MAINTAINING GAIA

I mentioned in a recent post that a WWF rugby 7s tournament has been raising money for a local community group called the Qoliqoli Cakovata Management Committee (QCMC) who aim to better manage their province’s marine environment.

Together with providing help with money for boats, and alike, the WWF has also recently been working with them to help devise a more structured approach to their activities – starting with a work plan a few months ago.

Last week five of us from the WWF office took the 30 minute flight across to Vanua Levu to host a communications workshop at the Macuata Provincial Compound with the aim to help the QCMC better achieve their objectives.

The event was conducted entirely in Fijian so my speech was translated back at the office and presented by a colleague – all I did was hang out with children and take a load of photographs, ow… and eat too much crab, fish, fruit, cassava and anything else I could get my hands on (Fijian cooking is sensational).

From what I could gather, it all went down pretty well. Communications is quite a simple concept and, in Fiji, it is very easy to execute so I’m not sure how much of what we told them they already knew but when a journalist from the Fiji Times came to give them a presentation and take their picture everyone seemed pretty happy.

This has been my first time on Fiji’s second largest island, Vanua Levu and I’m absolutely LOVING it! It is vastly different from the parts of the main island I have been too, much less developed and much more genuine – it’s what I dreamt Fiji to be like before I came.

The village we hosted the workshop at was about an hours drive deep into the jungle perched in the banks of a river and it was spectacular! I had to wonder to myself, while watching all the kids jumping in the river and running in and out of the jungle, how amazing it must be part of a community like this. Best playground ever!

… my office!

The Great Sea Reef (GSR) is the third largest coral reef in the world and it’s located a few miles off the coast of Fiji’s Macuata province in the north of the country’s second biggest Island, Vanua Levu.

The Macuata province has a committee consisting of local community leaders called the Qoliqoli Cokovata Management Committee (QCMC) – Qoliqoli means fishing ground in Fijian.

Now might be a good time to talk about the Fijian language – Qoliqoli is pronounced Ng-goli-Ng-goli and Cokovata is Thokovata. Fijian in its written form was in fact created by a couple of missionaries in 1835 – before that there was no written form.

In written Fijian sounds requiring two consonants together were replaced by an unused consonant. So ‘c’ is sounded ‘th’, ‘b’ sounds ‘mb’, ‘d’ is ‘nd’, ‘g’ is ‘ng’, and ‘q’ is ‘n-ng’.

Anyway, the QCMC aims to manage the natural marine resources of the Macuata province and the WWF works closely with them to help them achieve their objectives.

The GSR has, for many years, been over fished. This has of course resulted in the numbers of fish declining and the obvious solution to this would be, unsurprisingly, to reduce or stop fishing it. So that is what has happened, there has been a ban, known traditionally in Fijian as a Tabu, for the past 5 years.

The ban has proven to be undeniably successful and the number and diversity of marine live has increased considerably. HOWEVER….. recently there has been a serious rise in poaching. I went diving on the GSR the other day (more details about that in a future post) and saw plenty of people fishing illegally.

The communities involved in the QCMC don’t have the money or resources to deter these poachers so the WWF tugged on the heart-string of every Fijian – 7s rugby.

We hosted a 7s tournament to the raise money needed to help enforce this Tabu and by all accounts it was a great success.

Jeff Hutchens is an American photojournalist represented by Getty Images who has worked for, amongst others, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The National Geographic Channel and the New York Times Magazine.

His images are so powerful, unique, insightful and varied – I love them. His website has many more from a number of his projects and his blog gives a great insight into the life of major photojournalist.

With my stomach bursting with curried fish and cassava (a chalk-like root vegetable) from a caged street vender in the heart of Suva’s street market I hop on a bus and start the journey up into the city’s surrounding rain forest.

There is never a dull moment on Fiji’s buses. They’re like nightclubs. 70 cents day raves. As the old colonial speakers pump out the heaviest bass this side of Berlin, the only thing that restrains the passengers from jumping from their seats and throwing shapes is the torturous sound of a screaming engine.

As the bus crawls up the mountain road I have time to take in a magnificent view of Suva harbor and surrounding islands as it appears behind – the downward journey is much less picturesque, my eyes are closed while my cold, wet, cramped hands are gripped to the old woman next to me. Fiji has the largest population of budding racing drivers in the world I recon, only the numbers of crashes taint their reputation… phsss… statistics are for geeks.

Colo-i-Suva Forestry Park is a hidden paradise, a stark contrast to the bustling city that lives only a few kilometers below. As I walk alone and silent along the path deeper into the forest I start to feel increasingly self conscious. With every strange sound, every dropping leaf, and every scratch on my bare skin I fear attack!

Alas, reality wasn’t as exciting and my paranoia resides, my hallucinations cease and after 30 minutes of trekking I arrive at the first the forest’s many waterfalls and freshwater pools. Crystal clear, bitterly cold, and full of fresh water Lobster… this beats the sea any day.

Continue through the forest and you discover many, many more…

… the last of which was the biggest, most impressive and most populated. Until now I hadn’t seen another sole, but with the attraction of a 15 foot high swing rope and a deep (well deep enough) pool, this was clearly the local’s choice.

I felt slightly out of places. Not because I was the only gringo but because I came with no rum and because there was no way I could match the ridiculous backflips the 10 year olds were executing. But before I had time for that I was initiated into the group by the older members, this consisted simply of about 15 shots of 58% proof Fijian rum (it was 11:30am). I recon it was those ghetto buses, got them in the mood to party! Well I was on the same buses so I was only too happy to oblige.