Dwain Qalovaki points to the docked vessel and describes to me what exactly the Uto ni Yalo
is. “It translates to ‘heart of the spirit,’ and it’s a traditional
canoe, made the traditional Fijian way,” he says, proudly emphasizing
the words “Fijian way.”
At 72 feet long, the hulled wooden
vessel is quite a sight. It’s a striking orange and black, with large
white sails emblazoned with images of sea turtles. The traditional
craftsmanship might give the impression that it’s just any old canoe,
but that’s a cover. It’s really a modern maritime machine, powered by
technology that allows it to operate on solar and wind energy.
The Uto ni Yalo is among a series of innovative solutions that Pacific Island communities are adopting in the face of rising sea levels, warmer waters,
frequent hurricanes and marine pollution. On the front line of the
devastating effects of climate change, these communities are refusing to
play victim. Instead, they’re looking to their past, to traditional
practices and indigenous knowledge and combining that with modern
technology, to combat the effects of climate change.
Some 700
miles from Fiji, in Samoa, architect Carinnya Feaunati and her team are
advocating a return to indigenous building styles. They believe that
constructing traditional dwellings with modern building technology could
create disaster-resilient homes. In Vanuatu, communities are turning to
traditional knowledge to build sea walls using rocks, dead coral and
cement. In agriculture, they are emphasizing drought-tolerant crops like
cassava, wild yams and certain types of bananas.
A Pan-Pacific
sharing of ideas is taking root. Last year, for instance, a young Samoan
man, Joseph Afa, traveled to Vanuatu, where he trained locals on a
Samoan technique to propagate bananas. And others, like Qalovaki, are
plotting to take their technologies global, as an alternative to the
current energy-guzzling, pollution-spewing ones. Qvalovaki has
circumnavigated the world twice, sailing more than 60,000 nautical miles
since the construction of the Uto ni Yalo in 2009.
“We
can hopefully soon build bigger canoes like we once did,” says Qalovaki,
secretary of the Uto ni Yalo Trust that manages the canoe. “The end
goal is that they might replace ships that rely on fossil fuels.”
Whether
in Fiji or Samoa, these initiatives are driven by the twin objectives
of preserving the traditions of the Pacific communities and safeguarding
their future.
The traditional Samoan home, called a fale,
is a wall-less dwelling with a thatched roof that looks like an
upturned boat. The absence of walls increases ventilation, while also
acting as a passive surveillance measure so that homeowners can keep a
protective eye on their neighbors.
“It’s a dwelling that is emblematic and sensitive to the Pacific culture,” says Feaunati, the architect.
In recent times, though, Western-style homes have become the norm, and the fale
have come to be viewed as ornamental or ceremonial. Also, it’s cheap,
Western-style homes that are prioritized in disaster reconstruction.
That’s not smart, says Feaunati: “It’s not a mindful approach to
reconstruction at all — it’s not [true] to the culture, and it’s usually
not sturdy enough to stand the next one [cyclone].”
Feaunati’s team is trying to build fales
that are more resilient to extreme weather events. “We are trying to
understand how can you keep traditional spaces but have them withstand
cyclones,” she says. Climate change is taking enough away as it is, she
adds, noting “we can’t let it take a symbol of our culture too.”
Qalovaki’s
motivation is similar. As a Fijian, he tells me, the ocean is an
intrinsic part of life and he laments that his people have had to watch
the health of it decline. There are less fish in the sea, pollution is
killing marine ecosystems, and annual hurricanes are destroying communities and taking lives, he says.
Qalovaki
and his friends decided to tackle the challenge head on. When they
discussed how they might minimize ocean pollution and cut back on their
carbon footprint, “the answer was kind of in the past,” he says. “Our
ancestors did [that] before us, and we [have] added the latest in green
technology.”
The idea behind the Uto ni Yalo is to “encourage” green, sustainable ocean transportation and showcase “our traditional boatmaking heritage,” Qalovaki says.
It’s also about sharing ideas across the Pacific Islands. Known as
the “Samoan Laufasi technique,” the practice Samoa’s Afa taught farmers
in Vanuatu involves burying unripe bananas underground for up to two
years. It’s a practice that helps banana yields bounce back quickly
after cyclones. “Young people in the Pacific in particular need to
understand the value of this knowledge and its value to their survival,”
Afa said in an interview with the Australian-Pacific Technical College.
There’s no guarantee these strategies will work in the long run or that they will save the Pacific Islands
from extreme weather and rising seas, cautions Karen McNamara, a
professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of
Queensland in Australia.
“Adaptation methods that draw on
indigenous knowledge can be effective throughout the region, but it’s
still hard to validate in the long term,” she says, because there is an
“absence of lengthy studies” that capture whether the solutions actually
reduce Pacific Islanders’ vulnerability to climate change. McNamara
points out that grass-roots movements have failed in the past because of
the absence of a long-term plan, inadequate funding and shifting
priorities — even after appearing successful initially.
But
McNamara still believes Pacific communities should be calling the shots
when it comes to dealing with climate change. After all, she says,
“they’ve been dealing with environmental change for centuries.”
The challenges McNamara cites are ones Qalovaki acknowledges. “At the
end of the day, economic interests are very strong at the top, and that
will determine if they [solar-powered canoes] will operate in
commercial sea transportation,” he says. It’s no different for Feaunati
and her hybrid fale. She is waiting for funding to get designs off the page and into real life.
But
these speed bumps aren’t crippling the ambition of these Pacific Island
innovators — not when they’re relying on their past for strength.
“These
are huge challenges,” Qalovaki says. “But there have been challenges
before … and we are looking back as a community to our traditional
practices.” After a long pause, he says, matter-of-factly, “And we are
finding answers there.”
