Ataúro Island: Sustainable Management Plan (SMP) is a five-year plan for 2021–2025 for Timor-Leste’s largest island. It was produced by USAID’s Tourism For All Project, prepared by Chemonics International with Sustainable Solutions International Consulting. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) asked for it to complement the 2019 Ataúro Island Sustainable Tourism Strategy, which the same project supported. It is the main reference for how conservation, fisheries, tourism and community livelihoods on Atauro should be managed together. A Tetum edition, Illa Ataúro: Planu Jestaun Sustentável, was also published.
Key contents
- Setting: more than 11,000 people (2018) in 19 hamlets across five sucos, who depend mainly on farming and fishing. The government recognises the island as a critical area for marine and terrestrial biodiversity.
- Situational analysis: the island’s high conservation values, including reef species records from Conservation International surveys and cetaceans in the Ombai-Wetar Strait. It also covers existing protected sites and tara bandu areas, ecosystem services, governance, development partners and a stakeholder analysis.
- Key challenges: priority marine, terrestrial and socio-cultural sustainability challenges.
- Vision: “Ataúro’s biodiversity and natural environment is protected, essential ecosystems are secured for people and nature, and livelihoods are sustainable and support the preservation of social and cultural heritage.”
- Objectives for 2021–2025: 24 management objectives with targets: 10 marine, 6 terrestrial and 8 socio-cultural. The central marine objective is to finalise and establish a Marine Protected Area through the “One Island One Management” (OIOM) plan. That plan brings the tara bandu no-take zones and the Vila MPA under one zoning scheme with a fair reef fee mechanism, developed with the Coral Triangle Center.
- Implementation: timelines for each sector, plans for an Ataúro Visitor and Conservation Center, and a monitoring, evaluation and learning framework linked to SDG indicators.
- Appendices: stakeholder consultations, protected aquatic species, an example tara bandu suco regulation, commercially important reef fish, a portfolio of development partners and the OIOM MPA proposal.
Language versions
- English: Ataúro Island: Sustainable Management Plan (111 pages)
- Tetum: Illa Ataúro: Planu Jestaun Sustentável (110 pages)
Document details
- Publisher: USAID’s Tourism For All Project (prepared by Chemonics International Inc. with Sustainable Solutions International Consulting)
- Requested by: Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Timor-Leste
- Plan period: 2021–2025
- Languages: English, Tetum
- Download (English): PDF (timorleste.tl)
- Download (Tetum): PDF (timorleste.tl)