Disaster Response Fiji Project #23356

Emergency Disaster Relief for Moturiki Fiji

by Corals for Conservation

Project Report | Aug 22, 2016
Rehabilitation of Community Livelihoods

By Austin Bowden-Kerby | Director and Project Manager

Dear friends and donors,

Bula from the Fiji Islands. We share with you the lastest update on our project.

We initially purchased and distributed three heavy duty chain saws, which were shared among the community members to clear the downed trees, and then the saws were used to mill fallen timber trees into 2x4s and 2x6 lumber for use in rebuilding houses. While this work sontinues, many community members continue to live in tents. Encouragingly, government has promised housing reconstruction assistance, and the farms are once again productive.

In our work to provide assistance to Moturiki, we have been confronted with the problem of how to best use the donated funds to help the disaster hit villages of Moturki in an equitable manner. The funds could be all used to rebuild a single house or two, but that would be very limited in scope and might cause conflict. Therefore we decided to focus on the rehabilitation of livelihoods for the community.

For our first activity in that stategy, seven participants were recently selected from four villages to attend a "Happy Chicken" workshop at our Sustainable Livelihoods Farm in the Singatoka Valley August 10-13. While at the farm the four women and three men first got a good introduction to agricultural based livelihoods and possibilities for permaculture and shde crops on the island, including Cacao, which was followed by the chcken workshop and learning how to raise free range, village-adapted chickens for egg and meat production.

The participants, including a village carpenter, designed two model chicken houses after studying the various small chicken houses at the Sustainable Livelihoods Farm and made a list of materials needed; a larger sized one, with the capacity of 150 chickens, and a smaller sized house with the capacity of 75 chickens. The walls of each chicken house will be made of roofing iron damaged during the cyclone.

Five mobile rearing pens were also prepared by the paricipants, one each for the four villages, and one for a school chicken project. The farm has hatched and is raising twenty dozen chicks to the 3-4 week stage for Moturiki, and they will be sent out the first week of September. An additional twenty dozen will be provided in mid October, after the first lot graduate into their permanent house.

The key points of the Happy Chicken chicken farming method is to protect the baby chicks from predators within a mobile rearing pen, which is moved daily to a new position over the grass, training the chicks to forage on wild feeds. The second key point is to provide a strong weather-resistant house to get the chickens out of the trees and into shelter from rain and storms, as well as to provide a safe and consistent place for the hens to lay their eggs. The main knowledge needed was how to train the chickens to sleep in the their house and to lay their eggs in the nesting boxes, which the participants learned well. Once the chickens are trained, they are typcally let out all day long for foraging putting themselves to bed on ther roosts every evening. When the hens feel the urge to lay an egg, they know exactly where to lay it! Using this method, eggs can be easily collected for use and sale and egg production soars and breeding is much better controlled.

More updates on this positive turn of events will be forthcoming.

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Jun 3, 2016
Suporting Independent Initiative in the Recovery Efforts

By Austin Bowden-Kerby | Project facilitator

Dear Donors and supporters,

A first matter of our relief work was the massive clean up that was required: trees blocked all the village footpaths and trails between the villages (there are no cars on Moturiki), and trees had also smashed into houses. During our first visit, the communities requested chain saws, so we returned to Suva and bought three heavy duty excellent quality "Stihl" chain saws and distributed one each to the three villages. We overspent the budget badly, but thankfully the funds came in later from your donations!

Uluibau village borrowed the other two saws and used them to mill timber for reconstruction of houses, using the trunks of the felled trees- in particular the local "vesi" timber which is so strong and insect proof. Many homes have now taken shape, with local timber and recycled tiber and with donations of roofing iron and nails from international aid agencies through the Fiji Government. This has allowed us to place our focus on agricultural restoration, which was not getting any support from other agencies, rather than on building materials.

Thus far we have been able to provide much needed sweet potato cuttings (a short three-month crop), pumpkin seeds, and peanut seeds to the villages. We have also ordered and paid Fiji Agriculture for the transport and procurement of ten thousand improved coconut seedlings for rehabilitation of the damaged coconut plantations, which should arrive from Taveuni later this month.

We also have a strategy to focus on small scale home poultry production, as we have additional resouces in our other Global Giving project: Happy Chickens for Food Security and Environment. We are now plannig a workshop for women from Moturiki Island, Tailevu province, and Koro Island on Happy Chickens for the disaster areas.

Thanks again for your continued support!

Austin, and the Corals for Conservation team

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Mar 18, 2016
Just in from the Disaster Area

By Austn Bowden-Kerby | Project Leader

My Dear Friends,

I just returned to Suva from the Motuiki Island site. I am still in shock. I got off the boat and rushed back for the big weekly disaster committee meeting that is coodinating the efforts of the various NGOs. Each org was taking turns telling what they had accomplished. I told the story of the destruction and suffering that I had seen and got all choked up and could not even finish. Houses I had stayed in and where I had eaten lunch and had coral workshop meetings were just GONE, or they only had one or two walls left standing. The waves washed over the three villages and reached far inland and the wind blasted the houses that were on higher ground. We know these people well on a first name basis and know the kids since they were babies and it was just so hard seeing this. Tai and Joe's house in Daku was smashed, Jone and Kasa's house is a pile of concrete rubble, Timoci and Kesaia's house in Uluibau has one standing wall but the kitchen where Kesa made donuts and delicious food for us somehow survived! The fisher woman who used to help us with the coral reef work every time (Lavenia) had her house completely erased by the waves, along with everything she owned. Fortunately noone was killed- because the storm hit in the daytime. But there are a lot of injuries and with clean water hard to come by, skin diseases and infections are becoming common.

To add insult to injury, the coral reefs are in serously bad shape with a masive coral bleaching happening, and I am afraid that most of the corals are in the process of dying. The coral farming tables are still there, overgrown with incredibly colored blue and yellow and pink corals- but with all the brown colors gone, and with no algae inside ther tisues many or most may sicken and die.

So many trees down and brown piles of vegetation and very little rain so the danger of wildfire is inceasing as well. One thing I do know is that this is the site most needy of our efforts, and where we will implement all three projects. We delivered three chain saws and will return next week with some two week old Happy Chickens for the women to care for (good for mental health at this time as many need to focus on somethng positive), sweet potato cuttings, corn and pumpkin seeds, etc.

Another NGO, Global Vision International has set up on the lovely reef island of Caqalai, which escaped most of the damage and they are providing transport to and from the villages and a place to sleep and eat, so we are not a burden on the frail village infrastructure. They also will be head-starting the chickens for us and will only transfer them when the communities have the chicken houses completed (built from the materials of former homes). GVI are very thankful to have me there for the coral and reef work which will begin once the urgent community needs are better met. We removed none coral killing COTS from around the old coral farm yesterday and they will remove many more soon.... then we will start a new nursery composed only of corals that are not bleached- thermally tolerant corals for the future restoration of the reefs (see our other GG project). It is our hope that the Happy Chickens and Healthy Corals will give a ray of hope in this dark time. Thank you all so much for helping!

Loloma, Austin

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