Fire walkers or food?

Fiji is already beginning to reel from the effects of its recent tourist boom. Ratu Sir Ganilau pointed out such an effect using the example of Bega, home of the fire-walkers. The island has fertile soil and should be exporting food But because the fire-walkers now perform once a week instead of once a month they cannot tend their gardens. Food production has fallen and basic necessities have to be imported.

Moreover, with the tourist boom, fertile land is going under the concrete of lavish hotel complexes. A hotel development project at Deuba has control of 8,300 acres. Miles of canals have been dredged to provide waterways for pleasure crafts and hundreds of acres of virgin bush have been bulldozed. The devastation of bird life and of fish-breeding grounds — fish are the chief source of Fijian protein — has been casually discounted.

The Fijian government has been induced to construct the Nadi-Suva highway entirely to cater for tourist traffic. Planned feeder roads have been dropped. All this while a survey of rural villages showed that the most common desire was for running water which in many cases would require no more than a simple water pump.

Ratu Sir Ganilau himself complained that with the increase of tourists far reaching changes in consumption patterns are produced. The poorest and old are hit with greatest force so that the quality of economic life deteriorates and the social cost of tourism multiplies.