THE FAPUI INITIATIVE

Coral planting on the island of Rotuma is a fairly new concept and even though there are people who know what it’s about, the majority may not know its exact purpose. After a conversation I had with a family member at one of our monthly clan meetings, I heard of this new coral planting initiative and knew that it needed some attention because of its uniqueness to my island home.

The Fapui Initiative was one founded by the Malha’a youth in 2019 by Fuata Singh and Joshua Olsen. With the purpose of replanting and bleaching the existing corals to save the marine environment, Joshua and Fuata decided to look for funding and gather the rest of the village youths to work on the project.

“Fapui, in the Rotuman language, is the marking of your territory using coconut leaves to take ownership of something. Legend also says that when ‘Raho’ first came to Rotuma he tied the first fapui in Malha’a so we thought we would name this initiative Fapui to signify ownership of our ocean”.

Joshua studied Marine Science at the University of the South Pacific and part of his studies was a field trip to the Outrigger Resort in Sigatoka where they were taught methods of coral planting. Taking what he learnt in school back to the village, Joshua, with the help of Fuata, decided to give back to their home through the knowledge they’ve learnt.

“One of the setbacks for us is finances. Coral planting is easy, but from what I’ve been taught, there is a particular glue sold in some places in Suva that is costly so I had to look for sponsors to help us out with that”.

Joshua managed to contact some Rotumans from Malha’a living in Suva and abroad to help purchase this particular glue in exchange for root crops, fish and coconuts. This was the annual exchange until Covid19 hit in 2020.

Photo taken by Leah Seru, Location: Malha'a , Rotuma

The only time I had ever witnessed coral planting was on one of my trips to Leleuvia Island Resort where coral planting was an activity for the guests. It was an interesting and fun thing to do and I am glad that it is something that is now happening somewhere closer to home. The marine life in Malha'a is healthy but I also ask myself, "how long for?". During my recent trip to the Island (February 2021 recent) I noticed that as much as there was a healthy marine life just outside our family home, there was also dead corals and pollution closer to the shoreline. There is much work to do to save our marine ecosystem and I'm glad that there will be ongoing work done regarding this.

The youth of Malha’a plan to continue with the Fapui Initiative this December with some help from the Malha’a Community here in Suva.

Video by Rona Finiasi. Location: Malha'a, Rotuma