Kabara villagers foster reforestation

24 October 2007

24 October 2007. Suva, Fiji – Recently, the Kabara community in Lau planted 2,600 Vesi trees as part of their reforestation effort to save local Vesi tree stocks from depletion. The wood from vesi tree is the only or major source of income for majority of households in Kabara.

“Vesi, a high value native timber, is being used at a very rapid rate for tanoa carving in Kabara, but bulk of the wood as off-cuts are not utilized and no re-forestation effort was taking place to replenish diminishing stock,”

said Francis Areki, WWF Fiji Forestry officer.

The Forestry Department of Ministry of Fisheries and Forest and WWF Fiji partnership set up the first-ever tree nursery in the Kabara District in late 2005. This nursery enabled the community to collect and nurture vesi seedlings for the restoration work that occurred this year.

The reforestation of Vesi addresses sustaining community livelihoods for the four villages in Kabara with above 450 people.

As part of the reforestation activity, the Landuse and Planning section of the Ministry of Agriculture with WWF also conducted workshops on food security, promoted health and nutrition and distributed crop seedlings.

“With the nursery initiative and food security awareness the communities will become more proactive in crop diversification, reducing their need to purchase imported food that requires money and puts pressure on the vesi resource,”

said Areki.

Areki explains that the villagers are planting where they have already logged and in their community forest reserves. Together with replanting, the use of timber is improving.

As part of diversifying income options on Kabara WWF will be conducting a workshop on sustainable women’s crafts for income. Twenty women from Kabara will be in Suva for two weeks learning new skills to use resources available on Kabara.

Previous efforts were focused on training the Kabara men on carving skills diversification, to begin utilizing vesi off cuts and other wood resources apart from vesi.

Tanoa carving is the backbone of Kabara villagers livelihoods and to ensure a continuous supply of Vesi for carving is what has triggered the villagers to declare a reserve and undertake reforestation actions. More then 450 people live on Kabara and only 8 percent of Kabara’s 35 square Kilometres is still covered by intact Vesi Forest.

For further information:

Ashwini Prabha, Communications Coordinator, WWF South Pacific, T: +679 3315533, Mob: +679 9268 016

Francis Areki, Forests Project Officer , WWF Fiji Country Programme Office T: +679 331 5533

Notes to Editor:

  • In September 2005 a group of villagers from Kabara were trained by Zi Zhong Xie of Yau Tal and Koroi Turangabeci of Fulaga Island in Nadave. For the last three months of 2005 and first two months of 2006 five of the participants were trained in Nasinu at the Department of Forest - Wood Utilisation Section.
  • They have produced a number of different products from left over wood using Lathe machines. These community carvers have taken the lead for training the rest of the community in Kabara. The communities as part of finessing their skills now practice as a group every Thursday.
  • The tree species vesi (Intisia bijuga) has been identified as seriously overexploited in many parts of Fiji, due to both the commercial timber and carving trade. The species faces the possibility of imminent disappearance as an economic and cultural plant resource due to a number of factors which include unsustainable and poorly planned logging and tree harvest, lack of awareness to which the diversity of value these trees provide, and the failure of recent generations to protect and facilitate the regeneration of native trees in comparison to an overemphasis on commercial exotics such as Pine and Mahogany. The species is classified as “Vulnerable” to extinction on the IUCN Red List.
  • Vesi also plays a very significant role in Fijian culture – the tanoa being central to Fijian ceremonies.