One Saturday morning in Fiji – we are what we eat

 This time, I will let the pictures taken near home speak for themselves.  For my home, click here.  Maps source: Google Maps

Last Saturday on our way to the market to buy  fish for dinner, we found ten garbage bags of dirty daipers and plastics and garbage in our little creek near my home.  Please click above to see where “home” is.

The creek flows into the Rewa River, the river into the reef, the reef into the Pacific.

The water feeds the dalo we harvested for dinner, the chickens, ducks and other livestock feed on the water and produce, the fresh water mussels harvested that day from the river, and the reef fish caught nearby live and breath and eat in that same water.  Some of these plants and animals are for sale charmingly at our local market, some are making their way  perhaps to your table at the resort, or via export overseas.

Fiji Water, whose major market is the USA, told me when I asked them what they are doing about recycling here in Fiji told me not to worry as their water is sourced on the “island of Viti Levu, thousands of miles from industrialization and pollution”.

Newsflash:  I live right here on Viti Levu (the largest island in Fiji, and home of Suva, the capital).  All the photos here were taken on Viti Levu, very close to home. Make up your own mind.

Are you prepared to contact an international company trading profitably in Fiji and ask them the same question and post their response?  What are they doing proactively in developing nations such as Fiji to tackle the problem of recycling and packaging stewardship in the absence of a robust compliance framework?

It’s important that people

know what you stand for.

It’s equally important that they know what you won’t stand for.

Mary Waldrop

You can’t build a reputation on

what you’re going to do.

Henry Ford (1863- 1947)

The greatest thing in this world is not so much

where we are, but in what direction

we are moving.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

There’s only one corner of the universe

you can be certain of improving,

and that’s your own self.

Aldous Huxley, (1894-1963)

Which are you?

The person who says “ I don’t know “

or the person who says, “ I’ll find out ? “

David Baird

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, and power in it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

All glory comes from daring to begin.

Eugene F. Ware  (1841-1911)

An error doesn’t become a mistake until

you refuse to correct it.

Anonymous