I know Fiji is lush, and I’ve scarcely seen more than the city and the agricultural fields that line the highway that circles the island. But tropical foliage with giant green leaves still bursts out of every open space. I suppose this is common on tropical islands, but these lush forests tend to be poor in diversity—it is one of the tenets of island ecology that islands, because they are small and can be tough for plants and non-flying animals to get to, are species-poor. In some ways, Fiji’s ecosystems are what you might expect. For example, it has no native mammals that are not bats.
(On a mammalian side note, I’ve seen a lot of small mammals scurrying around like squirrels in the U.S. One closer examination, I found they were Indian mongooses, which were brought to the island to control plantation pests but have spread to become one of Fiji’s most common wild animals and no doubt a serious threat to the island’s birds.)
But Fijian forests are unexpectedly diverse, with perhaps 3,000 species of plants, a third of which are found only on Fiji, and 100 species of birds, of which 25 are exclusive to the country. Incidentally, some of these birds have astoundingly cool names—the barking pigeon and the whistling dove, the red throated lorikeet and the pink billed parrot finch, the giant forest honey eater and the wandering whistling duck. It also has 30 native species of reptiles and amphibians, which are also uncommon on islands. There are a couple of reasons for this slightly surprising diversity. First, Fiji is made up of more than 300 separate islands, many of which are uninhabited, to which species can spread and diversify. Many of these islands have large hills or mountains, which provide a large range of different climates and ecosystems. And, by island standards, the main island of Fiji, Viti Levu, is relatively large. There is also the aquatic life, which I will get into in more detail when I finally get into the water.
A whisper of the lushness of Fijian forests can be found on the beautiful and sprawling grounds of the main campus of the University of the South Pacific. The buildings, which show the characteristic, dripping wear of all buildings in wet tropical climates, are scattered among palms, drooping trees and a wild, overgrown, mulch. It’s like a university campus was carved out of the forest primeval. I will be staying in a comfortable fan-cooled lodge there when I return to Suva in February.
I was on campus to visit the journalism department at the university, an undergraduate program with 60 students from around the region, four lecturers and an attractive monthly broadsheet student newspaper, Wansolwara, One Ocean-One People. I contacted Shailendra Singh, or Shalen, by email before I arrived. A lecturer in journalism who has a quiet authority and the clear respect of his students, Shalen was a journalist for 12 years, including writing for the Fiji Times, the major local newspaper. Now he is full-time at the university and is eager to expand the program’s offerings with post-graduate programs and—the reason for my visit—science, health and environmental journalism, which are not yet part of the curriculum.
So now I’m offering him some structural ideas and we’re working on a one-day seminar, scheduled for the week I will return to Suva in February, on environmental journalism. We’re planning to invite scientists (including from the university’s strong marine studies program) and local NGOs, including the WWF and GreenPeace, to talk to the students and local journalists about environmental issues. I think I’ll be speaking as well about my experience in the region and environmental journalism as a whole. That part has me a little nervous, as does the part where we discussed me giving interviews to some of his print and broadcast students, but I’ll get over it. It sounds like it will be fascinating and I think Shalen is going to make an excellent collaborator.
But that is a ways off, and Shalen will be doing most of the legwork while I am away. In the meantime, my week is actually filling up rapidly with meetings with officials and NGOs, and preparations for the trip to Nauru next week. I’m also getting a feel for the sticky currents of the city and looking forward to seeing a little more of it.
(On a mammalian side note, I’ve seen a lot of small mammals scurrying around like squirrels in the U.S. One closer examination, I found they were Indian mongooses, which were brought to the island to control plantation pests but have spread to become one of Fiji’s most common wild animals and no doubt a serious threat to the island’s birds.)
But Fijian forests are unexpectedly diverse, with perhaps 3,000 species of plants, a third of which are found only on Fiji, and 100 species of birds, of which 25 are exclusive to the country. Incidentally, some of these birds have astoundingly cool names—the barking pigeon and the whistling dove, the red throated lorikeet and the pink billed parrot finch, the giant forest honey eater and the wandering whistling duck. It also has 30 native species of reptiles and amphibians, which are also uncommon on islands. There are a couple of reasons for this slightly surprising diversity. First, Fiji is made up of more than 300 separate islands, many of which are uninhabited, to which species can spread and diversify. Many of these islands have large hills or mountains, which provide a large range of different climates and ecosystems. And, by island standards, the main island of Fiji, Viti Levu, is relatively large. There is also the aquatic life, which I will get into in more detail when I finally get into the water.
A whisper of the lushness of Fijian forests can be found on the beautiful and sprawling grounds of the main campus of the University of the South Pacific. The buildings, which show the characteristic, dripping wear of all buildings in wet tropical climates, are scattered among palms, drooping trees and a wild, overgrown, mulch. It’s like a university campus was carved out of the forest primeval. I will be staying in a comfortable fan-cooled lodge there when I return to Suva in February.
I was on campus to visit the journalism department at the university, an undergraduate program with 60 students from around the region, four lecturers and an attractive monthly broadsheet student newspaper, Wansolwara, One Ocean-One People. I contacted Shailendra Singh, or Shalen, by email before I arrived. A lecturer in journalism who has a quiet authority and the clear respect of his students, Shalen was a journalist for 12 years, including writing for the Fiji Times, the major local newspaper. Now he is full-time at the university and is eager to expand the program’s offerings with post-graduate programs and—the reason for my visit—science, health and environmental journalism, which are not yet part of the curriculum.
So now I’m offering him some structural ideas and we’re working on a one-day seminar, scheduled for the week I will return to Suva in February, on environmental journalism. We’re planning to invite scientists (including from the university’s strong marine studies program) and local NGOs, including the WWF and GreenPeace, to talk to the students and local journalists about environmental issues. I think I’ll be speaking as well about my experience in the region and environmental journalism as a whole. That part has me a little nervous, as does the part where we discussed me giving interviews to some of his print and broadcast students, but I’ll get over it. It sounds like it will be fascinating and I think Shalen is going to make an excellent collaborator.
But that is a ways off, and Shalen will be doing most of the legwork while I am away. In the meantime, my week is actually filling up rapidly with meetings with officials and NGOs, and preparations for the trip to Nauru next week. I’m also getting a feel for the sticky currents of the city and looking forward to seeing a little more of it.
posted by Samir S. Patel at 5:37 PM
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