Ilava ni Navakavu: a checklist of scientific and local names of the finfishes of the Vanua Navakavu, Fiji

This dataset is dedicated to the late Mr. Asakaia Balawa who was a marine conservation champion and custodian of indigenous Fijian environmental and cultural knowledge. This checklist records the indigenous names in the Navakavu dialect for various types of finfish (ilava), including true finfishes, sharks, rays, and eels. It pertains to the customary fishing grounds (iqoliqoli) and lands (vanua) of the people of Vanua Navakavu, situated on the Muaivusu Peninsula, east of Suva, the capital city of Fiji, in southeastern Viti Levu. Although the main focus is on marine species, information has been also included on brackish and freshwater species. The list of species is derived from a 2008 Technical Report published by the Coral Reefs Initiative for the Pacific (Initiatives Corail pour le Pacifique, CRISP), authored by the same individuals. For the purpose of this checklist, all scientific names extracted from the Technical Report were verified against the World Register of Marine Species database (www.marinespecies.org); specifically using the SiB-Colombia Open Refine Scripts for Biodiversity Data Quality script for Taxonomic Validation with WORMS's API (Marine data), that is available on GitHub. Species names that were found to be synonyms have been recorded using their valid names as of May 2023. The purpose of this list is to preserve the traditional knowledge held by the people of Vanua Navakavu concerning their marine resources.