Learnings and livelihoods in Fiji

Recently retired, Meri still knows her community intimately. “Korovou has 153 homes. There are 675 people. I know the workings within Korovou village,” she says.

And she still makes her rounds, now as a volunteer community facilitator for WWF. Early one May morning, she greets some young fishermen, just returned from the sea with their catch, as they negotiate with middlemen who buy in the villages and sell in the cities. She watches a man plunge into the river, surfacing with greenish-brown mud crabs in his hands and stringing them up with a vine. And she chats with a mother and her young children as they clean a small gillnet.

Like coastal communities throughout Fiji, residents of Korovou rely largely on fish for their livelihoods, “whether from the sea, rivers, or from the mangroves,” says Meri. And women shoulder much of the burden, she says. “They fish for crabs and seafood in order to make a living … to be able to provide for their families, to be able to meet their traditional obligations to the community and church, and to educate their children.”

“The people of Korovou village are very hardworking,” says Meri.

Yet they struggle. “Before, each woman would have one string of crabs, but now its two or three women to one string of crabs … When they go fishing, they are not catching the sizes that they use to catch before,” she says. “And we have noticed that some species of fish are disappearing.”

On top of issues like overharvesting of mangroves and fish, the threat of natural disasters is never far from mind. “We often face floods, tropical cyclones, and droughts,” she says, all of which are exacerbated by climate change.

Every Tuesday, Meri and the other members of the Korovou women’s club pack the community hall, where they are learning how to better provide for themselves and their families.

The purpose of the meetings is two-fold. The first is to help the women pursue alternative livelihoods, like weaving, that relieve pressure on natural resources and “help bring about meaningful change for these women to pay their bills,” says Meri. The second is to train members in financial literacy.

Concepts like savings, investing, and insurance are new to many women here, in what is still largely a subsistence economy. “We are being taught how to budget and use money wisely to pay for essential services such as electricity bills, and to put money aside for savings,” says Meri. The women are also learning about the importance of preparing financially for emergencies.

The skills training workshops are part of a larger effort by WWF-Fiji to help communities manage their natural resources and adapt to extreme weather and other climate change impacts. Key initiatives include replanting mangroves—which store carbon and act as a coastal storm barrier—and protecting fishing grounds called qoliqoli.

“We are advocating for no destruction of our mangroves or our traditional fishing grounds,” says Meri. “I believe that we need to introduce tabu [prohibitions] on some of our fishing ground areas to allow for our marine species to grow, so that they can reproduce and be sustainable.” She would also like to see crops replanted in areas not prone to flooding and homes elevated on stilts or relocated to higher ground, “to ensure that our children remain safe.”

Meri, in her late forties, has three adult children. “I keep advising my children that they need to plan well for their families, especially when it comes to budgeting, savings, and setting aside money for insurance.” She says the other women of Korovou are also “beginning to witness the importance of saving their money for their children and the future generations.”

The women’s club, established as early as the 1990s “by our aunts and grandaunts,” she says, had lost momentum in recent years but is witnessing a renaissance. “We have seen a turnaround through these empowerment initiatives,” she says.

Now the women of Korovou “realize how important it is to save,” she says. “Come a natural disaster, they will be prepared.”