In the crook of a river near the west coast of Fiji sits Yavusania village. One day soon, if nothing is done to help, residents fear it will disappear. The threat is most obvious along the water’s edge, where successive flash floods have surged up a river once sheltered by mangrove forests, chewing away metres of soil and sand so trees left behind are held up by only a handful of roots.
Epeli Turuva, a 48-year-old community leader in Yavusania, sits near the weathered concrete foundations of an old home, half of which appears to have collapsed into the water below. It is not the only house to have done so: four other buildings have also collapsed during floods over the last few years, the most recent of which hit in March.
Turuva worries his home will be next. “I don’t want to move,” he says. “Our land is rich, and our community is very close-knit. It’s hard to imagine life without this village.”
Yavusania is on the edge of the Fijian town of Nadi. Over the past four decades, at least 54 floods have surged through Nadi, damaging homes, businesses and displacing thousands of people, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). At the same time, Fiji has allowed tourism developers to clear the mangrove forests nearby that once limited the damage caused by floods – leaving Yavusania more vulnerable to environmental disaster.
The thick, curling roots of mangroves are not picturesque and obstruct access to the water, but they play a vital role in nature and for communities. Shipra Shah, assistant professor of forestry at Fiji National University, explains that mangroves are the “first line of defence” against floods in Fiji as they shield residents from storm surges and disperse flash floods as they flow through rivers.
“People don’t realise that if you’re destroying mangroves, you’re making the climate issue worse,” Shah says.
In recent decades, Fiji has seized on tourism as a pathway to economic development. “The strategy is all about presenting Fiji as a Pacific paradise to get more tourists into the country,” says Andreas Neef, professor of development studies at the University of Auckland.
In the meantime, little has been done to protect the villages. In 2019, the ADB found: “Despite the high frequency and consequent damage caused by floods, only small scale bank protection and small retention dams have been constructed [and] a systematic flood management plan for the Nadi River catchment is yet to be implemented.”
Without new protections, Nadi will remain highly vulnerable. Much of the settlement lies six metres below sea level. During the flooding in March, water inundated the central part of Nadi and surged into buildings. At the time, Nadi town council’s CEO said the flood waters forced 80% of businesses to close.