GE301: APPLIED PACIFIC ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY

ASSIGNMENT 3: FIELD TRIP ASSIGNMENT

Name: Helen Manukia

Student Id#: S11191287

Tutorial Day and Time: Tuesday 3-4pm

Introduction
The field trip was held in Vanua Navakavu, a region consisting of four villages: Nabaka,
Muaivuso, Namakala, and Waiqanake. It is located a few kilometers away from Suva's
main town. I was given the community of Namakala after we had been separated into four equal
groups corresponding to every village. Prior to departing for our separate locations, we were
required to follow expected procedure. One of these events was the I Sevusevu, which took place
on the premises of Muaivuso village hall. During this gathering, everybody had to arrive in
appropriate clothes, including putting on Sulu over any casual travel clothing along with
not wrapping our heads out with any cap or scaff which to show our respect to the chief of the
village as well as his home and his people. Once the initial procedures had been finished. The
students were subsequently allocated to their designated village sites, areas where additional
Sevusevu were carried out into each of our unique village halls, and it was also timed. After the
Sevusevu we went straight to the marine ecosystems and when our tour to the marine ecosystem
was complete, we returned and enjoyed an excellent meal provided by the people of the villages.
The next day, we traveled to the forest with some of the men in the community to finish our final
activity before we head back to the lower campus. This essay will look at the effectiveness of
resources, its uses, and the way they have influenced residents' lives over the years. It will also
look at native knowledge that has significantly improved the social, economic, and health
circumstances of the locals. Vanua Navakavu has been investigated because of their rich
agroforestry and marine biodiversity present, and also for the similarities between how things
were decades ago and how things are now and what is currently being performed given the
significance of the Namakala Qoliqoli tabu, that poses an imminent danger to the Namakala
people because of climate change, marine pollution and environment pollution, and increasing
sea levels.
Major environment, economic, and social problems.
Environment, economic, and social issues that the people of Namakala face come under various
categories. Regarding environmental difficulties, based on our interview evaluation, the
community is damaged in numerous locations both land and sea areas and one of the biggest
causes are due to Cyclone. The existence of Tropical Cyclones (TC) causes a variety of issues
since they readily affect the sea's wrath as it moves further inland, allowing for coastal as well as
soil erosion. Destroying homes and related structures, as well as disrupting crop plants that many
residents considered it as their source of revenue. Also, the life of animals is at risk driving the
inhabitants to travel into higher and stable areas during emergency evacuations. With the goal to
repair the harm and lower the chance that it could occur repeatedly. The locals should know the
importance to pay attention to warning carefully because it will give them more time to harvest
vegetation and crops earlier. They would also plant extra mangroves on shorelines to avoid
having dirt wash into the ocean during storm periods. The best method to solve this current issue
is to replant mangrove plants (as it shows it figure 1), which they should plant it in the higher
ground next to sea side as this occurrence leads to an increase in sea level causing it hard for the
mangroves established. The community is additionally facing "Valoka" that has been described
to a miniature Tsunami, with tiny surges moving in the interior stated by the interview, they
happen to occur three times or even more every month leading to eroding of the soil. The last
issue that affects the people frequently is landslides, which are brought on by excessive amounts
of rainfall and damage everything nearby. The only thing the community can do to prevent this
issue is to practice Reforestation.
Figure 1

Due to the alteration in weather patterns, climate change is one of the primary causes of the
village of Namakala economic issues. As a result, the interview revealed that the majority of the
residents rely on the ocean as a source of food and money and that changes in weather patterns
have an impact on both the sea and the residents. The health of the villagers is also impacted by
weather patterns that change. For example, a drought occurs when there is a prolonged period of
no precipitation combined with intense sunlight. During this time, the fishing boats corrosion
into the sea, and the rust attracts many fish, which causes the residents of the area to eat those
fish. This causes stomach aches, which is a common symptom among residents.
The use of traditional crops contributes to social issues in all of the Namakala residents' villages.
The "Yaqona," also referred to the kava crop, is a traditional drink for various events. In modern
societies, people use it as a communal drink at gatherings and for unwinding, but a lot of people
consume it every day, knowing that it's bad for their health and makes them drowsy during the
rest of the day. Everybody has conflicts with one another from time to time, and when that
happens, kava is offered as a gift or giveaway in exchange for an apology that is polite.

Traditional knowledge and roles of men and women.

Each area maintains gender-specific customary positions for men and women. For example, men
are assigned to all outside labor (heavy and difficult work), while women are assigned to all
domestic labor (household duties, cooking, etc.). The community of Namakala has its own set of
gender-specific traditional roles for men and women. For men, the traditional fishing technique
involves laying rocks at the shoreline at low tides to act as a fish trap. This approach is known as
"qoliqoli" in the community and is where fishermen go inside their bounds and create a location
where the fish would be. A different type of traditional work is known as village service, which
occurs every two months and involves every young person coming together to help the villagers
clean up their compound and engage in agriculture. Everyone cleans and plants in one farm for
each family, and within a couple of weeks, all family ranches are overflowing with plant life.

Figure 2: fish trap Figure 3: fishing bait

When it comes to women, the majority of their roles are those that exist in all homes and
families. Every woman weave mats for sitting on the ground and floors, as well as baskets for
storing fish while they wait for their husbands to return from the sea with their day's catch in the
early afternoons. For significant guests or to recognize those who were winners of a
village rivalry, they also weave "Salusalu" shoulder ornaments. They also weave fans to use in
hot weather. The "Masi," that is typically manufactured by women and depicts traditional
handicraft of their old god, bracelets, chains, wall hanging things, and their clothes, is used as a
traditional adornment that can be presented as a present, (Taboada, 2020).
Education is the primary cause of this, all these traditional methods are rarely seen in use today.
In the past, residents lived by using their traditional skills, but the influence of today's society
altered all that as every parent now sends their kids to school as they are convinced that an
improved education results in a better life in the future. The youth in Namakala are going to have
no option but to leave their hometowns and experience more of the world because it has become
the way of life and aside from schooling, there are job chances accessible anywhere as the
country is now developing. Since everybody has shared their traditions with different cultures,
traditional work like artifacts may now be seen being sold in markets, and tragically, what was
used as a traditional trademark for each town can now be seen everywhere. The ability to weave
mats, baskets, and other items that were once common for the villages is now difficult to
manufacture, making it extremely uncommon to find local women with this knowledge during
our interview.

Systems for waste management and environmental restoration.

Each community has unique practices for handling waste materials and managing restoration of
the environment. The people of Namakala have developed their own techniques for dealing with
these problems and using these wastes to replenish the nutrients in the ecosystem.
Logging is a common practice since it gives the villages their cooking firewood, wood for
building houses, and a way to make money by selling it to timber firms. One of the biggest issues
in the community is logging since it has an impact on marine life. When leaves fall into rivers,
lakes, and the sea, they kill marine animals and force fish to migrate to deeper waters.
Additionally, the nearby little plantations are impacted by the sawdust from logging since too
much sawdust can bury all nearby crops. The residents’ control this by cleaning the seashore of
trash, plastics, and other waste products so that fish could come back and feed the locals rather
than immediately heading for deep oceans. The village comes together to gather sawdust from all
logging areas and utilize it for various purposes, including dusting all muddy paths to their fields,
using it for cushioned flooring in their homes, and others.
Cutting down mangrove trees for firewoods, and fishing baits is the two main reason they have
cutting down mangroves. The interview said that “there were no other place in Namakala to get
firewoods from so that’s why they cutting more mangroves”. It is estimated that mangrove
plants offer refuge, safety against any hurricanes, nursery for many fishes along with
other aquatic creatures but cutting down most of the mangroves in Namakala affect many
organisms that inhabit in the mangroves to lost their habitat. The people also make their fishing
trap in the mangroves ecosystem because they can hold worms so when they went to get them,
they also cut the mangroves out. The people are looking for a way to solve this current issue by
replanting and rehabilitation in these areas so that it exchanges the mangrove plants that they
have been cutting down.
The pigs are also raised in the hamlet, fed, and either sold to other villages or used as food during
reunions with relatives. The residents emphasized during the interview that raising pigs is
difficult. They also discussed coping with the pigs' waste, which emits a strong, unpleasant
stench which the people have grown accustomed to. They are swept into the ocean as they expel
their waste, which has an impact on the seashells along the beach and shoal sides. The locals
prevent this issue by gathering all pig feces and dumping of it in more elevated levels. Some also
use these wastes as fertilizer, which they apply to their plantations to aid the minerals in the
environment that allow plants to grow.
Adaptability to climate and environmental change and extreme weather.
The community of Namakala encounters a variety of environmental elements over time, and
numerous unanticipated weather variations have a significant positive and negative impact on the
community. Since unanticipated weather alterations frequently happen as climate change
develops, all of these environmental and climate elements are related to climate change.
There will always be news and alerts regarding impending natural disasters, with tropical
cyclones being an occurrence event that happens approximately every three to four years. The
purpose of this announcement is to give more time to the residents of Namakala to be more ready
and prepare everything before any disasters. For example, removing huge plantations, and
moving to an open space. Numerous homes and bures will be wiped out, plantation will be
ruined, animals and residents will be injured or killed, and plenty of trees will be uprooted. The
community will ultimately suffer greatly, and so does the ecosystem, as a result of the powerful
wave winds causing several fishing boats to sail off away from shore, agriculture to endure soil
erosion, and numerous farms to be damaged. According to our interview, the residents claimed
that all of them join forces to restore their town. They are going to start everything from scratch,
including their farms, homes, and coastline.
Continuing on, landslides can occur for two reasons: first, when the soil is particularly dry and
devoid of nutrients, there is a chance that the land will collapse; and second, when there is an
excessive amount of rainfall, the water may trigger the soil's retaining point to collapse, causing
the land to slide. It might endanger the well-being of some people and animals by causing soil
erosion, demolishing surrounding homes and infrastructure, and ruining all crops.
The only way the locals can solve this issue is to get rid of every heavy object from slope tops,
including rocks and trees, shift every house away from slope sites in which landslides are bound
to occur, and finally try to build heaps and walls to retain soil along the slope side to lessen the
damage caused or prevent landslides.
The people of Vanua Namakala village banded together to improve the environment around the
village, such as constructing sea walls, evacuating emergency shelters, raising awareness, and
conducting rehearsals for any emergencies. The locals stated that Tropical Cyclone Winston had
little impact on them because they had improved their way of life after earlier cyclones taught
them what they needed to know and be prepared for future cyclones.

Conservation and sustainable of marine resources.

Moving on, throughout our time there, we witnessed a traditional fish-catching method called
Bai Ni Ika being used by people who were strolling down the shoreline at the time of low tide.
After a few breaks, we made down to the mangroves ecosystem to complete our first task. We
were assigned into four groups so that it will be easier for us to study the whole areas and study
it. When our task was completed, we went back to the village, enjoyed our delicious meal that
prepared by the villagers. One of the things that I recognize in this marine ecosystem is that
many organisms were living in the coastal area, they coming from the deep sea to live in the
coastal area. This show that their habitats is destroy by the big boats or the chemical that coming
from Suva. The residents of Namakala are encircled by abundant land and marine species, and
up to near seven to ten years ago, the vanua depended heavily on holes in the ground and rivers
that existed nearby. Even though the community's environmental problems have grown more
obvious, the locals are addressing it wonderfully.
However, when we traveled along the shore, we noticed the marsh area was very destroyed
which the ground remained barren and most of the mangroves have died. This cause by the
chemical oil that release from the big boats that came to fish in their area, I believe this is a
major obstacle that shorelines near urban areas face at present. There are about eight different
varieties of mangroves, and these plants are essential to both marine and terrestrial ecosystems
and also the people of Namakala, according to the interview. For instance, the people of
Namakala used mangrove plants for their source of firewoods, build houses and to make their
fishing baits (Ba Ni Ika) and the materials used in the building of devices like fish traps. The
mangrove plants are very helpful for wave breakers during the time of Tsunami or any other
natural disasters. Mangroves are also used as wave breakers in the event of a tsunami or other
natural disaster.

Recommendation
The people of Namakala mostly use mangrove plants for their firewoods and fishing baits. The
interview said that mangroves is a good source of firewoods for them because it produces heat at
a very short period of time and it is the only source of firewoods available for them in their areas.
So, in any occasion they had in their village, they had to cut more mangrove plants for firewoods
and it make the mangroves ecosystem to become scarce. Not only that but the men set their fish
trap in the mangroves ecosystem because they are capable of holding worms so when they went
to get them, they also cut the mangroves out. It is obvious that the ocean is their only source of
food and income but at the same time they are also destroying the mangroves ecosystem. They
are looking for ways to prevent their mis managing of mangrove plants. As one of the interviews
said, replanting and rehabilitation has been done to exchange the mangrove plants that they have
been cutting.

Conclusion
Overall, I learnt many things and really loved a lot of everything the Namakala community were
accomplishing to safeguard both marine as well as terrestrial species and the way they are
adapting to changes surrounding their habitats while effectively visiting every one of the areas
scheduled for our trip. The event was concluded with an I-Tatau on the premises of Muaivuso
village hall, a traditional event whereby hosts by the vanua and they are praised with recognition
of their generosity. The Namakala taught me many things regarding the value of possessing
plenty of resources, way to handle them, the primary influences on how locals use their skills,
and what my own country could be able to do in comparison to Namakala village.

Reference:
Taboada, M. B., Rojas-Lizana, S., Dutra, L. X., & Levu, A. V. M. (2020). Decolonial design in practice:
Designing meaningful and transformative science communications for Navakavu, Fiji. Design and
Culture, 12(2), 141-164.