My Book

Bio-fools or Bio-fuels?

2009-01-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

PS: Let's accept the fact that if our biodiversity (wildlife) is disappearing, not only is this a foolish thing to allow, but we need to accept that we are the only bio-fools allowing it to happen. Loss of biodiversity globally has been fuelled by need for more energy, and bio-fuels now may be our answer here in the South Pacific.

Just the words, ‘South Pacific’ or ‘South Seas’, bring to mind for most quite quickly a feeling of ‘romance’ and ‘exotic holidays’ luring holidaymakers onto tropical palm-fringed golden beaches, even some 200 years or more after the first earliest discoveries by European explorers, missionaries, whalers and traders.

But the Pacific, today, as you’ll soon realize, may have changed considerably after these initial and more recent and more fatal impacts on the lives of today’s Pacific Islanders. These impacts are now daily, so, for the past two centuries or more, an accumulative effect has led to a more non-sustainable lifestyle for most Pacific Islanders.

These impacts have been largely driven by outside influences from the so-called developed world that is today no longer coping financially, morally, socially or environmentally. The health and education of Pacific Islanders is also at stake. We need to find solutions, earlier rather than later, and if this means planting bio-fuel crops, becoming independent power producers, replacing our diesel imports and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, then we Pacific Islanders are prepared to do anything to save our islands and peoples from the devastating impacts of global warming.

The Pacific languages in Oceania, all 3000 or more, are the fastest disappearing of any region in the world. And our Oceanic avian species are also now the most threatened of any region in the world. Why? A cash economy is now leading to mass destruction of ecosystems, both terrestrial and marine, and little effective technology has been implemented to reduce this increasing demise.

The Pacific is facing a global energy crisis, rising energy bills and/or failing energy supplies. And the global food crisis is pushing the cost of imported low-quality foods up within the Pacific. The impoverished are now even more impoverished, leading to even further widespread destruction of ecosystems that are so vital for the survival of the Pacific’s unique biodiversity and the integrity of its diminishing watersheds and cultures. Even alternate hydro-power options are declining as once perennial rivers cease flowing for many months. Action must be taken now to transfer this technology across or, better still, allow Pacific Islanders to better manage their own natural resources.

The choice is to remain a bio-fool or lunge into bio-fuels and help save this planet for future generations.

However, a new wave of energy saviors and energy investors are now needed, and urgently so. The Pacific needs some cost-effective alternate energy sources and alternate income sources, but where are these technologies in the Pacific today? Some Pacific countries are already rationing their energy supplies, many Pacific families have already reduced their energy demands, and now our standard of living can all but fall as we resort to a more subsistent existence compounded by irreversible climate change impacts (i.e. extinction of species being one).

There is a plethora of alternate technologies in the South Pacific, and yet these technologies are available worldwide, well so it is presumed. Samoa is poised to lead the way as it continues its fight against climate change, using both adaptation and mitigation technologies and methodologies.

Samoa and Fiji, for example, have sufficient fertile lands to grow bio-fuels, albeit just coconuts for now. But alternate and possibly more suitable biofuel crops (e.g. palm oil, Arundo donax [giant reed] and Jatropha curcas) already exist in the Pacific. And that is why it is so critical to integrate our emerging lifestyles into a low carbon economy with a stronger emphasis on biofuels. But how do we do this if we are the bio-fools that we are?

To conclude, today’s tourist brochures and websites for the South Pacific have as yet not dispelled this myth of a magical paradise full of pristine ecosystems and laced with happy villagers living an idyllic energetic lifestyle. Not one South Pacific ecosystem has escaped global climate change impacts, pollution is now global, mostly atmospheric and oceanic in origin. But, just imagine holidaying in a South Pacific ‘carbon-neutral holiday destination’, off-setting your carbon footprints with renewable energy technologies at your resort, visiting bio-fuel energy plantations that are producing more than just energy, and no longer being the bio-fool you thought you were.

Tourists today would welcome this opportunity to witness firsthand how Pacific Islanders are having to adapt. But, it will take a certain amount of money, and surprisingly, Samoa may soon have all the money it needs to make this transition thanks to the Clean Energy Fund, numerous Climate Change Funds and possible Clean Development Mechanisms that may further assist Samoa and other Pacific Island Countries.

With your help, we can energize the Pacific, saving our unique biodiversity and even saving the lives of Pacific Islanders. It is now time to prepare for a carbon-constrained economy within Samoa, taking it regionally and even globally, but with you bio-fools, it ain’t going to be easy.

Food for Thought

2009-01-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

PS: Can renewable energy technologies really assist Samoa?

Samoa in 2009 may explore for geo-thermal energy, but it will trial wood gasification utilizing different biomass, a project that will impinge on our farming communities that lack both export markets and access to clean energy.

To augment this initiative, cocogen options are also being considered thanks to IUCN’s implementation agency skills with their $USD1.3M grant for Energy Efficiency in the transport sector.

Two additional projects, once unrelated to renewable energy (RE), but now very much becoming an integral component, are the agro-forestry and sustainable forest management projects, worth in excess of $USD6M.

We can now commence selecting biofuel cropping practices, but we lack the expertise and experience. However, FAO are kindly assisting thanks to a grant from the Global Environment Facility Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (GEF-PAS).

However, Samoa’s private sector are being further marginalized by rising energy costs, rising food prices and an increasing inability to compete in export markets. Value-adding locally and import replacement strategies are now in place and renewable energy technology transfer is the key to this new development paradigm.

Samoa is striving not only for greater sustainability, but also addressing its survivability in a world that it is now finding more difficult to survive in. Samoa is one of the most vulnerable nations on the planet to Climate Change and the Government of Samoa is now possibly the most prepared of all the Pacific Island Countries to combat climate change impacts.

However, these attempts are in vain as carbon and methane emissions continue to rise globally. To us in the Pacific, this is ethically unacceptable.

Our first concerted effort in 2009 is to secure in excess of $USD10M to address climate change mitigation and adaptation issues, and we now have these funds secured: we just need the renewable energy technology transferred to Samoa in the most sustainable manner possible.

However, there is a dearth of expertise in this area of proven renewable energy pilot projects within the Pacific. Why? We need more consultants stationed in the Pacific that have the skills to assess renewable energy needs, calculate technical assistance required, source and purchase equipments, install and train the operators, and even maintain these technologies so that our projects remain sustainable.

The challenge is to make these renewable energy projects boost the value-added potentials within the Pacific so that our socio-economic issues can be addressed quickly.

However, RE technologies continue to be trialed on ‘remote atolls’ before they are proven in our own capital cities. Let’s not make this mistake again.

We in the Pacific need proven working models/pilots, trained technicians and some efforts made to take a cross-sectoral approach and get the food security issues addressed in the Pacific, sooner rather than later.

Traditional Technologies Combating Climate Change

2008-06-09T00:07:00.001-07:00

PURILE PACIFIC PLEAS FOR THE PLANET

After 16 years of ongoing negotiating within the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), and even more to come most likely, it is promising to see a Climate Change Bill being passed in the UK. Thank you.

We in the Pacific Islands are already suffering from climate change impacts, spending 50% or more of our environmental restoration grants on combating (adapting and mitigating) the negative impacts of climate change.

Now we have just learnt of climate-related diseases, and as if our Pacific health systems aren't already overloaded. With 130,000 people dying globally and annually from climate health-related diseases, we Kids want to make a difference.

Please help save our Pacific indigenous cultures, our unique wildlife and some 300,000 mostly low-lying islands. This is all we have.

After all, this is a human rights issue is it not? And surprisingly, little known to most of you, our forefathers have all the traditional knowledge to sustain life on this Planet. Just ask us.

And we Kids in the Pacific are rebelling against these senseless impacts of global climate change - our futures erode, our Pacific parents seemingly unable to react.

What can we Kids do next?

Guess we can transfer this traditional knowledge, South North as they say, from the less developed nations in the South to the developed nations in the North.

Guess we can publicize this traditional knowledge on how best to combat climate change impacts – better still, on how to prevent climate change impacts.

Put simply, all you need to do is follow in our forefathers’ footprints, along our deep soft white sandy beaches, adjacent to our tranquil azure lagoons, beneath the swaying coconut palm trees.

It’s that simple – just 4-5 Es.

Eat wisely, fresh native foods in-season.
Energy from the sun and the waves, with a little firewood collected from our beaches - forget fossil fuels.
Empathy for nature abounds in our Pacific cultures.
Ecosystems need to remain as they were, abundant, pristine and sacred.
Education, traditional or contemporary, as long as it is sustainable.

EEEEasy.

Got it.

To learn more, in person, we can train you here right on-site. It’s eco-friendly, energizing, delicious and respectful of our Elders’ collective wisdom. They’ve been practicing this for 3000 years or more, on these very islands, and they are still here.

But for how much longer?

We need our Elders to design a new curriculum to update their knowledge, improve their skills, and improve global capacity building techniques.

Can we do it, in time?

BEST DIVE EVER

2008-06-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

NB: Rule No. 1 - never dive on your own, always take a buddy along just in case he needs rescuing!

Talofa. For 20 years, we've explored some real gems around our 10 volcanic islands, my favourite an underwater (obviously) volcanic 'Nuutele Pinnacle' with 4-5000 fish/hour, including dog-tooth tuna, sharks, turtles and shoals of fish so dense that they block-out the tropical sunlight.

'Turtle Minefields' is another with both Greens and Hawkesbill Turtles all foraging on seagrasses and shellfish. Amazing to watch.

2500 foot crater lakes, Lake Lanotoo, with a bottomless history. Wanna try it?

Underground lavatube caves filled with water and entering the ocean.

'Piula Cave' with 3 caves all connected, but for the experienced cave divers only.

Miniature 'killer whales', all 4 inches of them, black and white and real cute.

And to surface, looking up at 6000 foot rainforested craters before you, gives you a real high.

Even the odd whaleshark from time to time, with Humpback whales in season - no calving, that all happens in Tonga (Vavau) from August to October - another diving must - only a one hour's flight away.

Highly recommend Aggie Greys Hotel next to Airport with all the watersports facilities (allow $USD1-200/day), great dive facilities and instructors/operators.

And try our nearby beach fales (grass huts) on Manono Island for $USD50 a night including 3 meals!

Want to read more? Try these scribbles My Book where 4 little Polynesian (half-cast) orphans get hit by a big wave out sea kayaking one day and end up for years living and diving on an uninhabited island, living the Life of Riley, comparing the West with the Traditional way of life of their Ancestors.

Mind you, these Kids are not so happy with what we adults have been doing to our colourful coral reefs. These Kids are now accusing us adults of 'adult-ery' and you can work the rest out.....

Some say I can talk underwater, so now trying to write underwater - my 20 year diving holiday is near over as we record these fantastic encounters, some real gems.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, Samoa, even for non-divers, friendly islanders, lovers of music, singing, dancing and laughter (so bring your guitars and be prepared to gift them to the first guitar-playing fisherman who takes you night diving catching crays and octopuses and spearing sleepy fish - bring a spare underwater torch, 6 batteries - makes another perfect gift, as do googles). You won't want to leave.

And Air New Zealand ex LA or Auckland (New Zealand) is the way to go, or Polynesian Virgin Blue ex Sydney (Australia) and NZ I think?? Only 2 hours from Fiji and twice as good. No real shopping here so safe guys to leave your credit cards with your wives!!

Google "Margaret Mead, Samoa' and she'll tell just how good Samoa still is.

BEST DIVE IN SAMOA - BEST DIVE EVER - my last birthday, all geared-up and my buddies all thinking about the 'morning after', no longer prepared to dive, so I exhaled, sank and left them wallowing for 75 mins whilst I sat at 40 feet and the fish came to look at me - nothing manmade in sight except one hell of a nice bottom (aluminium, right above me). I was so frightened for the first 5 mins!!

Time to tackle Climate Change

2008-05-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

NB: Samoa is very late in tackling the climate change debate and even later in tackling the climate change impacts. The Pacific has waited too long to respond to such environmental insults. Our Ancestors would be turning over in their graves if they knew the severity of this situation.

For our rural villagers to respond to climate change, we Kids offer here 36 different activities for adults to contemplate, but preferably very quickly.

Samoa may have just won the 2008 International Rugby 7s Tournament against Fiji (May 2008), but if it wasn’t for a vital call from the Side-line Referee just as the final bell rang, who had mind you luckily identified a ‘late tackle’ penalty against the Fiji Team, then Samoa was bound to have lost against Fiji who had just scored hopefully their winning try – to then have it disallowed.

And, ironically, Samoa may have once again been saved by yet another ‘late tackle’, this time from the GEF-PAS. Yes, the Global Environment Facility's Pacific Alliance of Sustainability is offering millions of dollars to help Samoa fight climate change.

And we Kids in Samoa are inheriting $USD2Million in August 2008 from GEF-PAS LDC Climate Change Fund to ‘tackle’ climate change impacts on its 10 islands. This is indeed a very late ‘tackle’ in that we Kids have all known for many years that global warming is seriously affecting our Pacific Island Countries.

But, by the way the whole community is responding, rugby seems by far to be much more important than climate change impacts. Well, so it seems to us Kids anyway.

So what will it take before 20,000 Samoan Kids are seen marching on Parliament House in protest against the following array of serious climate change related impacts already being felt in Samoa, namely:

1. high susceptibility and vulnerability of Pacific Islands to climate change and sea level rise,
2. episodic extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, floods and droughts,
3. sea-level rise with salinization of ground-waters,
4. ecological impacts through temperature and ocean acidification related stressors on natural systems,
5. storm related inundation of low-lying coastal communities/infrastructure,
6. increased coastal erosion due to worsening tropical cyclone events,
7. flooding as a result of higher intensity/increased duration rainfall events,
8. drought as a result of longer periods without rainfall,
9. increased evapo-transpiration at higher ambient temperatures.

This could all be exacerbated in some low-lying areas by sea level rise,
threatened socio-economic development,
reduced national security and development,
increased necessity for extra hazard management,
altering traditional community disaster preparedness,
growing reliance on ecological and environmental knowledge,
growing necessity for culturally appropriate adaptation policies and measures,
necessity now for climate early warning advisories,
need for improved climate change decision-making,
need for capacity building framework,
need for community awareness building framework,
need for improved climate change educational outputs,
building the overall resilience of Pacific Islands to climate change related hazards,
need for strengthened weather and climate observation systems and activities,
updating analysis of existing climate data for all South Pacific Island nations,
developing international scientific linkages,
Improving climate change risk assessment skills,
Improving adaptation development at community levels,
Developing hazard models for communities,
Improving Cyclone Recovery Reconstruction Plans,
Designing appropriate stakeholder engagement and adaptation plans,
Implementing CIMs and CERPs,
Identifying fundamental gaps in understanding the effects of climate change on Pacific Island communities,
Developing practical hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation measures to respond to these risks,
Increasing the investment in sustainable development by implementing "An investment for sustainable development in the Pacific Island Countries – Disaster risk reduction and disaster management – A framework for action 2005-2015",
Increasing economic growth without harming ecosystems,
Alleviating poverty,
Improved environmental and social resilience to the impacts of such natural hazards,
Help implement the Pacific Island for Action on Climate Change 2006-2015 and
Making ESD compulsory in the schools and all public sector segments.

This is a comprehensive list of things to consider. For the sake of those who have just joined this broadcast, GEF-PAS is investing $USD99Million into hopefully restoring vulnerable, threatened and degraded Pacific Island ecosystems. And about half of these funds are going towards adapting to climate change impacts in one way or another.

What if Pacific governments still prefer to importing fossil fuels and, therefore, continue to add to the global warming impacts being felt globally? Samoa has taken a different tack by looking at growing its own ‘oil’. This may be the saviour crop our farmers have been looking for?

Also, Palm oil is now being grown in Indonesia at the expense of its own valuable vast tracts of native rainforests. Yes, the third largest set of ‘lungs’ of the Earth are being ‘surgically’ removed.

But, no matter what bio-fuel crop we plant in Samoa, we still need to complete a safety check, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), to ensure that no such damage like this is caused in Samoa.

But, just think about it. Samoa can grow these ‘energy’ crops and make its own electricity. In fact, we can help replace some of our expensive imported fuels (~$SAT100million per year is imported).

Samoa is about to design an agro-forestry project that could, if considered in light of the climate change impacts on Samoa, indeed become another very ‘late tackle’ from our agricultural sector.

Now our health sector needs to adapt to climate change. Yes, climate health is now a priority area for our health services to concentrate on. With more climate change impacts, Samoa may get more floodings and hence more typhoid and other water-borne, food-borne and vector-borne diseases like dengue fever and leptospirosis.

Should Samoa’s tourism industry also adapt to climate change impacts?

Should Samoa’s energy sector also adapt to climate change impacts?

Should villagers also adapt to climate change impacts?

These are just some of the questions that the Ministry of Environment (MNRE) is asking their key climate change stakeholders.

And the question we’d like to leave you with is: “Why are we Kids all tackling these climate change impacts in Samoa so late?”

Why the late tackle?

Luckily, The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has asked all Pacific Islanders to form a Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (PAS) so that all the governments of the Pacific can take a serious programmatic approach to one of the world’s most serious environmental challenges.

The GEF-PAS is going to tackle this climate change issue very seriously, spending in fact well over $USD10million to help protect the Pacific from climate change impacts.

So, what can we Kids do to help?

What can you adults do to help Samoa protect itself against these serious consequences of air pollution - all caused by too many carbon emissions from all the oil and other fossil fuels?

ISLANDS TO BE EXPLORED AND ENJOYED, but..

2008-05-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

NB: To travel to Samoa these days may cause too much carbon pollution – better we all just learn to appreciate Samoa on the Internet. In case you are interested in Samoa, and choose not to travel to Samoa for environmental and cultural reasons, then, at best, we can offer a few words of encouraging descriptions. We appreciate your thoughtful consideration. You are not alone. Many travellers are no longer at peace with themselves travelling such distances by these polluting jets. If you can here to Samoa, then this may be acceptable (depending of course on the 'carbon footprinting' caused in the purchasing of your yacht).

The Samoan Islands are abundant with opportunities, offering, for some, the best of the best. Take for example a blissful carefree life, surrounded by tropical fruits and vegetables, all organically grown. You can eat safely to your heart’s content. The soils are rich, the rainfall guaranteed at 3-5 metres per annum.

And if you are a vegetarian, then you can even live more sustainably, especially if you are prepared to grow your own foods, walk and paddle your own canoe without burning fossil fuels.

These traditional systems still abound in Samoa, this empathy for nature is immersed in the very substance of this Samoan culture, proudly equipped with ancient values that put Samoa’s communities ‘streets ahead’ of modern societies.

But how can Samoa hang-on to these livelihood skills, all too precious to lose, especially in today’s rapidly declining ecosystems?

The following is one man’s exposure to such a traditional culture, recognizing that these traditional Samoan technologies are today being poorly broadcast to the world, and even, possibly, poorly understood by Samoans themselves, or even ignored locally at the expense of retaining our vulnerable and fragile tropical island ecosystems in an intact state.

SOME AMAZING ISLANDS AND EXPERIENCES TO BE EXPLORED
For nearly 20 years, Dr. Steve Brown has explored these mountain tops, deep valleys, even climbed inside volcanic craters and descended down lavatube caves, reaching some amazing locations, many still yet to be photographed. To have explored these islands with ethnobotanists, ornithologists, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, epistemologists and even theologians has been an immensely personal journey. To personally witness these somewhat grave consequences has commenced yet another journey for Steve, a fulfilling experience ensuring that we adults leave something of note for our children to inherit.

INFORMAL OUTDOOR EDUCATION ABOUNDS IN SAMOA
To be accompanied by enthusiastic colleagues of all disciplines, all willing to share their professional skills in this abundant beauty has provided some significant personal experiences, and to revel in this personal education that these experiences can bring to one’s life, is still a joy remaining unexplored to its limits. Feelings often too difficult to describe, feelings too elusive at the start, all soon begin to overwhelm the more open-minded, the more receptive, the more adventurous. Samoa is an outdoor classroom, the teachers are the custodians of this knowledge, this traditional way of life. The Chiefly system, the fa’amatai, must be preserved at all cost. One day, the world will buy this technology, proven technology, from Samoan Chiefs.

BUILDING A SAMOAN SENSE OF COMMUNITY
Gaining one’s outdoor confidence comes easy for some, more difficult for others. But setting a goal, just reaching a family living in isolation along the forested clifftops, arriving with nothing, but offered everything in return, means a lot to most Samoans living on-island today: the gratitude, the hospitality, the friendship, that sense of community still abounds. You soon learn to rely on these remote Samoan ‘guides’, the hospitality of their families, and access to their natural resources. For that, Steve is so grateful, especially in today’s world where ecosystems are under constant threat, even here in Oceania, South Seas, the Pacific Ocean. A Report on the Status of the Pacific Ocean, 2020, will soon deliver some rude awakenings, even for Pacific Islanders who still remain oblivious to these happenings on their doorsteps.

This sense of community has to transgress all national boundaries: we need a sense of community for the entire Oceania region. After all, we are losing our 3000 languages and hence 3000 cultures, faster than any other region in the world.

A WHOLE RANGE OF SAMOAN LIFE EXPERIENCES WAITING TO BE RE-DISCOVERED
To return to such splendid locations on a different day, at a different time, with different colleagues adds even more weight to the range of life experiences that only Samoa can offer, from meeting villagers going about their daily lives to sharing close encounters with Samoan marinelife and seabirds and verdant rainforests.

A whole range of different habitats remain to be explored, but for how long?

To fully understand this wide array of delicate and vulnerable tropical ecosystems, from mangrove forest lakes to coral lagoons to remote island beaches, is a growing nightmare as the list of Rare Plants and Animals increases almost daily, often without us even knowing.

Meeting some of Samoa’s most intrepid traditional modern-day explorers, skilled enough to survive at sea for days, sleeping in freezing temperatures at 6000 feet, hunting pigs in high altitude (overnight) and uncovering ancient villages which have been deliberately forgotten, some of Samoa’s lost archaeological sites from the days when we supposedly were worshipping the 'devil' (mind you, we realize now that these were our true Ancestors), all takes determination of a differing kind.

Just listen to these legends, these stories, these experiences and compare these with our own life experiences abroad: no where in Samoan traditional oratory are there references to the modern-day threats that face these highly vulnerable small islands today. Climate change, ozone depletion, atmospheres poisoned with radiation, today raining down on these lost Pacific cultures, Pacific cultures losing their stronghold on humanity.

SHARING THESE SAMOAN EXPERIENCES WITH OTHERS
Having walked around Upolu in 5 days, cycled Savaii Island in 14 days (1990) and again in 2008 (3 days), kayaked to all 10 Samoan islands, over-nighted in over 100 villages (330 in total to choose from), climbed to the top of all 15 islands in the Samoan archipelago except Upolu and Apolima Islands, slept overnight at 6000 feet on Mt. Silisili, walked underground for 2 hours in the Aopo Lavatube Cave, and having walked and cycled and kayaked and scuba’d much more, leaves Steve with only a yearning to write about these experiences and the experiences of those that he has been so fortunate to share these beautiful sites with. Steve sends a sharp warning signal to all that dare venture to these remote corners of the globe: doing so will leave a ‘carbon footprint’ too big to wipe clean.

GROWING THAT SAMOAN SPLENDOUR
Therefore, having explored these pristine islands with so many friends and family, and even overseas visitors, it still brings Steve great pleasure to show-off the beauty and splendour of these islands, sometimes showing-off their hidden beauty, hidden deep in the oceans, deep inside lavatube tunnels, deep inside the lush rainforest, deep inside his innermost thoughts.

Steve now recommends sharing these experiences on the Internet, no longer able to consciously do this in person. We have all very sadly left ourselves with very few alternatives. We are all still leaving carbon foortprints today, too deep to mention. Or can we mention their depth, and the depth of dispair that is already being felt by Samoa's youth, here in Samoa and abroad?

SHARING THE SAMOAN SECRETS
Few realize today just how many sustainable livelihood skills it takes to survive on this Samoan archipelago of 15 islands, all volcanic, formed over 3 million years of eruptions. Samoans, unassisted by outsiders, are still living sustainably in absolute harmony with nature, but the global pressure is being felt locally. Samoans still have these skills today, but they still need to be identified and recorded, preferably practiced wholeheartedly by all on-island. However, this reliance on overseas support is now almost life-threatening, literally and figuratively.

Few other places on this planet can boast such abundance of natural resources, so little pollution, warm climate and a traditional indigenous society with an intact and intense sense of community that has been practiced for over 3000 years on this archipelago alone. Learn more of the fa’aSamoa and help put it into practice, worldwide.

ENGAGING IN COMMUNITY PROJECTS IN SAMOA
A whole range of activities and experiences (see below) are available today including participation in village projects. Steve is personally involved in over 20 environmental restoration projects valued at in excess of $SAT30-40 Million, ranging from mangrove re-plantings to rubbish dump restorations, coral farming to aquaculture, sustainable agriculture to organic farming, archaeological restoration to renewable energy projects, and much more.

Opportunities may exist for more and more Samoans to share these rare opportunities to engage with local environmental and cultural restorative projects, offering a greater sense of civic pride in the nearby communities and hopefully strengthening the eroding Samoan culture.

SERVICES OFFERED
A whole range of environmental and cultural services are now being offered in Samoa by a wide array of professionals ranging from from lectures, film nights, environmental discussions, introductions to guest speakers, fieldtrips, overnight treks, sporting and adventure activities, even new experiences like yoga and meditation, community project development and much more.

SAMPLE LIST OF LOCATIONS AND ACTIVITIES
1. A trek to Lake Lanotoo (day trip or overnight) through ancient fortresses
2. Discovering more ancient fortresses, left abandoned and hopefully forgotten
3. Searching for rare and possibly extinct birds deep in the rainforest
4. Fossil fuel-less Manono Island with boat tour to Apolima Island
5. Exploring Aleipata Islands and their rare seabird nesting colonies
6. An overnight on Nuutele Island, Samoa’s most remote national park
7. Walking the Tiavea Coastline to Amaile (and 100 other ‘walks’ available)
8. Exploring the legendary sites in Magiagi Village, including the Home of the Giant Octopus
9. Overnight on Nuusafe’e Island to catch coral worms – a real delicacy
10. Trip to forested blacksand Aganoa Beach and surrounds
11. Exploring the underground river in the National Park
12. Exploring the archaeological sites on Mt. Vaea Scenic Reserve
13. Locating a newly discovered fortress near the Bahai Temple
14. Exploring the Vaisigano Rivers and all its tributaries
15. Overnighting in Uafato Conservation Area amidst legendary sites
16. Exploring the mangrove lake systems of Saanapu
17. Exploring a lavatube cave and underground system too complex to describe, and
18. Visiting Savaii Island’s craters, remote beaches, wetlands, legendary sites and much more.

The fact now remains to be seen as to exactly what it will take to reverse these ecological and cultural trends being observed in Samoa today, and whether Samoans themselves can assist in a truly traditional way, preferably relying on those traditional values that once upheld their culture so proudly.

Societies' carbon footprinting today, causing global warming impacts on these small island developing states (SIDS) like Samoa, is bringing about social injustices of a magnitude never perceived by mankind in the past.

Steve is asking all citizens to please reconsider the impacts of their actions. If you a no longer part of the solution, then you are still part of the cause.

PLANET PANIC PACKAGE

2008-04-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

N.B. We are taught that the divine relationship with our Creators’ creations is (or at least was once) paramount. Sadly today, our Paramount Chiefs no longer recognize this paramount importance of respecting and revering our surroundings, Gods’ creations. Our islands are being degraded internally as well as from external foreign sources and impacts and imports.

Should we panic? Before we all panic too much, just try our simple proven ‘4 Point Survival Packages’ below. Our Ancestors followed these rules and they worked, at least in Samoa, for over the past 3000 years. Our Ancestors left no ‘carbon footprints’.

We Kids just need to find out if Samoa can really become a ‘carbon-free’ society like some other villages elsewhere in the world today.

Please excuse us Kids, but we’re just trying to think with our brains (and not our pockets). But having just seen the DVD “NOBELITY” last night (where 10 Nobel Prize Winners raised some grave concerns for Kids trying to live on this Planet for the next few years), we Kids now fear for the rest of the children in the world. We saw on this DVD so many beautiful Kids in Africa and India living in absolute squalor. If only our parents had taken us to these countries on our last school holidays? This would have meant more to us than going to Disneyland amidst all the glamour and disrespect for these same children who are losing their own traditional ‘Disneylands’.

Excuse us Kids if we do sound a little ungrateful and even panicky, because we are. Whilst our grandparents all kindly handed-down their traditional and sustainable livelihood skills, they did not once forewarn us of what may lay ahead. Although, they did have a saying “Look-out, the foreigner or palagi will get you” as if he was a demon or someone for us Kids to be scared of. Reality today is that our grandparents in Samoa are now equally scared of the palagi as we were as little Kids, and rightfully so.

So, whilst you may be led to think that we Kids are in a little bit of a panic, we Kids in Samoa at least (see the rest of our blog) have decided to take a 'class action suit' against all adults in the world, charging them all with 'adult-ery' for what they have already done to the Planet, and, surprisingly, are continuing to do to the Planet, despite all our little ‘panic attacks’.

Makes good sense, don’t you think?

And with another additional 1 million species thought to become extinct by the Year 2050, mainly because of the negative impacts of global warming, then we Kids would like to register here our grave concern, hoping that the whole Planet panics with us. 1 million beautiful creations globally all going to the grave. And our parents are the cause of this? Can’t be true?

So what can we Kids really do to get this message across to our parents, in fact every parent in the whole world?

We Kids have tried to articulate our concerns in this blog whilst living on this small island developing state in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean (called SAMOA, 10 islands we still own as indigenous Samoan landowners, the other 5 Samoan islands were ‘taken off us’ by the Americans - this recent change in geography was never part of our traditional Master Plan, but American Samoa may have more political pull than we indigenous Samoans here in Independent Samoa have, especially when it comes to US politics on climate change). We Kids need to get our messages to the Whitehouse, letting the President of the USA know that we are unhappy with these outcomes and impacts on us Kids.

But, regardless of our different geography on this beautiful archipelago, we Samoan Kids are so far away from the rest of the world, so far away from the Whitehouse, and we are so far away from the real causes of global warming. Or are we? Or is there something we can do here right at home? You bet there is.

Let’s admit it: we Samoan Kids alone are increasing our annual consumption of fossil fuel-generated electricity by a whopping 10% every year - a rate that we may soon be unable to afford, even unable to generate on-island. We Samoans are now searching for more energy sources, and hydro-power is our environmentally-friendly solution (we already generate 40% of our energy needs in Samoa from hydro-power – we have so many rivers as you can imagine with a rainfall of about 3-5 metres or 10-16 feet). And a figure of 80% has been targeted, leaving 20% of our energy from fossil fuels and/or, wait for it, bio-fuels – YES, we grow our own energy crops, and the markets are here on-island – no need to export these crops long distances overseas.

Yep, we small Kids are looking for some micro-hydro power stations, we want to generate our own electricity, pumping it back into the grid and earning money as Independent Power Producers or IPPs. Wow, we may even then be able to afford to leave all our remaining forests intact. We may even be able to afford to plant a few extra trees in our greenbelts, even planting-out a few more bio-fuel species like breadfruit, palm oil, candlenut, etc.

WOW, things are starting to happen, and we Kids in Samoa need to make it happen even faster. We have to contact our newspapers, our TV stations, even hop onto the Internet and get the world rolling nicely again. Even our own Samoan ‘SAVALI’ newspaper needs to change its name, because SAVALI means to ‘walk’, and we Kids need to hasten the speed a little. Anyway, that’s the least of our problems.

As part of our Planet Panic Package, we're deciding to send our proven traditional technologies from the 'South’ to the ‘North' as they say, surprised that with all our epistemological studies now completed here in the South Seas over the past 45,000 years, we have never been consulted by the real carbon-polluters in this rapidly modernizing world up there in the Northern Hemisphere.

Are you all ready for our very simple advice, handed-down from our Ancestors, and from their Ancestors’ Ancestors going right back to their origins in Asia?

It is real simple, only 4 steps to follow, and, if you live on our islands, it may be even easier to adopt such measures than if you were living in Sydney or New York or London or some African desert: firstly,
1. Grow all your own foods, hunt and gather all this beautiful marinelife (no more wasted diesel for our cargo ships, and no more of those expensive imported foods that are now costing us in excess of 40% of our health bills due to all our cousins getting these new lifestyle diseases – diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, cardiovascular disease, gout, etc.). Within 100 years, we may all be afflicted with such non-communicable diseases, let alone being affected by the direct impacts of global warming! So what are we waiting for? Secondly,
2. Eat only healthy foods, all organically-grown, no pesticides and no imported fertilizers polluting our foods and soils and waterways and coral reefs, preferably eating only native meats/proteins, and even eating vegetarian-like diets (very different from our carnivorous cousins abroad who rely today on more and more cattle invading their last forested areas and being fed cattle fodder which was just grown where beautiful forests once grew). Starting to all make sense? And thirdly,
3. Walk or paddle your canoe to ‘work’, saves a lot on fossil fuel consumption. Yes, we all need to do our small bit. It is now time to pour our coconut oil or our candlenut oil straight into our ‘diesel’ engines. And YES, it works. Samoa may soon no longer need all those polluting carbon-rich fossil fuels. And we just need to stop Australia exporting all their carbon-rich coals to China to help power-up these new coal-fired power stations. God help us! Are we now having to turn to God because we are panicking or because we really know and understand his teachings, especially when it comes to living in balance with His and Her creations? Finally,
4. Love our forests and reefs, and cherish our traditions which have been proven over millennia. We Samoans have many traditional conservation techniques, taboos on fishing and hunting grounds, even legends and stories and proverbs all guiding our daily behaviours and traditional protocols. We Samoans have a certain spiritual relationship with our siosiomaga, our surroundings: we are taught that this divine relationship with our Creators’ creations is (or was once) truly paramount to all in Samoa. Sadly today, our Paramount Chiefs, as they still like to be called, can no longer recognize this paramount importance to protect the future of us Kids. Whatever happened to va tapuia, that spiritual relationship with ones siblings? Yes, it seems that our Fa’aSamoa, or Samoan culture, is eroding fast. Don’t they love us Kids anymore? May be we should all re-read Divine Nature by Michael Cremo who points-out very clearly the 4 most logical steps that need to be taken by all villages.

Well, how soon can we Kids all put these 4 trade secrets back into practice as part of the whole package to save the whole world, Samoan-led? In fact, led by Samoan Kids.

We Kids may need to export these traditional technologies to all other countries, as soon as possible. But, before we do, we need to do a few little experiments here at home first before we get all 4 truly sustainable livelihood skills functioning simultaneously again.

Another 4 Point Planet Panic Package needs to be designed, this time targeting our Paramount Chiefs:
1. We need to be able to convince our Paramount Chiefs of this crisis that we Kids are panicking about.
2. We need to be able to convince our Paramount Chiefs of the urgency of which we are expecting some response from them.
3. We need to be able to convince our Paramount Chiefs that they actually have the answers, all proven traditionally and all traditionally proven. And
4. We need to be able to convince our Paramount Chiefs that they have the skills to transfer this proven traditional technology to the developed countries (like USA, Australia, Europe), or to those countries that are also the heaviest global polluters (like Australia, China, USA and India), or to those countries that are the main exporters of carbon products such as coal and oil (like Australia and the Middle Eastern countries).

Now, how do we put all this into action?

Last week, Monday 14th April, 2008, 20,000 Samoans marched on Parliament protesting at the switching of the side of the road we drive on, switching it from the right side to the left side. The People Against Switching Sides (PASS) never once argued from a Kids’ perspective: and that is, excuse us, we Kids are more interested in Saving Our Siosiomaga than we are interested in saving a few dollars in our pockets (which was the bulk of the senseless arguments being presented against this recently proposed piece of legislation).

We Kids just sat back and laughed all day at the silliness of these protesters. What does it matter to us what side of the car we hop into or what side of the road we drive on? What really matters to us most is “Will we still be driving our diesel cars on this polluted Planet in 50 years time?” Next we’ll have our teachers all telling us we need to write with the other hand!

And if this is really the level of conscienciousness of our Elders, then no wonder the Planet is in trouble, and no wonder we Kids are having to panic, and justifiably so by the looks of it.

To conclude, we Kids will give all our Paramount Chiefs one last opportunity to avoid any further legal action (remember the class action suit we are preparing for you)?

We need to organize another PASS March to help foster some Pacific Alofa for Samoa’s Siosiomaga (PASS) – yes, some Pacific love (Alofa) for Samoa’s environment (Siosiomaga). We Kids need you all marching on Parliament House, and it’s better we all do this on a day that Parliament is not sitting because we want all the Parliamentarians marching with us and all of them on our side this time. And we are expecting a turn-out of about 180,000 people, in person and/or in spirit. Yes, we Kids need the entire nation focused this time on a real issue, a real serious issue, an issue that is important to who?

And you guessed it.

Us Kids.

So, please, don’t PASS-up this opportunity because we are planning another PASS Protest March, this time a Pacific Alliance of Sustainability for Samoa (PASS) all funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Yes, the GEF has recently formed the Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (GEF-PAS) by contributing $USD100Million to saving the Pacific delicate and vulnerable and threatened environments, but this time we are calling on all Pacific Islanders to help Samoa attain true sustainable livelihood skills like our Ancestors once practiced.

We want all Pacific Island Countries to aim for fossil fuel-free economies by 2020. And we Pacific Islanders have the technology to do it. And more importantly, we need to send the same message to those palagi as well, and that is “Look-out, the palagi will get you too”.

Samoa, and the whole South Pacific, needs to demonstrate by example that we are all truly capable of meeting our own energy needs here in the Pacific without relying on imported carbon-rich fuels, without relying on disease-causing imported foods, and, most importantly, without relying on imported doctrines that are not yet proven.

Our Ancestors had got it right, had practiced it like the Professors of South Seas Sustainability. The least we can do is give our Ancestral Paramount Chiefs the credit they so rightly deserve.

Faafetai tele lava
Malo galue

Well, that's our standpoint

2008-03-09T18:59:00.000-07:00

PS: Not sure if this standpoint is correct, but we Kids all agree that men have disregarded women, generally speaking, in the past: hence the global female liberation movements and gender equality emphases of today. Likewise, we Kids feel that our views on the world, our parents, etc. have not been sought, not even by our mothers.

We Kids feel that even our mothers have devalued our importance as Kids, possibly more so than men have devalued and discriminated against women themselves. Is this really possible? Can our Mothers be that hippocritical?

WELL, THAT'S OUR STANDPOINT

We Kids have looked at the 'Standpoint Theory', as we understand it, in such a way as an attempt to not only portray who we Kids are, but more so of showing-off the innate knowledge we Kids have of understanding exactly what traditional skills come naturally from indigenous peoples such as our Ancestors (who we kids still consider as the professors of sustainability).

This study of our indigenous knowledge (epistemology) is embedded in our indigenous Samoan society and similar Polynesian societies, but scientific (economic and Western) methodologies of researching social successes have only altered the real value of indigenous knowledge in the global world because the results need to reflect the current 'GDP mentality' based on economic capital building versus www.neweconomics.org: the latter having a different set of economic and environmental and health parameters to be considered in an indigenous framework of social sustainable value systems.

Hence the more culturally-intact a society, (a) the more values are likely to be retained, (b) the greater the appreciation of nature will prevail, (c) good health (longevity) will be revered in terms of all generations benefiting, not just the present generation, and(d) the greater the emphasis placed on such indigenous societies to pass-on such indigenous knowledge to us Kids in terms of ensuring our sustainability (an indigenous Samoan education will ensure the transference of such traditional livelihood skills and values-systems to the following generations of Kids, and that's why we authors are going to an indigenous university in Samoa - we enrolled when we were only 3 years old. The Le Amosa Iunivesite is to take 15-20 years to re-educate us to make us think and act like our Ancestors.) This is a 'hard ask' for us Kids in such an oblivious modern society, but we authors are determined to at least try: albeit a pessimistic last-ditch effort to save humanity. We owe it to our parents, our Chiefs, we are still prepared to tautua you, to serve you, but only on our terms. Is that understood?

Insufficient emphasis on Pacific epistemiology has been inflicted upon us indigenous Pacific peoples by the Westerners, colonial powers, and also by our own Pacific people who are misguided by aspiring to Westernized lifestyles only – even if it means the loss of our Ancestors’ value systems, the loss of our forests, the loss of our health, the loss of our culture, etc.

DAMN, what's wrong with these adults?

It is time we Kids got to question our modern inadequate education systems, both formal and informal. To admit that our mothers are leading us down this path is a heinous crime against humanity.

We can forgive our fathers, the so called 'dominant' mis-guided males across the Planet, but we Kids never thought the proof existed that our Mothers as well were abondoning their Kids as they abandoned their values and keep abondoning their husbands. Shame Mum.

We Kids have seen enough divorce, family break-ups. Take our advice and hang-on to your traditional values Mum and Dad: we Kids are prepared to help you, as much as you like to blame us Kids for your own divorces. We've heard you at night quarrelling, each of you blaming us Kids for your own inadequacies.

We understand and we can accept this barrage of accusations, We Kids know exactly what economic hardships and frustrations you parents are going through as you try to hold down two jobs, get the best house and car for us Kids, etc. We appreciate all this effort. But we don't need it. We just want you, your indigenous values. And they all come free. Well, that's our standpoint.

We Kids will use the Standpoint Theory as a descriptive tool to help clarify and magnify, from our meager standpoint, the current educational problems that exist in our Samoan society today. Our Ancestors would beach themselves on Vini Beach in subtle protest, interpreted by the West as a 'insidious whale beaching of unknown cause' as if we were to find some scientific pathological lesion to describe such a frequent anomaly here in the Pacific. Our whales, our Ancestors, have been harpooned literally and figuratively enough thank you, and thanks to the Japanese (Sa-shami).

May be we Kids have lost you adults in our attempt to put across some very mature thoughts here, but you can be excused for not understanding our reasoning or our arguments presented here.

To help you, especially our beligerent and indifferent Fathers and customary Chiefs, we will explain it in the usual forum of fagogo or traditional storytelling. We Kids love these stories: we just thought that the messages carried in these stories were real messages to be handed down to us Kids. May be we were wrong in making this assumption.

This time we Kids want to hand these messages back down to you adults whether you like it or not.

To make our argument even more precise, we have decided to make an analogy, utilizing the 'feminist perspective' as it relates to the ‘Standpoint Theory’ as mentioned above: this will help demonstrate our very different points of view, yet we are from the same culture. Our Mothers need more respect as well, thank you. Enough of your male dominating platitudes of caring and responsibility, and ........

Firstly, we Kids strongly believe that human equality does exist, but is being ignored by indigenous societies, and hence the more modern derivatives of once true indigenous societies are also suffering. The same way feminists, such as Sandra Harding (1991), Bell Hooks and Dorothy Smith (1987), Nancy Hartstock (1983) and Hilary Rose (1983), portrayed themselves as different and mistreated in society, is exactly the same way we Pacific Kids will portray ourselves in our 'cries from the grave': different, worthy and mistreated.

And, just as women's insights regarding their own gender position have changed society’s views about women, we Kids hope that we have the word-power and fagogo skills to re-train our re-educate our Elders, giving them a more solid grounding in proven traditional value systems. We Kids think this is the easy part.

Getting these adults, both our Mothers and Fathers, to actually apply such values is now the real challenge for us Kids. We'll be accused of being, if not already, disrespectful because of our customary traditional respect for our forests and fishes and all feathered friends, not to mention the flavoursome flowers and digestible ferns and edible fungi that we Kids once relied on for good health, good medicine and good spiritual guidance as we played in our forests. Today, we nolonger play in our forests: they have all but gone (to America).

May be, may be just one, Samoan Chief will read past this point and endorse our indigenous thoughts, just as if they are original thoughts, new thoughts worthy of some consideration. And there are some new thoughts below: imagine asking the High Chief to give-up eating pork, stop jet-setting across the globe, ...... Yes, we Kids are at least going to ask.

Well Kids, let us just give ourselves a little 'out' here because we do not want to raise our hopes that we will be so successful in this simple endeavour. It will take some serious legal action to get the courts to uderstand this 'genicide' and this is where Judge Tui Vui steps into this picture to play his role, albeit only by default.

Well, that's not entirely true: he is afterall a judge, Samoan, practicing in the Privy Courts in England, but it was his indigenous roots that allowed him to instruct and guide his jury to re-value these indigenous values that we had portrayed to the TV viewers and documentary-makers. Again, by chance, Judge Tui Vui had selected the youngest untitled jury of his career that was to see the most unlikely verdict of "Not Guilty for first degree child abuse" prevail. It was, after all, the decision that we Kids had wanted, but we had also expected something more.

The tabloids picked-up on the case for a few editions, but the advertizers were horrified at this 'anti-consumeristic propaganda', these on-going neo-colonialistic behaviours so entrenched in the Pacific these days that they have all become merged with our traditional cultures and merged with our modern religions and belief systems here in the Pacific.

If we in Samoa were all members of the International Society for Samoan Consciousness, assuming it was once identical to Krishna conscienciousness (pun intended), then we'd still be the professors of sustainability here in the Pacific, practicing common(sense) law in London, and advising Judge Tui Vui to take a more global standpoint, rooted in Pacific epistemologies.

Luckily, after our fruitful case in London, we Kids were able to fly back from London to the Pacific, knowing we had won the battle of our lifetimes, but admitting we had again lost the war.

Even Judge Tui Vui had not been able to have his verdict stand in a court of law where 'contempt of court' would have been inevitable. Every adult would have been 'check-mated'.

The world has continued, from this day on, down a spiralling pathway oblivious to the depths of despair that mankind is so capable of.

To Judge Vui Tui, we thank you for your steerage, your understanding, your verdict and your foresight. If only we Kids could offer you, next time may be, another such unique angle to trick these adults into further 'adultery' and definite comtemptuous behaviour (guilty of 'Contempt of Court') and locked away for life.

Don't worry Tui Vui, we Kids have an idea. Proceedings will soon recommence. We will be arguing for a re-trial, and you will grant it Judge Tui Vui. You owe it to us Kids. We Kids are appealing. You thought you made the most appropriate decision that would reverse humanity's destiny. But you overlooked a crucial point of law. Vui, you have let us down by your professional ineptitude, as judged outside our cultural value system.

We Kids had also failed to prepare a water-tight case, although we got the verdict we had wanted. Just that we never appreciated, at the time, the limited repercussions of such a positive verdict. Tui, we want a verdict that is more enforceable, legally, culturally.

We may have to have all adults on 'home detention', to have all adults reporting to their nearest police stations (even the adult policemen and women reporting to their own police stations), and their passports confiscated (that'll stop the increasing impacts of global warming overnight), we'll put all adults on a proven vegetarian raw-food diet (just read Lord Krishna's Cuisine) because we can save the planet on so many fronts (including reducing the consumption of fossil fuels within the USA by a staggering 60% by just going vegetarian).

"Excuse me, what's this connection?".

Well, it's been a pleasure having this discourse, and intercourse, with you adults, but onosai tele, just be patiet and relax whilst we Kids re-write 'Divine Nature' by Cremo and Goswami. The facts presented to us Kids in this Divine Nature book are staggering (excuse the pun). We just need to present them more eloquently so you adults can understand them. Please, don't get all defensive. We are only trying to help you, so sit down and shut-up!!

We Kids need to leave you adults with this simple thought, backed-up by Westernized scientific statistical analyses just to help 'prove' to you that we Kids are right (on track):

1. "For each person who kicks the meat habit, an acre of trees will be saved."

2. "It takes 16 pounds of grain and soybeans to produce a pound of beef."

3. "Half the world's destruction of tropical rainforests is directly linked with livestock enterprises, including hamburger chains."

In Samoa, the cattle ranching industry has taken-off in 2008 up into our last remaining indigenous rainforests: Government even wants to expand the industry and build a meat abattoir to encourge more exports and more loss of water catchments and more loss of unique wildlife and more loss of our precious soils for growing our foods in.

Time for a Kids Parliament, whether it's justified or not, this standpoint stands and this is our 'Standpoint Theory'. You adults have presented your theories, even in child rearing, and they haven't worked. We Kids are horrified to say the least.

And sorry if it is so poorly explained here, but our 'editor' will simplify things for you adult readers. And that's why she is rating this book "PG". "Parental Guidance" required. Every Kid reading this book MUST read it in the presence of at least one adult: be prepared Kids to painstakingly interprete the more difficult parts so that these 'adulterous' adults can learn, once and for all, that there are some indigenous values that will teach them how best to tautua us Kids, and not just on White Sunday, once a year.

And did you adults really think that you could buy us Kids with just a few litres of coloured icecream and all your best oratory skills? Good try.

KIDS SEEKING THE RIGHT 2008 DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS

2008-03-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

PS: We Kids need the right partners, now, and we need someone who cares about us. We're fed-up with unrequited partnerships (with our parents, our clergy, our chiefs, our teachers doing just as they please). We are taking, for the first time, a more responsible and commercial approach, seeking ethical partnerships with large companies, like Digicel Group that offer mobile/cellular phone services throughout the Pacific Islands. We need our cause publicized and outreached throughout the Pacific Islands, to every Kid in the South Pacific. And mobile phones and Internet access will help us. May be we need our own blog, http://www.digicelkids.blogspot.com and get all the comments and feedback we need, quickly.

And watch-out Kids for all our promotions, promoting good education, good health, good communications, good access to the Internet and, most importantly, a good future for all adults.

"From Samoa, South Pacific, we Kids offer Digicel our highest congratulations. Within just 2 years of operation in Samoa, Digicel Group is already not only a successful cellular competitor with 85% market-share, but offering us Kids and all rural Samoan villagers a unique DigiCare programme.

Yes, we in Samoa are very much a part of the Third World, a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), a Least Developed Country (LDC) and we/re facing some serious socio-economic and environmental issues. Our very-own traditional sustainable livelihood skills are being eroded as we face globalization, cultural erosion, climate change impacts, ozone layer depletions, failing international commodities markets, insufficient and/or expensive global communications (including Internet access), insufficient investment capital (especially at the micro-level for Samoa's rural poor) and ailing health and education services.

We need climate health issues being addressed now, we need Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), we need free Internet access in our schools, and Internet access for all our new forms of e-business (micro-enterprises with micro-technologies all funded by micro-enterprise loans from South Pacific Business Development [SPBD]), preferably supported by a private sector that not only 'cares' about its business partners/clientele, but can actually partner sustainable development enterprises.

Samoa is launching a new Global Environment Facility (GEF) Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (PAS) Programme that will need excellent project partners like Digicel. GEF-PAS is about to launch in the Pacific (including Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and PNG) a 3-Year $USD100 million environmental development programme this April, 2008. However, it lacks the right development tools, the right development partners, the right reciprocal ethics.

Luckily in Samoa, we are grateful for the excellent services being offered by DigiCare to rural Samoan villagers in desperate need of development assistance, in need of more care and future direction. It is communications partnerships like this that can help alleviate poverty from the Pacific Ocean and the whole world. And we Kids are going to capitalize on this unique opportunity.

We will keep you abreast of any mutually-beneficial commercial developments/partnerships.

PLEA FOR HELP before the paralysis sets in

2008-01-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

PS: We Kids are after change. There's a certain climate of apathy looming over the Pacific, and Samoa is no exception. Western Samoa once was a haven of sustainability, but, today, our unique tourism assets (our water supplies, forests, fish and other seafoods, tropical fruits, coastlines, climate, corals and soils/air) are in peril - perilized and paralysed.

Climate health now a serious threat to us Kids. Even our food security is being threatened as climate change impacts on our health - the latest climate health reports are staggering, predicting new diseases, more pandemics, more lives lost.

We Kids wanted to, very quickly, publish our poems, draft filmscripts and short stories, seeking your comments and possible interest in turning this 'Plight of Pacific Kids' account into a possible documentary or even a Kids' adventure film, growing-up in the South Pathetic, sorry, the South Seize.

After all, we Pacific Kids have reason to be concerned, and good reason to think that someone out there will hear our cries from the Pacific.

As their father, I’m anxiously trying to correct these ills within the Pacific in my own small way, but the problems lie fairly and squarely on us adults failing to do the right things (e.g. failing to implement anti-corruption legislation, making it illegal to harvest, sell, export even import our natural resources, and much more).

We all look forward to the possibility of one day publishing alone, or even jointly, should anyone of you be at all interested in taking our poems, scripts and short stories to another level.

THANK YOU, faafetai tele lava

CHAPTER 7 - Class action Suits

2008-01-13T01:35:00.000-08:00

We Pacific Kids may need to take legal action. We're left with very few options. Our Kids Parliament is becoming more and more justified. Simply broadcasting our concerns and solutions may not be enough, especially if it is met with stern opposition by those that are less concerned, less informed and less skilled.

We Kids struck it lucky at the most opportune time. By some strange quirk of nature, our presence was required for an unrelated court proceedings in London - someone thought we had been abandoned on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific, and even if we had, what is wrong with that? The rest of the Kids in the world (and most of the adults, unfortunately) would be envious. Anyway, during the trial (we were invited to London to try, surprisingly, to get 12 adults off some serious child abuse charges - they were all our film directors, remember? We were the key witnesses: I mean for Gods' sake, we Kids insisted that we be left behind on this uninhabited island as the rescue boat departed, full of camera gear and these whinging Pommies who had not only become our best friends, but had also stopped whinging - they didn't want to leave either. However, the viewers misconstrued the circumstances we Kids were in, and yet we had broadcast our views for over 12 months convincing the whole world that we were onto something here).

At least we can rely on 'contempt of court' allegations should our adults fail or refuse to follow the courts' decisions. And this is where Judge Tui Vui comes in. And we Kids will go to the Privy Council in London if we have to.

Story 157 – Untold Number of Untold Stories – 30-12-007 - 6

2008-01-13T01:32:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids need to reflect a little more having written this faleaitu because there are an untold number of untold stories, most of them too self-incriminating to broadcast.

We Kids have adopted a policy that all untold stories need to be told, if our mothers are being beaten, then we will report this to the police and suffer the consequences (another beating I guess). “Hey Dad, wake up Bro.”

Untold Number of Untold Stories

Need a passport, or a new birth certificate to make you look older (err, just to get conscripted to fight another palagi war), need an excuse to waive your Development Bank loan, need to get elected or you just want to become Minister, then we can help you.

Shock. Horror. To hear all these stories about my Pacific Island is uncalled for, despite the good that it might do.

Ok Bro, we’ll change the name of your island, we’ll call it “A Pacific Island”.

Story 117 – FOBs – 29-12-007 – 6

2008-01-13T01:27:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids try to do something significant with our lives, we study hard, even if it means going overseas to study, we're even prepared to come back to the islands and apply our newfound knowledge. But we are considered a threat to the less educated but highly ranked. A dilemma exists. We need a solution and we Kids have found one. We'll create our own jobs, we'll apply for our own funds, etc.

FOBs - Fresh Off the Boat

Fresh Out with his Bachelors – back home to reek havoc. But if we're genuine, we’ll have to self-exile ourselves back to NZ - FACT.

Story 100 – Palagi – 27-12-007 - 6

2008-01-13T01:25:00.001-08:00

NB:

PALAGI

(from STORY 76)

Story 83 – Palagi Pipilo – 26-12-007 – 6 - T

2008-01-13T01:19:00.000-08:00

NB: Pacific Islanders have had enough of the Western influences, packaged and delivered in so many surreptitious manners. “Palagi pipelo” are the naughty white lies told by whiteman, whereas “palagi pipilo” is “whiteman stinks” and often this treatment stinks.

PALAGI PIPILO

No offence meant, but, please, enough is enough. If you are not aware of the impacts and insults being made on PIs, and are prepared to at least acknowledge them or even do something to correct them in order to make a better world, then sit back and relax as the story unwinds, the facts emerge, the realizations get realized and accepted. An apology is even possible. Legislation is even better. Failing that, a class action suit is pending.

The Pacific Ocean is currently under siege and Pacific Islanders are becoming second or even third-rate citizens in their own country because of social, political, economic, historic, trade, environmental and even touristic reasons.

So, when you go on a holiday to Oceania, choose your holiday destination carefully. For example, you will not see us Kids in the Pacific French Protectorates (muraroa Atoll, Tahiti, Maquesas, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna) because of their Napoleonic arrogance and the dismissive social graces of the colonial powers.

We Kids just can’t relax on the beach as a family amidst the Tahitian oppression, overt materialism at any expense of the Tahitians themselves. But that’s just us. You adults may relish in such oppression.

Story 80 – Rats can fly too – 25-12-007 – 6

2008-01-13T01:16:00.000-08:00

NB: Samoans see things often very differently from palagi, often looking at fruitbats, for example, as nothing more than flying rats. But for good reason. And octopuses hate rates. Can you imagine why? These stories account for some of the 'most beauuutiful legends' in Samoa.

RATS CAN FLY TOO – BATS

A fruit bat is really a rat with wings, just ask your Ancestors.

Story 9. Tropical Paradises or Para-Dices - 23-12-007 – 6

2008-01-13T01:13:00.000-08:00

NB: The good, the bad and the ugly are all present in the South Pacific. You have the choice to see it, believe it, experience it or change it.

Tropical Paradises or Para-Dices

There are paradises and there are paradises. Some people live in the same paradise, and yet some have different experiences depending on the ‘throw of their dices’. We call this your ‘para-dice’, and life in Samoa is just that gamble.

Your grandmother can beat you up (that’s normal), your uncle can abuse you (that’s normal), your sister can even suicide (that’s normal), and, sadly, today, your brother can get hooked on marihuana or even ‘methyl-ice’ (that’s now normal) and the adults perpetrate these aberrant behaviours and profitable businesses (at the expense of we Kids).

Well, excuse me. We Kids are not prepared to gamble our lives away, swapping our tropical paradise for your perverted para-dice. See you later. Whilst some people have the same desires in life, some visitors to paradise are simply running away from ‘reality’, however, some of us are running towards ‘reality’.

Some of us make too many comparisons with our past and some of us are better off wearing our deeply tinted rose-coloured glasses, preferably all the time (like our Dad). That way, you can turn your para-dice into a real paradise, best done without a further throw of the dice – take the gambles out of your life and replace with adventures, joy and magic. Amazing how it all falls into place.

Admittedly, the South Pacific is still portrayed as a paradise of tropical islands – no cyclones, no sweltering heat, no mosquitoes, no malaria, no traffic, no political corruption, no evangelical trickery, no sickness (Fiji – 50% living in poverty), no banned imported pesticides, no discarded cheap animal fat donations from our key Aid Partners (I make this a Proper Noun as these partners should behave more properly).

Thanks Australia, Thanks New Zealand). Talk about gambling with our lives and profiteering at our expense. We Kids call it neo-colonialism and it’s rife in the Pacific, but don’t get us started just yet. Read-on.

Story 156 – Vui our Tui – 30-12-007 - 6

2008-01-13T01:08:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids have taken a very litigious approach throughout this faleaitu, and having Judge Vui (our Chiefly king, our hero) as our one and only adult mentor who has provided us Kids with all the hope we need. At least we could rely on one adult in our lives, Tui Vui becoming the main character throughout.

Vui Our Tui

Judge Vui was to become our Tui, Professor of the new Kids University Law School.

He took some convincing, but when he understood his brief (and applied the law), he was our God of Lore, folklore or modern day law, it was the same to us, and it should be the same to our Ancestors.

In fact, this folklore has been plagiarized by modern day lawyers, they have stolen our traditional knowledge, contravening their own basic modern-day laws of Indigenous Traditional Property Rights. This equates to breaches of copyright. Vui, our Tui, we have another case for you. Another class-action suit against all non-indigenous Law Schools in the World.

Story 153 – Oh No, Not Good Governance – 30-12-007 – 6

2008-01-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

NB: We PIs are really unable to help ourselves, we’ve gone beyond all sense of survival. Given the chance to even legally protect our PI adults from themselves, by introducing Anti-Corruption Legislation (something that we Kids advocate so often in this faleaitu), PI Parliaments are refusing to accept such legislation, especially if it is made retrospective and especially if our adult chiefly politicians may end up in gaol. Geez, thanks Dad. Now we know where you adults are coming from. We Kids know what you adults think of us Kids. It’s OK. We can cope, but allow us the right to write about it first.

And you watch it, the biggest critics of “We Little POPITS” will be the adult race. Fact. They will be incensed at the accusations, they will offer ridiculous counter-arguments, something as ridiculous as we experienced in Heretic.

Oh No, Not Good Governance

We Kids prepared Anti-Corruption Legislation, presented it to all the Pacific Parliaments for their prompt approval, but we Kids were astonished with all the non-justifiable reasons why no such legislation is ever welcomed. Anyway, just as well as the last thing we Kids wanted was sending all our Daddies to gaol for their on-going self-financing programmes.

Their first question we Kids got was “Will you make this new legislation retrospective, meaning will we politicians go to gaol for all our wrong-doings in the past as well?”

Their second and last question was “Do you Kids have anything better to do than write these pathetic legislations that incriminate adults?”

“Do you Kids know how disrespectful you are?”

“You Kids just don’t understand.”

P.S. Editors’ Note – We wanted to print more of the following tirade, but it was censored by we editors because it really was some of the most derogatory dialogue that would put the adult readership into denial, refusing to buy the book or even failing to recommend it to others (adults), and our sales would be adversely affected. Sorry.

And for cultural reasons, Samoan children would be accused, tried and convicted of being culturally-insensitive, disrespectful, even, wait for it, ‘fiapoto' or just 'trying to be clever', which is, in the faaSamoa, the insult of all insults. In order to protect the identity of the authors, we have had to make-up some fictitious Samoan names so that these children will not be beaten-up by their relatives (another serious problem in Samoa today, especially in the schools - you wonder why we Kids even want to go to school).

Chapter 6 - Time to Reflect

2008-01-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

NB: The previous 5 Chapters give a general overview of just how adventurous and culturally-significant life in Samoa can be, especially for Kids without their parents getting in the way.

From this unique standpoint, we Kids have been able to reflect quite deeply on not only our past lives, but our future years ahead. With a lot of help from our Ancestors, we seem to have come-up with all the answers we need. Mind you, our proposed lifestyles may not suit all Kids, but let's say one thing: it suits us just fine.

Sure, we'll need to make a few adjustments as life goes along, but we are not prepared to compromise ourselves. If the adults simply don't conform, then we'll choose a retirement village that suits them (remembering that it is often your children that get to select your retirement village, so be extra nice to them).

So, we Kids have adopted the policy that it is better to present the solutions rather than the problems. Afterall, who could we submit our problems to anyway?

Chapter 6 offers readers an insight never offered before. Just like changing from lefthand drive to righthand drive, various other cultures in the world may like to look at adopting the faaSamoa in its purest form. And if you don't understand the faaSamoa, then how can you wisely say "No'? Chiefly meeting houses are being erected in Australia and elsewhere as much to the astonishment of nearby residents as to Samoans living back in Samoa. These elaborate o mea sina are a tribute to a culture that possibly offers Samoans all the resilience they need to live in a culture-less society like Australia. People die in Sydney in their apartments without their neighbours even raising any concerns for at least the first year. True. This would never happen in Samoa.

Story 55 - Malosi Matagi – 24-12-007 - 5

2008-01-13T00:38:00.000-08:00

NB: Timely to say the least. Our Mum received the good news that we were all still alive at the same time she got notified by the BBC that we were all summonsed to court in London – our BBC colleagues being charged for child abuse (i.e. leaving us abandoned on Nuutele, just as we had requested).

Malosi Matagi

Little did we know that we were all soon to be re-united, as a family, our Mum was arriving, secretely, somehow. Word was out. We were about to be rescued when a big storm warning came across the radios on the mainland. We had no idea of what was about to happen, but what we did know was that there was a cyclone coming. We all knew this the day before, well before the radio announcements. Had we had a radio ourselves, we would have not only heard the weather warnings but also that a plane had sighted children riding horseback down a remote beach on an island way off-shore. We had seen this plane the day before, but we thought that it was out searching for more lost fishermen: they had given-up looking out for us 2 years prior.

Our Mum heard this news report thinking that this could be, should be, us, alive at last. With the cyclone warning, how was she to get there to ‘rescue’ us, cyclone pending. She was prepared to take every risk, she was frantic, she asked for no help, for she knew the story of the Ulutogia Ana Ala Sopo as much as we did – she told us, Sa told her, Uitime told him.

She arrived in the village late at night, unannounced, and before anyone woke, she trekked towards Lua-O-Teine. She knew the entrance: our Dad was an avid speleologist, mapping every cave in Samoa. We used to go with him all the time. Av made it into the entrance, carrying TJ. Yes, she was carrying but this didn’t deter Av. She was on a mission to re-unite her family, first time ever. ‘There they were, by the family name of Brown, Lost at sea and never found’. Well, not until now.

All Av had to do was to follow the same secret pathway as Solo did, escaping from one island to another by an underground cave, in fact, a cave that went right under the ocean and popped up on the slopes of Mt. Nuutele Crater. As Av got closer, unbeknown to us, she could hear those familiar laughters, she knew it was us. We had no idea who was about to join us for Sultanas and Bananas (STORY 57 - Coconut Bread-Baking), hot, Tahitian Almond butter mixed with grated coconut – who could ever say no?

Somehow she was so super-confident it would be us. Our love of horses, our ability to survive alone in remote places, the sighting of 3 kids riding side-saddle on a small pony through the shallows at high speed, she knew it just had to be us. She could even picture us riding our Magic Pony, Sose cuddled up-front in Nu’s arms, Steevie standing up on Solo’s back holding onto Nu’s shoulders. And she was right. That was our normal positioning, our normal pose.

The plane never circled, never came close, it just flew back to the mainland as the dark clouds swept higher and higher, darker and darker, swirling high in the sky like bread dough in a bowl. We weren’t sure the pilots saw us, but somehow we knew word was out that we were still on the Planet, alive, thriving and surviving on this beautiful tropical island, with our Magic Pony and JR.

Something strange. We could all feel it. Our wildlife fairies appeared nervous, no longer going about their daily routines like clockwork. For a gogo not to go fishing far was unusual. Instead, they remained close to shore diving in and out of a shoal of anae, baby mullet. There was a dark cloud, in the ocean, just outside the breakers, entering the lagoon. The gogo knew that this was a tell-tale of something about to happen. More so, there was another dark cloud, this time high in the sky. It just appeared, it didn’t drift and hover all the way from the horizon in the East, as usual. This was different. A cyclone pending.

We had only hours to prepare. What could we do? No different from what our grandfathers would have told us – check the masi pits (done), put some dry leaves inside the cave (done), and firewood as well (done), not to mention coconuts and bananas (done), Oh, some fish as well (those baby anae we thought – we needed about 5 days supply) – we quickly surrounded them, Solo helping, we mustered them into a tiny small hole with no real escape routes, then we scooped handfuls of them into coconut shells – mind you, the ava PNG was already soaking, they were soon anaesthetized (STORY 29) – we had no time to waste (done).

Water? Well, there’s always the rain, but the wind can be too strong for us to venture too far outside. Coconuts, our saviours. And enough for Solo as well. Yes, Solo and Solo JR were to be with us (done – Solo knew his role as he carried saddlebags full of supplies, and every saddlecloth we made he left inside the cave – the best saddlecloths are the beach grasses, Solo loves chewing on them, but again we needed 5 days supply – done). We had only minutes remaining, the coconut palms began to sway, brown nuts began to fall like cannon fodder, we had to run inside, all of us.

Hey, the camera crew. “I’ll get them” shouted Skivi as he tore off down the beach, riding like a jockey in the Melbourne Cup. “Stay in the shallows Skivi, not under the palms – you’ll be safer. And come back the same way with those whinging Pommies.”

They were so relieved to see Skivi and Solo, having had no idea what really was about to happen. The rain hadn’t begun as yet, just a strong wind. But the first wind is the most dangerous as all the ripe nuts are dislodged at once.

“Quick, bring your cameras. There’s a cyclone coming, we need to be in our Secret Cave, all of us, including Solo who is here to help carry all your gear.”

No questions asked. They knew better by now. Safe inside, we prepared our fires, our beds, our meals, even some lighting as it was so dark. Yes, we had sleeping platforms, just like the olden days, we had a hearth where we could build our fire, just like the olden days, there were even seats we covered in coconut fronds, later to be our firewoods. We were so comfortable, just like the olden days.

PS How are all those Golden Gems – I love writing about them – trying to think how I can introduce TJ into the script?? Born on the island just like Solo (The Magic Pony’s) new foal. And you arrive via the Ala Sopo Ana, a secret ancient lava tube cave used as an escape route in times of local tribal fighting - but you were concerned as the cyclone commenced and we were still out on the island (mind you, safe inside the cave, already stocked and stacked with enough food for 5 days and 5 weeks. Guess what, we met you two inside the cave by surprise - we were all safe, safer than anyone else in Samoa (errrr, except for all the rest deep inside their caves at Saanapu-uta Sauano Cave with Malietoa's Throne and stone axes, Dave Parker Caves, Aopo Caves).

Story 82 - Solos’ Cavings and Cravings – 26-12-007 – 5

2008-01-13T00:32:00.000-08:00

NB: As the two cultures mixed and mingled, Magic Ponies included, a little cultural friction would no doubt develop, especially with Samoans and ponies having traditionally oral societies. Paper notebooks, smeared in coconut oil and native bread crumbs, may have tasted scrumptuous for starving ponies.

SOLO’S CAVINGS AND CRAVINGS

Solo made his way to Nuutele thru the Ana Ala Sopo, beneath the Nuutele Straits.

On the last day, all by accident, Solo ate the camera crew’s logbook, valuable data from an intense 8-month shoot.

Story 77 – Palolo – 25-12-007 – 5

2008-01-13T00:31:00.000-08:00

NB: Another example of nature’s annual food offerings not to be missed. And you could be excused for missing this delicacy as it only lasts for 4 hours each year, same morning each year. Amazing. And tasteeeeeeeeeeee.

WORM, WORMS & MORE WORMS

Palolo season. How did we know? 6 nights after the full moon every November, the gogo stayed put. Eeerie. Something was amiss. Normally, these Noddies would fly off towards the highlands to nest at night. Tonight they pulled-up short. Most unusual – it was as if they were trying to tell us something, you know, like the rats jumping off a ship before its last fatal voyage………………

Time to hide guys. This island would be awash with fishermen tonight, paddling their wooden canoes to their favourite palolo worm hunting grounds. The last thing we wanted was more visitors. Luckily, a big storm blew-up and all the worms were ours, just like liquid oysters or oyster flavoured spaghetti marinara. Fantastic. But we had to be up early, 3am.

Story 71 – Birdwatching – 24-12-007 – 5 - T

2008-01-13T00:28:00.000-08:00

NB: More and more visitors are interested in a learning experience in Samoa, preferably in a traditional setting, preferably with an active itinerary. Many of the locations, activities, adventures, attractions and cultural experiences referred to can be combined with the best holiday itinerary specifically prepared for you to meet your objectives and budget.

In addition, you can include some exciting village projects, community tourism being the most exciting project in some of these villages in that the village has the income to meet all its development and training costs. You can overnight in these villages in a very traditional manner. Relax as your village hosts, hostesses and guides immerse you into the culture in something that is meant to be a fantastic learning experience.

These Samoans know more about sustainable living than the rest of the world put together. Learn about a culture that still has taboos – and for good reason. Learn the art of sustainable living – Samoan-style.

BIRDWATCHING – Nuutele-style

Whether you are into birdwatching, different cultures, new culinary experiences or just rainforests and natural scenery, you will enjoy Samoa, the Samoan culture and Samoans as the most hospitable people on the planet.

………………..

Imagine being on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific, with abundant food – all natural, all organic, all before you – with 4 children from 1-7 years old.

What was to be 3 days of Survival turned into 8 days of Heavenly bliss. Our ecotour guide, the father, had us catching raw crabs and eating them live – sorry, catching live crabs and eating them raw – Oh, same taste, same technique – and I promise you, you will never cook crab again – absolutely sweet and tender and salty and tasty. Just like our Ancestors did.

What was a little more difficult to stomach was that Sitivi (I called him SirTV) was only 2 and I had to have him showing me how to run, dive, cup the little crab in your hands as the crab tries to bury itself in the sand, and then pull one leg off for me, pulling another leg off for Sose at 3, Rainbow at 6, and stuffing 4 legs in his own mouth, shells and all (soft shells of course, really soft, and tasty). By this time, I was on the fast-learning curve – I had a little catching-up to do it seemed.

To watch these 3 little Polynesians surviving on papaya, crab, bananas, breadfruit, bird’s nest fern leaves (taste just like peas in the pod), seashells, raw octopus (hmmmmmmmm, another taste sensation – little octopuses that they could see but I couldn’t – yes, hidden in the reef as the waves go out, exposing just one tentacle only 1” above the waterline. Sose would race out, pull his other 7 legs from beneath the rocks, pull one off for me to try and stuff the other 7 legs in her mouth, smiling gloatingly, gluttonly like she was enjoying it – we were all soon eating these seafood delicacies, smiling all the way - sumptuous. There is only one way to eat seafood – fresh, caught personally and shared with these 3 little water babes. We never went hungry, we ate all day, may be opening 20-30 coconuts, all different flavours.

By the way, we never cooked either, we never washed-up, we never set the table, we ate and played continuously, we all gelled with nature, a culture too beautiful to describe, scenery beyond words.

This beach is not for the fainthearted, but these 3 little survivors did not leave me any room to lodge any complaints – I was seeking a birdwatching experience as well, I wanted to observe the endemic Starling and Reef herons seeking refuge at night on the island, I wanted to see the 5 foot wingspan of the Fijian and Tongan Bats (flying to the mainland at night), I also wanted to see how menacing the giant coconut crabs were amidst the seabird nesting sites.

I had already sent a message to my wife that I was likely to be late (she was used to that – often finding my dirty washing in the clothes basket in the morning and deducing that I must have come home late last night for an office-break). My days were getting busier and busier with my 3 little intrepid explorers, birdfanciers and rockclimbers – there we were perched on a hidden cliff shelf overlooking a tiny bay with pastel coloured parrotfish beneath us, turtles wallowing off-shore, seabirds soaring above us and fruitbats scanning the cliffs for food – it was nature at its best. We sat and pondered for over 3 hours mesmerized. This was God’s Resort of Distinction – nothing manmade in sight.

OK, alili seashells, as big as hen’s eggs. “Wait for low tide Chris, get your goggles on and we are going under those rocks out near those breakers” – this is a 2 year old snorkler telling me – I was so humiliated. We had to drag him out of the water each sunset – mind you, we’d been there since sunrise and we were all asleep as the sun set, waking just before sunrise (but not before we swallowed a little Mateus and cooked popcorn in the sandhills at sunset singing “Isalei” (Good-bye and Farewell in Fijian) – they wanted me off their uncle’s island, teasing and laughing at me because they knew I was flying home soon. I had never had so much fun in all my life. Then the tide turned: “Come on Chris, don’t leave us here on this island on our own. Who will keep the swing swinging?”

The taste of these giant ‘oysters’ was fantastic – you guessed it, raw again. This time with ‘vara’, or coconut apple, a tasty crunchy white apple hidden inside every coconut with 12-24 inches of green leaves sprouting from one end. Rainbow taught me this trick, so we spent no time cooking (just no time to cook), we were so busy fossicking for coconuts, carting coconuts to our favourite swimming hole beneath a Sivi (Tahitian Almond) tree, “killing coconuts” and eating Tahitian almonds, tasting just like pistacios. Another adventure. Humiliating to be honest.

“Chris, you just hold the leaves, my Dad says you just try to kill the coconut, beating it against the rocks here where we are swimming in the shade and close to the breaking waves, until it splits open. Let us know when you have it opened – and don’t get it wet.” Kids!

So to the sound of “You naughty naughty naughty coconut”, there I was smashing this coconut against the rock, splashing around like a 6 year old, laughing, swimming, eating and searching for more crabs legs, seashells, ‘dry vara’ , alili and seabirds.

“Chris, come and push me”. We were all singing and laughing and yelling as we tried new swinging modes, clockwise, anti-clockwise, the big-dipper, etc.). The swing never stopped as they shouted “Tell the teacher we’ll be late for School”.

All I wanted was a seabird experience as I am an avid birder. Well, this is the best seabird nesting colony in Fiji, a conservation area with only one volcanic cone. Noddies nesting on the ground, frigates with 6 foot wingspans hang-gliding above us, rare forest doves, yes you guessed it, these little brats knew all the bird names – by Day 3, I was no longer humiliated by these 3 little eco-champions, they taught me more about life in 3 days than I had learned in the past 53 years. What a place to bring up kids. That romance in the South Pacific is still alive and flourishing today.

I was dressed in a lap-lap sulu skirt for 3 days, the same sulu, wet, then dried, wet again, then dried again, I never heard a phone, a car, just magnificent sounds from the distant reefs, even waterfalls cascading into the sea. Imagine sea kayaking up rivers less than 100 yards to then swim in 30 foot waterfalls beneath verdant virgin voluptuous rainforest. For me, it was the best holiday I have ever had.

PS. I’m a banker, I was given 6 weeks off for capturing a billion dollar account holder, an African industrialist, I selected an uninhabited island, all to myself (errrr, with guides – no one mentioned they were 2, 3 and 6 years old – and yet they were the highlight of my stay). I was told (by them) that I could stay as long as I could handle the isolation, the sun, the food, the kids, the beauty, the repetition, the boredom, …………. And here I am 2 years later still writing about it.

We all dined the last night in the best formal restaurant I have ever been in – no walls, just a Samoan fale, overlooking the Pacific skies ahead and overhearing the birds and the serenaders, all beautiful singers and guitarists. I ordered a red wine, only a bottle of white wine arrived (already opened??), I requested the Penfolds redwine (finally it arrived, already opened again???, but with no label???). I was bemused and amused. “Sorry Sir, the label came off in the ice cooler”.

The South Pacific is nothing short of fantastic, cultures too valuable to lose. So don’t change the Samoans – we Brits have already tried that stunt once so let’s be a little more culturally-sensitive this time. And don’t think that we can mine Samoa’s gold, log its rainforests and buy its islands. Timeshare is the answer. After all, Adventure Island is an ecological Paradise and we all want to keep it that way. Our new tribe will have to be very good to do it better than the Samoans have done for the past 3000 years – they are our Professors of Sustainability. Adventure Island could become a Centre of Cooperative Research for Sustainable Island Living.

Story 57 - Sultanas and Bananas – 24-12-007 - 5

2008-01-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

NB: We Kids are reknown for making Samoan breads, something we call faapapa. We had to cheat a little and add a little flavouring, altering this ancient recipe just a little.

Sultanas and Bananas

I scoop of scraped coconut, one scoop of wholemeal bread mix, a little yeast or a lot of beer, throw in sultanas and ripe bananas, wrap in laupapa, throw inside the umu and there you have it, the best faapapa fai ever.

Splash on some peanut butter, sit on the beach under the coconut trees and you have a taste sensation that rivals the masi bread of olden days. And guess what, we just found an ancient masi pit on Nuutele Island, a grave on the beach, a grave on the summit and a umu tagata.

Alofa Bread – add stories/recipe