Naikeleyaga District School: foundations under threat from coastal erosion?
With climate change being such a global issue, looking for ways to deal with its adverse impacts may seem a little overwhelming for the individual. Well, this is not the case for village communities on Kabara Island, Fiji.
In Kabara, WWF has worked with four local communities to develop action plans which identify measures that the communities themselves can take, to build their resilience against some of the adverse impacts of climate change.
Through a series of workshops, Tokelau, Udu, Lomati and Naikeleyaga villages identified the fact that continued access to freshwater is a problem of overwhelming concern. "In Kabara, we are heavily dependent on rainfall for our water needs" said Ms Leba Beitake, from Naikelega. "When we begin to move into the dry season we start to ration our water so that it lasts until there's rain. When there's rain we have nough water to drink, to wash and to cook our food, but when there's no rain and we begin to run low of water in our tanks to resort to our "tuvu" or wells. These wells help us get through severe drought periods but we use them only to wash our clothes and bathe".
A study of Fiji's meteorological records over the last forty years also confirmed that rainfall levels have in fact been declining, in Ono-i-Lau. To address the community water concerns, therefore, WWF helped secure funding support from Global Green Grants to increase the storage of freshwater. These funds have been transferred to the Lau Provincial Council, who will purchase water tanks on the communities behalf, and ensure that they are installed in each of the four villages in Kabara.
Other climate change impacts that are already affecting the communities included coastal erosion and coral bleaching. Joana Raikebalavu, a teacher of fifteen years at Naikeleyaga District School reported that "I've observed in my time here that the sea is getting closer to the boundary of the school. We used to have a shrub path along the beach which students used to follow; now there is none because the sea has eroded it away. The sea is definitely getting closer to the school and there is concern amongst the villagers that eventually the sea will slowly eat away at the foundations of the school building.
The hurricane in 2002 made things worse, the waves carried away some of the teachers quarters along the beach and took much of the beach area near the school. Some of us teachers do not want to move back into our newly built quarters because it's just too close to the sea and not safe when there's storms and rough seas. If you see the high tide mark now, its dramatically changed, its about ten meters closer from where it used to be".
Working through a series of community workshops, each of the four villages in Kabara has now adopted a five year action plan, to address some of these impacts. For example, Naikaleyaga village has begun planting trees along the coastline, as protection from storm surges and further coastal erosion. In order to increase the resilience of coral reefs to climate related bleaching, all four villages have banned the use of destructive fishing practices, such as the use of the poisonous "tuvu" plant, as well as the dumping of waste from supply ships within the lagoon area.
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