the breeding pond and the nursery or hatchery he has proposed to build an office and a resource centre that will be opened to visitors to the island. He can do more by putting into use what he learns from NFA trainings but he needs funding support and technical advice; however he has progressed well on his own way up with little assistance from NFA.

In fact, Jonah has an impact project to the Sirinumu Catchment community since 1963 when all the good places for gardening, waterways and livelihoods went underwater when the Sirinumu Dam was constructed and water took over the place. From then on, everyone has adapted a new lifestyle by commuting on boats and dugout canoes to go to gardens on the hillside or to have access to the main road and schools which are closer through the water. Jonah is one example of how he had chosen to live his life after the Sirinumu Dam and now has the opportunity to tap into tourism and fisheries project whilst other areas of game fishing, kayaking, trekking, camping and lodging remains potential for Sirinumu Catchment area which he has the existing products to sell.