Rights-based Fisheries in Ulithi Atoll, Micronesia: Field Logistics and Reconnection to Remathau Roots
Written by Alissa Takesy (Fisheries Opportunity Fund Fellow 2025)
Running on Island Time
Island time is what dictated the logistics of getting to my field site – the territorial waters of Ulithi Atoll, Yap, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) – from Santa Cruz, California which meant traveling a distance of about 5,585 miles. It took me about three months to synchronize my international (California to Pohnpei, FSM) and domestic (Pohnpei to Yap, FSM) flights to ship (Yap to Ulithi Atoll) to boat to shore (Falalop Island, Ulithi Atoll) coordination. This logistics coordination required frequent follow-ups with my field site host organization, Ulithi-Falalop Community Action Program (UFCAP), to determine a schedule based on the atoll communities’ availability. I had to respect the atoll communities’ timetables and recognized that their cultural obligations may delay my initial schedule (July).
UFCAP gave me the green light to deploy in mid-September to support their community partnership with Rull Municipality, Yap on a rapid marine resources assessment of their coastal jurisdiction. UFCAP in partnership with One People One Reef (OPOR) supported Rull Municipality’s request to provide technical advice on the US Department of War’s (US DOW) public scoping meeting on their Environmental Impact Statement of an airport, seaport, and connecting road improvement project in Yap. I was able to sit in two of the US DOW team’s series of public scoping meetings: one community meeting and the exit briefing with the Yap State leadership. I sat in the Yap State Taskforce Meeting subsequent to the exit briefing and was given a chance to share my opinions on the magnitude and extent of the environmental impacts of the proposed infrastructure project. OPOR simultaneously passed on our comments to the Yap State Taskforce and uploaded to the US DOW public comment website before the closing date.
As we were wrapping up the Rull Municipality rapid marine resources assessment, we were informed of the sad passing of a Falalop island matriarch and one of the Yap State Congressmen. The recent passing of these prominent island leaders delayed my ship passage schedule from Yap main island to Ulithi Atoll and the ship-to-shore transfer to Falalop Island by a week.
On October 7, 2025, I disembarked from the FSM’s M/V Caroline Voyager in the western lagoonal waters of Ulithi Atoll on a windy and rainy day with my personal effects and research equipment and supplies, boarded a 20-footer boat with fellow passengers, and took a 10-minute choppy water boat ride to get to Falalop Island.
Due to the choppy water conditions, I had to quickly get off the transport boat with a fellow female passenger to allow the male passengers and crew to assist with offloading the cargo and avoiding the boat capsizing from the strong waves.
All the cargo got sorted out and my stuff was put on a small flat-bed truck taken to my host research organization’s residence. To begin orienting myself to the island’s landscape, I took a refreshing guided walk under the rain to my host research organization’s outdoor cooking house, which serves a receiving area for visitors, thus began my journey of reconnecting to my Remathau roots.
Matau Hefal: Reconnecting with my Remathau Roots
Remathau means “descendants of the sea lanes” (as defined by my Ulithian hosts) and its knowledge system is based on a common oceanic and island culture around non-instrumental navigational wayfinding in the Western Central Pacific. Remathau covers mostly the Western low-lying islands in the Federated States of Micronesia and the Southwest low-lying islands of the Republic of Palau, and by historical cultural extension to Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. I have the privilege of having Remathau roots through my maternal and paternal sides through our extended family and clan connections.
On October 12, 2025, the UFCAP Program Director, John Rulmal, Jr. introduced me to the Falalop Island’s Council of Ten as UFCAP’s first Remathau graduate student intern to conduct research and support Ulithi Atoll’s community-based natural resource management endeavors. He and the community’s spiritual leader expanded on my Remathau paternal and maternal roots in the council meeting and invited me to brief the council on my research project. I gave a short overview of my rights-based fisheries research project’s photovoice method and intentions of the research project to further inform their community-based fisheries efforts, and potentially provide some policy guidance. This would further support the implementation of the Ulithi Atoll Community Management Plan and how it is aligned to the state, national, and regional natural resource management frameworks, such as protected area network or rights-based fisheries. The council welcomed me and indicated the two female mentors who would mentor me in my research project and provide local knowledge with implementing the photovoice method in the four island communities in Ulithi Atoll. The council would serve as my atoll community elders by mentoring and guiding me on the cultural protocols throughout the research project.
This research collaboration is a reciprocal relationship of reconnecting with my maternal and paternal clan roots; supporting UFCAP’s sustainable improvements mission; and giving back to my Remathau relations by being in community with them. This meant going with my host mom and aunties on my second day on Falalop to the taro patches and dig up some swamp taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii) to prepare for the recently deceased Falalop matriarch’s ninth-day prayer vigil.
It also means to observe the fishing and talk stories with my host father and uncles about their fishing practices and learning the local nomenclature of their fish species.
Initial Observations
It has been about a week since I arrived on Falalop Island in Ulithi Atoll and had the opportunity to observe a community-based rights-based fishing practice this past weekend. One of the two chiefly clan boats was taken out by a crew of eight early Saturday morning to fish for local near-shore species – rogrog (Lethrinus rubrioperculatus). They came back in the afternoon with two coolers full of rogrog and the initial re-distribution of the whole catch was done by the boat owner’s representative and the lead fisherman, where they separated out the larger sized species into one cooler to be sent off.
The remaining catch was piled onto the grass and one of the younger fishing crew members was tasked to equitably distribute the catch pile into eight portions to share the remaining catch.
These eight shares were given to the eight crew members’ households, where their womenfolk immediately cooked some of the catch to feed their fishermen and the rest were smoked in anticipation of feeding our Remathau relations voyaging on M/V Caroline Voyager returning from the state funeral burial ceremony in Satawal Island (Yap State’s most eastern outer island).
Later on Sunday afternoon, another boat went fishing for local pelagic fish species – fofo (Elagtis bipinnulata) – since we were approaching the westerly wind season. I had the privilege to be recognized by both fishing crews by right of being their sponsored Remathau grad student and relation and given a portion of one of the older crew members who were my host family members.
