Fij's Future | Part 1

By Marc Ethier and Lisa Archer
For Friends of the Earth

The old man can still get up into the hills. Years of wear and recent leg problems can't keep him from clambering, determinedly if slowly, up the steep natural steps across the road from his village, up to his little farm, a tiny patch of fertile soil on a tiny fertile island amid many that dot the central Pacific.

On his little scrap of land in Taveuni, foremost of Fiji's eastern group of islands, Aisake Talemainakorovou, 66, keeps a few taro plants, maybe a bit of cassava – not much food for practical purposes, and more than enough for a man who has few real needs. He lives with his wife and son in a large house near his home village, revered and cared for by his neighbors. He may keep working the farm – something he laughs to call it – now more out of habit than anything else.

But when Aisake speaks of his quarter-acre overlooking the village of Vidawa, something else becomes apparent: it isn't for nostalgia any more than for food that he drags himself -- sometimes leaning on a crutch, sometimes on a young arm -- up the slick green paths into the wilderness of Bouma National Heritage Park, high up on Taveuni, where a command of much of the island's uninhabited eastern shore is possible. Aisake does it because he still honors his practical duties as lead guide for the tourist attraction he was integral to founding a few years ago: the Vidawa Rainforest Hike, which runs past his plot deep and high into the otherwise impenetrable and unknown jungle. He goes up there to cut away brush, keep the track clear, and offer advice to the handful of guides whose charge it now is.

The story of the founding of the hike is one Aisake happily tells. Its origins lie in Fiji's colonial past, when the islands served as little more than resource commodities for the British Commonwealth; this ended more recently than most people realize, if indeed it has ended even now, Aisake says.

Aisake knows better than anyone -- even the village chiefs, who collectively hold sway over more than four-fifths of Fiji -- the value of the land. He vividly recalls when, in the 1960s, the islands were ravaged for copra, dried coconut used for oils and candies. Taveuni's villages were paid handsomely to tear down vast tracts of native vegetation and plant groves of coconut trees, guaranteed work in perpetuity and an indefinite share of profits. Only the boom didn't last, demand failed; untold numbers of trees were lost to vines and disease. Poor protection measures further exposed miles of lowlands to timber harvesting. It took decades for the ecology, and the economy, to recover.

Like all patterns in life, these things tend to occur in cycles. Twenty years ago an attempt was made to influence Taveuni's chiefs to lease the rights to vast tracts of trees. It was resisted. But in the last decade Aisake sensed another turn in the tide. Pressure is once again mounting.

It is the oldest problem in Fiji: As memories of the past fade, new corporate ventures arrive, offering first this village, then its neighbor, enormous sums for the rights to exploit their varied resources. In the '60s it was copra, coffee, sugarcane, other vegetables, and, of course, softwood lumber. Now, since the lowlands have already been decimated, the focus is on the rainforests. "I see this happening again. Before it was the coconuts: they paid us to cut down all the trees and plant coconuts, and they paid us to [harvest] them. But when the vine took over, the coconuts died. Now they seek to buy our land up on the mountain, to do the same thing, to cut down the trees, to use our land."

Aisake had an idea how to break the cycle. For years he had provided the occasional traveler -- ornithologists, botanists and biologists, mostly -- small guided tours of Bouma, which was itself established with sustainable development-focused aid from New Zealand. With the help of Raleigh International (a U.K.-based youth development organization that operates charities all over the globe) and the cooperative effort of the villages of Vidawa, Bouma and Lavena, three months of effort began to carve out a path through the uncharted tangle of verdure that bordered Aisake's farm and village. Two years ago the rainforest hike was completed, and the tourists -- brought to Taveuni by its reputation as Fiji's "Garden Isle" and myriad opportunities to experience the mysterious expanse of Bouma, such as the Lavena Coastal Walk and the Tavoro Waterfalls -- began to arrive.

Vanua Bouma -- the name for the land, sea and people of Bouma -- was breaking the cycle of agricultural dependence. And of dependence on forces outside Fiji for economic succor. "This is better: this way we keep our land, we keep our trees and our forest, and we have work, and we have money," Aisake says (see video). "This is better. We help tourists understand about the land, about the trees, and they go away knowing more about us and about the beauty of the land.

"It's like advertising. The more we advertise, the more we keep the forest."

Aisake's revelation for Taveuni's future was not an isolated event. All across Fiji over the last several years the movement toward ecologically sound stewardship in response to the ever-growing demands of tourism has been marked, and remarkable. As the island nation anticipates a move from Third to Second -- and then, rapidly it seems, to First -- World status, the government has begun to subsidize wind and solar power. The pride with which this progressive Parliament and its Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, pursue sustainable development is evident in the advertising campaign now flooding Fiji's airwaves, dominating its newspaper coverage and adorning its billboards. Environmental Impact Assessments are widespread, especially in places, like the Mamanuca Islands, where coral reefs are in peril.

The rise of ecotourism is a natural adjunct to all this. In the Yasawas, a chain of tiny islands on the northwest side of the archipelago where the ecosystem is radically climatically different than Taveuni's, most resorts now boast some degree of environmentally friendly practice. They take their building materials strictly from local sources, and work to fit into the natural landscape. They offer only local fish and organic fare. They use little motorized transport besides boats, and put little to no restriction on access to lands or sea. And they do everything they can to protect the reefs, one of the Yasawas' main attractions, which are negatively impacted by everything from mainland sugarcane industry pollution to global climate change.

On islands that are Taveuni's geographic and atmospheric converse, where the soil is dry and the weather consistently sunny -- and where the reefs are unrivaled for variety of sea life, yet constantly threatened by bleaching and the effects of heavy visitation -- care and thought are required, and exercised, to prevent irremediable loss.

For many resorts, this is their calling card. They aim to attract a burgeoning demographic of young, progressive travelers who hope to leave as small a footprint as possible wherever they visit. Resorts like Mantaray Island (www.mantarayisland.com) and Oarsman's Bay (www.oarsmansbay.com) appeal to that significant segment of tourists who have researched and understand the long-term needs of their destination.

Continued in Part Two

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