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Acting Locally to Sustain the Planet | Joeli Veitiyaki | TEDxSuva


[Applause]
all my life I’ve been driven by a
challenge it was given to me or was
often repeated to me by my late aunt who
said that dellavedova Kawakawa yon
economy no in an opinion which
translates into something like I should
work hard so that I can support myself
with my writing my story began in my
small island my small village on the
island of now where I was raised
after I was taken from sober as a child
by my late aunt and uncle under an
adoption system that is widely practiced
in the Pacific in the village I was
taught to believe in the omnipresent God
to relate to my relatives my
responsibilities to swim to garden to
forage in the forest and in the sea for
food and to cook by the time I left the
village in pursuit of higher education
in the 19 late 1970s I was recently well
grounded in Who I am my people’s
reliance on the ocean and of course my
role later in life although my aunt
would have wanted me to have a life
outside of the village I actually wanted
to be educated to be a better villager
my first work was at the Queen Victoria
School on the northeast coast of
Thailand at the Queen Victoria school I
was introduced to the fishes of my
Island a fishing community offshore
former fishes were providing for the
school as well as as a part of the
community of fish needs were reliant on
the sea and yet were not regarded
commercial fishes because they are
villages and villages are supposed to be
unreliable produces maybe not very
strong to withstand the rigors of
commercial fishing and often did not
access the kind of support that often
were given to commercial operators I
made the fishes of Noma a subject of my
postgraduate studies years later
fortunate enough to be allowed to do a
PhD research and I added that earlier
study this time the subject was rural
development projects or for Nobel in
there in the design and reasons but fear
failure later the rural development
landscape I joined the University of the
South Pacific in 1990 and as at once
made a member of a non-government
organisation based at the University
called specky and our target was to
advocate for good environment management
amongst Pacific Islanders that go
through the university it was it’s
patchy that I first got to work with
communities and with government and for
me was was enjoyable I was beginning to
realize some of the things that I had
wanted to do
one of the things that I did not mention
earlier was that from the young age
while in the rural in the rural village
I was actually asking God to bless my
relations or the other love that was
unconditional that they showed me in
raising me to live in my island world so
working with all the big the work that
non-government organizations do was for
me like a really refreshing moment in
1992 I attended a short training offered
by the International Ocean Institute
again a non-government organisation but
this is international as it’s registered
in Malta and they were trying to
advocate for the promotion and
endorsement of what what had come out in
1982 the United Nations Convention on
the law of the sea others that don’t
know United Nations Convention on the
law of the sea is like a constitution
for the ocean it outlines the rights and
responsibilities of States over their
maritime areas it also proposes the
sustainable news of the marine
environment and of the resources in 1992
as well a world gathered in Rio for
arguably the biggest conference in the
world at the time presidents prime
ministers ministers of state they all
gathered there and out of that meeting
came number of agreements one I’d like
to make you remember for this
presentation are the two conventions one
on climate change and one by diversity
conservation and the third agenda 21
because I’ll come back to those that
that meeting in Rio I didn’t I was not
there I was too insignificant
it’s sort of however propelled by my
area of research to the global level all
of a sudden I was getting a toll to go
invited to get to meetings all over the
place and I learned two things from the
conference’s that I went to one this is
this one that we are feeling in our
attempts to manage the fisheries of the
ocean so I was actually fortunate in a
sense because I was in in st. John’s
Newfoundland in 1998 we were gathering
there to celebrate the five hundred year
anniversary of the arrival into Canada
of Europeans at 1998 at six years after
the collapse of the cod fishery of the
Northwest Pacific six years after the
declaration of the moratorium that is
still there today banning all kinds of
fishing of this major stock like the
Titanic the unsinkable and then it sank
on its very first passage across the
Atlantic a cod fishery of that part of
Canada was regarded too big we could not
imagine that it would disappear in less
than 500 years so I often wonder why and
countries around the world serious about
addressing the sustainability of
Fisheries I’m also quite
well I want to be hopeful but a bit
troubled that we have not implemented
agenda 21 which is supposed to be agenda
for sustainable development in the 21st
century we have not done that so that’s
that’s the outcome for me from from
these global meetings and beginning to
feel like maybe some of them or some of
the meetings what they want to do is is
produce the reports from where I’m
coming from reports are not good enough
so run about 2,000 group of us at the
University of the South Pacific together
with our partners decided we want to try
a different approach to address in this
whole issue of articulating sustainable
development we decided commenced against
a lot of criticism to focus our
attention in one place an island
hopefully big enough so that it can be
representative of Islands throughout the
Pacific not too big like Viti Levu delay
was too big it’s only for government
maybe for us individuals researches
maybe an island this size would be a
would be more appropriate and we decided
the reason why we wanted to do this was
that it is really difficult to show
people what is worked and so if we can
concentrate our attention in having our
intervention in one place the hope is
that it would work out well so with the
little resources that we are we secured
and of course we all have full-time jobs
elsewhere we started the engagement
process but to start this is the unique
and and the natural capital that is
worth worth looking after
mountain forests that have not been
logged wonderful biodiversity not seen
anywhere else outside of these forests
nice clean rivers that rush towards a
coastal habitats
hymned with rich and endemic
biodiversity peace don’t you think he’s
worth looking after and then endemic
birds like the Fiji petrol so from about
2000 over 16 years ago and we still edit
with doing community-based meetings
training because let’s face it a lot of
the people that are back in the villages
really cannot come out of the villages
it is up to us to reach out to them and
then hopefully change them or change the
way they do things we also document the
management activities undertaken by
communities in this case they have the
protected areas every single one of the
16 villages already has a protected area
and these are the kinds of marine
management results yeah we’ve mobilized
people to go out there and plant
mangroves in the hope that the mangroves
would enhance the fishery recovery as
well as protect the coastline a
coastline that is loaded because the
seawall no longer works has to be
repaired because that’s that’s important
for the people to continue with their
lives and of course we’re trying to find
sources of income other than the sale of
fish because actually we believe that
the fish that are there maybe should be
kept fresh the surface preference or
local consumption you I think would now
believe that things are happening
unfortunately the villages still can
connect who can make the connections
between a variety of activity
organization that sustainable
development requires and that’s that’s a
challenge that we have to face so again
an in very attentive way we learn from
our mistakes and our difficulties and
try and put into the future we’ve now
decided to work on a demonstration
center to put all of our intervention in
one spot so that people can come have a
look and then maybe decide which one is
appropriate for them which one they want
to take and so on and you can see people
are now willingly because willingly
participating because they believe in
what is being done government is even
coming to the party providing some
assistance so that we can reach out to
the people at large this is a two
two-year-old Center wood plantation part
of the new kind of crops that we hope to
promote around the island we also have
all thanks to the Embassy of Japan
they’ve given us some equipment because
there’s a lot of pine plantation on the
island this sawmill will allow us to
influence the kind of logging that is
done on the island and we actually want
to go back to wooden houses because they
stand up to climate change a lot better
so I’ve seen you what I have a what I
have done with what I have learnt and
I’m saying that I’m still engaging I’m
still there
whenever they work at the university
allows me but I look forward to retiring
and maybe to drink that full-time
because I believe that’s the only way we
can we can articulate sustainable
development
I’d like to a challenge you all wherever
you are sustainable development is a big
commit
and it will only happen however if
individuals like you and I are united in
the pursuit of a world where we have
continuous supply of resources of
services that we get from the
environment where people have dignified
lives where there is there’s no argument
over resources because everyone is
contented we need individual action you
all have skills you all have resources
just imagine the impact on a on a
village community if you’ll participate
in any of the activities that are
undertaken in in those in those
communities for sustainable development
we need to make these mini governments
that operate in oral rural communities
around the world to share and work
towards the common vision to achieve
sustainable development because I think
it’s the only right option that we have
without sustainable development we will
always be looking out for eventualities
like the cod fishery in Newfoundland
so my take-home message is basically
very simple that we all have to work
together sustainable development will
not happen if half of our population are
pursuing it and the other half are not
involved for sustainable development to
take place we need to work as the world
community in fact that is the only way
we can we can support our population
going to the future and this is what I
believe is the calling for us those of
us who are here now with the power to
influence
the lives of our loved ones years from
now as our very own president of the UN
General Assembly said recently we have
to do it right because this is the only
planet that we can live in I think
[Applause]
you
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