There are ‘clam circles’ protect giant clam resources in Tonga.

In Tonga, the end of the customary marine tenure and the beginning of open access to marine resources dates from 1875. Despite these rule changes, community resource management continued to play a key role mostly through transmission of traditional knowledge between generations, but this has slowly faded and there is now open access to marine resources. Furthermore, the introduction of cash economies in the 1950s removed the sacred and protected status from some species so that they became just another source of food and income for the community, irrespective of past traditions

There were 9 MPAs off Tongatapu in the 1990s, but these had no management, education or enforcement programs. Tonga, like French Polynesia, Kiribati and Niue, had limits on catch sizes for fishes, invertebrates and shellfishes, but enforcement was usually poor.

In Tonga, efforts are now under way to conduct baseline and monitoring studies in a number of areas and analyse all existing data. Similar efforts are in progress to implement MPAs that were planned by the Environment Department. However, there are considerable constraints due to poor capacity for monitoring, surveillance and enforcement.