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IIt was one of the most surreal days in Jona Ratu's life. On a morning in May 2018, he went to the palm-fringed beach on a piece of land he owned on the idyllic island of Malolo, looking for a digger parked on the coral reef.
"They just dug, they kept digging, digging, digging," recalls Ratu.
Despite his demands to stop, work continued "with big diggers on the reef, with all the oil flowing in the water".
Ratu spent his life on Malolo, a 5 km long tourist island located about 20 km west of the main island of Fiji, in the South Pacific. He works as a boatman and takes surfers to Cloudbreak, a world-famous surf spot he notices from the seaside – a line of white foam among the blue.
It was during trips to Cloubdbreak about five years ago that he met Australian surfers Navrin Fox and Woody Jack. The trio becomes friends and decides to join to buy a plot of land.
"It was like our dream," says Ratu. "We were so lucky and we have this sick place where you can wake up in the morning and see Cloudy."
"But that's where the dream ends," Fox said later.
The island of Malolo before and after
The two men went from ecological planning to environmental and legal struggle against a China-related society, which would cost them tens of thousands of dollars, cause scandal throughout Fiji and leave their paradise heaven unrecognizable.
"That's what it looks like now," said Ratu, raising his hand to a devastated foreshore.
A channel about 100 m long and 20 m wide flows out of the ground – a blue gash that runs through the reef that surrounds the island.
All the coral that was dug to create the channel was thrown on the beach and in the shallow waters in front of the lands owned by Ratu, Fox and Jack. The strip of sand and seagrass was replaced by a flat plain of milled coral crushed in gravel.
"Unreal, huh?" Said Ratu.
"At first it was immaculate"
The company to which the diggers belonged was Freesoul, a real estate development company with a strong presence in Fiji. The Chinese Embassy in Suva said that it was not a Chinese company, but Freesoul had close ties with China. The Guardian found documents indicating that Freesoul was founded in 2016 and registered at an address in Shanghai. Earlier, the company had announced that it had decided to launch the company Malolo "at the invitation of Prime Minister Bainimarama, especially as part of a visit to China from Freesoul," and Newsroom, of New Zealand, claimed that she also had the support of a Chinese-run enterprise-state media outlet.
In 2018, after Freesoul obtained a lease for the neighboring plot of Ratu, Fox and Jack's, construction began. The company's project was to build the largest holiday resort in Fiji: about 350 bures (traditional Fijian bungalows with thatched roofs) and the country's first casino.
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Samuela Namuatabu, customary landowner of the village of Solevu on the island of Malolo, said the works, which saw the destruction of mangroves and the felling of trees, had a considerable impact. "We can not go fishing there anymore. We can not fetch shells there, nature has disappeared. "
Ken Chambers of Fox, Jack and Ratu's lawyer, said that the environment was indifferent to all levels of Freesoul's work. "They had 50 workers who worked for six months and the effluents of these workers had just come out directly through a pipe in the lagoon. We have a picture of the pipe coming out of the toilet block. "
When Ratu shows the Guardian around his land, it's the middle of the school holidays and his four children, as well as his nephews and nieces run and sway under the trees. Despite the heat of the day, they do not venture into the water.
"They can not swim now because they are scared," Ratu said. "Before that was a beautiful and wide beach [and they would be] swim on vacation but now they can not go because they are afraid of the dark canal [and] the water is so dirty.
"At first, it was as if, like perfect, I did not want to be touched," says Fox. "We swayed to destruction, trees felled on our land, building materials, gas cans, excavators."
After seeing the damage and becoming aware of the scale of Freesoul's plans, Fox went to Suva, where he found Chambers, who took charge of their case.
"And we did not look back."
"I started to smell a rat"
Chambers, a rudimentary land law expert, believes Freesoul's actions in this case are "unbelievable" and should never have occurred given the strength of Fiji's environmental legislation. But he says that on several occasions, the ministries that were supposed to enforce the law misbehaved.
The first bells sounded when Fox, Jack and Ratu were informed that they would have to give up their land to Freesoul, as they had breached their lease by not building on it for two years. However, the commission that manages indigenous land titles in Fiji did not notify them of a violation, as required. "I started feeling a rat as soon as they told me that they had prepared the notice and that when the head office conducted a proper investigation and due form, they found that it had never been served, "Chambers said.
Other problems include:
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Freesoul started the development without having obtained the approval of the assessment of impact on the environment
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After the start of the works, Freesoul received two injunction orders, but construction work continued.
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The Ministry of the Environment conducted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in December 2018; A month later, the company had violated nearly half of the conditions of the EIA.
Finally, in April 2019, after media coverage of the fight against New Zealand's Newsroom website, the environment director canceled Freesoul's approval for the EIA. The company is scheduled to appear in court later this month on environmental charges, which it denies.
At the moment, the job is stopped and most Freesoul employees have left the island. The Guardian understands that Freesoul's director, Dick Peng, wrote an e-mail to the people involved in the project, thanking them for the work done and telling them that the company would close the Malolo project. Peng did not respond to the Guardian's requests for comment, but the company had previously denied any breach of environmental rules.
Chambers says that there is a "stench" in the overall situation and calls for an investigation on the iTaukei Land Trust Board (TLTB) and the environment department to determine the reason for which no action has been taken earlier.
"It is not only the Chinese developer who destroys the environment, it is all the institutions that cover their eyes."
Joshua Wycliffe, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Waterways and Environment, denies claims that the department has been slow to act.
"The department has not allowed Free Soul Development (FREDL) to continue its work at any stage. On the other hand, the ministry issued notices of work disruption and implemented everything under the law to stop them (while the case was being handled legitimately) said Wycliffe.
"To my knowledge, no member of my staff has engaged in any form of corrupt practice while dealing with FREDL. However, if someone wants to request an investigation, there are legitimate ways to approach the different options offered to the public. "
TLTB was also contacted for comments, but did not respond.
Prime Minister Frank Bainamarama also condemned Freesoul as saying: "As a Fijian attached to our environment and as an advocate of sustainable development, I share the public's outrage."
But Fox and Jack say their situation is not so unusual.
"I think it sounds across the Pacific Islands, New Zealand and even similarities in Australia," said Jack. "People do not do what is right and go," We do not have the approval but we will do it to the detriment of the population ".
Tess Newton Cain, Visiting Researcher at the Australian National University and Pacific Region Analyst, said many events in the region had negative environmental or social impacts.
"Fiji … say what is surprising here is that [the government] let 's put an end to this, there are many examples where nothing seems to have happened, nothing has been stopped. "
For now, the dream of Ratu, Jack and Fox to build in Malolo is outstanding. Instead, Jack spends his time talking with reef experts about how to fix the damage, which they say will take decades and potentially millions of dollars.
But he hopes they can perhaps be an example of how to respond to ecological damage in the Pacific.
"It could be a case study … Look at this major destruction and look at how we rectified it, we did what was needed and it is an example of what 's going on. it must be done in a bad situation. "
As for Ratu, he wants to be sure that Freesoul will not come back. He does not remember the exact moment when Freesoul employees left Malolo, but he remembers how he felt when he saw them leave.
A broad smile crosses his face. "Really great."
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