Fiji: The Last Resort - The Villages in Paradise Being Swallowed by the Sea | Foreign Correspondent
Fiji it's Heaven on a selfie stick hundreds of thousands of people come here every year for a Tropical Escape many of them Australians including me [Music] but I want to take you away from the resorts to the people who live here but can't escape the impact climate change is having on their lives because that was their last day the Seas here are rising fast and it's getting worse I was here and this is your house my house the Cyclones are more ferocious than ever leaving a costly trail of Destruction just like a monster entering a particular place in it's a nightmare Oh it sounded really a nightmare for us across the country hundreds of villages are a risk main sources of income in our village and people are having to leave their homes and change their way of life to survive whether they want to or not they just want to stay here and yeah because you know this is their identity is being identified within this island they're asking who caused this problem and who will pay to fix it I think our contribution to the effects of climate change is the butter drop in the ocean so yes it is frustrating because all we do is face the consequences I want to find out how people are coping with this crisis which is lapping at their door because it's a paradise it's my homeland [Music] [Music] I'm heading away from the usual tourist Trail to one of fiji's 300 Islands vanualevu these are a vital link for the country's million people who mostly live along the coast villagers still live a fairly traditional life tied to their land their kin and their chief foreign [Music] [Music] it was the first Village in Fiji and one of the first in the world to have a government-planned relocation because of climate change [Music] I think they make the roads like this so that no one comes into Paradise there it is I've been told I have to wear a Sulu a traditional Fijian Kilt as a sign of respect for the chief hola voila this is the chief the chief good to meet you although I'm not sure if the chief is wearing the wallabies shirt as a reciprocal side of respect foreign I'm here to get permission from the chief to visit the Old Village [Music] thank you thank you as the crow flies it's only two kilometers from the new Village to the old foreign is my guide he was the village headman when the village relocated okay don't tell the hard car company okay [Music] I think we'll walk from here okay seems like a it seems like a good parking spot the track has made fishing harder some people come down and Camp to harvest copra a cash owner for the village two kilometers doesn't sound long until you actually walk here yeah the Old Village here suffered Storm surges and flooding and it got worse and worse all the water flows easily into the uh it's a high tide from the sea and the river flowing down yeah hit each other yeah yeah okay I understand yeah so this is where the village is in here yeah I see okay okay I'm regretting leaving my shoes on The Village struggled to survive for decades as the sea water destroyed their crops and contaminated their drinking water they tried vainly to save it with concrete walls these are the sea walls that were built to protect it yeah this is what this is the second one the the first one already in the sea the First wall is well underwater Now 60 meters from the current Shoreline we have barely houses already in the sea OH Anderson so these are the ones that are left yeah yeah so boost so that that's a post of a house yeah I was here this is your house my house you're kidding yeah so it's just gone yeah this is my house this uh what's from here here are you standing on the one oh yeah yeah I had already relocated three times within the Old Village side that's why they made a decision to relocate the community there was a village a very very very big decision yeah do you miss the old village a lot [Music] 30 new houses plus roads and water cost nearly a million dollars U.S the government footed most of the bill with the village paying a quarter share in Milling Timber from its ancestral lands the new Village has advantages piped water flushing loose solar power and a road to school in each town [Music] but mistakes were made at first the new houses had no kitchens people had to add them on themselves perhaps the result of leaving Village planning to men only yeah pigeon Curry and plants and tomato and ladies and vegetables many Traditions are in danger of dying out after the move map making is one they're trying to save woven pandanus mats are a work of art and as I was about to find out not all that easy to make wow okay how do you do this it's remarkably complex one goes up goes up though if one goes over yeah one goes back whoa we're not smart how long does it take to make one of these two days for her oh wow if she was not teaching us all the metal finish yeah I'm tired I'm tired go to sleep now [Music] Chief botu says the decision was difficult but for him it was the right call foreign have been taken on board another five villagers have moved and 42 more have been assessed for relocation all up 830 villagers sit on the government's climate risk list I wanted to speak with the Specialists advising the government on which communities are at high risk so my next stop is fiji's meteorological service has been tracking the impact of climate change on Fiji for many years most of the communities live along the coast here in Fiji and other Pacific island countries and you know with extreme Coastal events you know most of the damages are to these communities and it's not just Rising seas and floods Terry Services recording tropical Cyclones have always battered Fiji but they've become far more intense at the moment there's a lot of requests to the government agencies for relocation because you know people are you know badly affected when you have these kind of extreme events this one called Winston in 2016 was the game changer the Cyclone watches at the Met service tracked its path as it roared in as a category 5. strongest intensity that anyone can face Cyclone Winston wiped nearly two billion dollars of fiji's economy a third of the country's GDP 44 people were killed these systems are massive and you know with small Islands a category five Cyclone can you know cover the whole country and with that kind of intensity weak infrastructures will definitely will not be able to stand I think in the last 10 years apart from two Cyclone seasons Every Other Cyclone season we experience experiencing a category 5 in this region [Music] tour across the north of fiji's main island devastating Villages including the muyamanda whose house is this this is Rachel's house yeah she's the daughter of the Chiefs in this Village seven years on I'm here to see how this Village of 480 people has recovered I believe that you were in this house the night the Cyclone Winston absolutely what was it like this is where rough winds come and then this door blew off we ran inside to that corner so you're like you're huddling in this corner you're hugging in this corner my husband my four kids and my parents this group blown off so we have to run outside and when we ran outside there was a strong wind ever [Music] three people died 54 families lost everything and another 33 homes were badly damaged almost the whole village needed help how was the community after the Cyclone what was the effect on them a whole mindset we were affected psychologically affected fiscally affected socially emotionally and financially affected we start again from nothing we were zero and we were kneel by that time seven years later they still have no safe evacuation Center despite repeated requests are you worried about Cyclones like that coming again yes and really what we right now we in making our plans yeah what's what we gonna do in order to prepare for the type of severe seconds Village economies and Food Supplies are threatened by the climate too [Music] the women of namui Manda generate most of the village income by harvesting a popular type of sea grape called nama [Music] I tagged along to see how the harvesting is done agreed to show me the ropes right what is it we're actually looking for is this snowman yeah it's all number you when you see them black they're just like that we have to go down and we use the goggles so we can use seed proper clearly worms and green ones okay mama [Music] up to the ready so we can see the mammals it's not these oh wow so that's enough yeah how much would that be worth that little bit it was two dollars two dollars is that a heap no no it's not too long yeah it's not too much can I eat it now like yeah oh it's nice it's hard it's like it's really great wow there's a lot of people they eat this one I hate the winter kind of cyclones come with that does this survivors all the numbers don't go on like it took size three two to three years [Music] and now they face losing the income altogether heat stress from warming Seas means the Nama turns a sickly color ruining the crop because of the climate chances and it's literally and it's changing colors like some of them when you see it it's turns yellow that's no good to pick right just to pick the fresh one the green one because you're still living in the markets like that supermarkets foreign are away from the village for longer after A Hard Day's Work women come back and are still expected to do the household chores five hours is probably just half of their day's work done they come back you can see all their kids hanging above the wheels have to be prepared clothes need to be washed from the women in Fisheries network was invited in to help them deal with some of the problems so long I was out means frustration in the home the women have talked about domestic disagreements because them being absent from home means food has to be cooked by someone else children have to be babysitted by someone else and it most often falls on the husband and that is not a traditional role of husbands whether it's rising Seas ocean warming or Cyclones the future of villages like namuamanda hangs by a thread how does a village like this that relies so heavily on you know that particular stock how does it survive a stock being wiped out not it does not only wipe out their source of leveling it wipes out the way of life for them I feel frustrated in Australia about climate you must feel ten times more frustrated being in Fiji in terms of your influence lives yes because I think our contribution to the effects of climate change is about a drop in the ocean so yes it is frustrating because all we do is face the consequences foreign [Music] but there are people in Fiji who are even worse off without land or resources squatters are among the most vulnerable groups of people battling climate change in the world about a third of the capital souvers population of 180 000 live in informal settlements built on mangrove swamps and marshes 1500 people live here at wailia on a River Estuary it's one of the oldest of fiji's 400 settlements the most marginal of them all live in the mangroves so is this is low tide or high tide now it's high-tech so high Tide's about to come in okay Mary lucita has five children and works in a local shop at high tide she struggles to get home this is your house oh wow hello her parents migrated here from their rural Village 26 years ago in those 26 years you've been here has it changed where the water's coming to how high it comes yeah just last time last three years ago it's changed like it's the water to come inside like this before it wasn't like this really so at high tide how does it get up to the house or how close does it get if it's high tide sometimes it's flooding yes yeah so sometimes it's only up to the second steps of first or second and finish Mary's brothers built this house after a cyclone demolished the one she was living in it helps keep them above the tides sometimes and then when you get the kind of King ties what does that do does that how high does that get in the house I think nobody can get out you get stuck in there oh you get stuck out I mean can you get stuck yeah at work sometimes a rising water is polluted with sewerage and Industrial Waste is to bring the the tear under rubbish up the kid's playing this do they do they get sick or yeah we can see their body so we can tell plenty it is smart boils it's coming up to them because they love to bling in the map the people here already battle life on many fronts climate change is another threat to what little they do have [Music] all the difficulties people face with climate change perhaps the hardest is deciding when it's time to go [Music] to see dradra is taking me to the tiny island of sarua just off the south coast of fiji's main island it's one of the hundreds of villages that was earmarked for relocation the trouble is they're determined to stay okay you have to be careful you see how good welcome to here ah thank you for having me it's a very spiritual place as the home of the Paramount chief of the surul province so it's on with my Sulu again now you look like one Fijian yeah now I get the jeans off at first glance life is pretty sweet [Music] nearly a hundred people live here in a communal lifestyle King and Homestay tourism bring in some cash but as Bernie dongaloa found before them the rising seas are unstoppable tissue world in the year 2000 a sea wall on one side of the island kept the island safe but now the ocean often swamps over it this is low tide right now yeah so before this Seawall was healed what did this look like was it was it actually Beach here or what was it uh I was being told that there was a white center beaches on maybe somewhere Fair around five meters from here 10 minutes from here okay so this used to be built on a beach and now it's built on a wall on wall so when you were growing up did it flood um no only for the last couple of years yeah Tucson's been recording some of the floods what the is coming through now the salt poisons the soil after storms and Cyclones they need canoes to get around the village they're getting more extreme they're battling to hold back the Sea on the other side of the island too [Music] this is the real Mission area so what we did is really down big rocks before it was working but now as you can see the water still coming in you can sit in here that you know this is a mark of the level of the ground and now it's starting to decreating uh down again and they've planted some mangroves as a buffer against Storm surges but it'll be six years before they start to make a difference and is that fast enough to protect the island um it can be it might also cannot be they're running out of ways to adapt to the Sea rising and can't save it or forever the government identified sarua Village for relocation in 2018. some did shift to the mainland but most of the community decided to stay I just want to stay here in the island yeah because you know this is their their identity is being identified within this [Music] The Village's identity isn't just tied to the land but to the Sea as well and this too is under threat done so what are we looking for we're looking for design Cam have you ever seen a Jenga here in Fiji uh you'll see you'll see I'll see okay except I'm gonna go in first day yeah don't worry they're stuck in here they are vegetarians so you don't have to worry about it's any sharks right yeah they are very friendly just like the fidget people all right all right [Music] giant clams in Fiji have been brought back from near Extinction [Music] if they're protected from predators and humans they can live a hundred years but warming water temperatures May finally spell their end [Music] and there's not much the local custodians can do about that foreign [Music] moving has made all the harder because they're bound to the spirits of their ancestors which still guide them to see yep are you considering moving are you looking at the options if we may move our spirit he was on the island only our body will be moved out from this you'll always be coming back to this house always be coming back but I don't want to leave this area because it's Paradise it's my homeland and most of my ancestors have died and buried in this island as well the blessings [Music] okay so we have to respect [Music] moving a village has a cost in dollars and you can count them but shattering such strong cultural bonds is impossible to measure Village leaders know moving is inevitable and it's breaking their hearts or us ually sell in vain and when 2 million but we have no choice that is racing and the climate is changed weather pattern is changing everything is changed nevertheless we love this island from the bottom of our heart but I think we are the victims from the biggest country we start with what is happening now in this world there's no fairy tale ending for Fiji and the people of the South Pacific they face painful and costly changes and still the big question remains who will pay for it those that created the problem or those who are left to face its consequences [Music] okay [Music] let's go [Music] [Music]
2023-04-08 11:02
