Fiji War Chant Used to Spur Marine Conservation

June 08, 2006 — By Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters

WASHINGTON — A Fijian war chant with a blood-thirsty message helped persuade South Pacific islanders to support an award-winning plan to protect the area's marine life, a regional chief said Wednesday.

The chant means "Let's paint the day red" with blood and was historically used to unite allies in battle, Ratu Aisea Katonivere told reporters.

Katonivere, the Tui Macuata (honorable chief) of Fiji's Macuata province on the island of Vanua Levu, was in Washington to receive an international award for the plan as part of events marking World Ocean Day Thursday.

He said he used the war cry to encourage other chiefs and villagers to set up a 23 square mile protected aquatic zone in a traditional fishing area.

"I became passionate about it because for us ... the sea is life," said Katonivere. "I went about digging through the roots to the old folks in the villages and trying to mobilize society by using an old war cry that I used to hear from my grandfather ..."

He said he had hoped that by using the ancient chant, he would tie the islands' traditions to conservation, which had been untried there.

"Using this war cry, all the neighboring chiefs came over to the meeting that I called ... They came to realize that to create marine protected areas is the way forward, because you preserve the fish, not only for our generation but those who are yet to be born."

At first, Fijians resisted the plan, which barred fishing in some traditional areas, but they were convinced after the plan was put into effect and more fish started coming closer to the shore, Katonivere said.

In 2005, Fiji pledged to protect 30 percent of its marine areas by 2020, sparking similar pledges by the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific and by the Caribbean island nation of Grenada.

Katonivere and Fijian Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase received the Global Ocean Conservation Award from a coalition of conservation groups, including Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Ocean Revolution, the World Conservation Union and the Marine Conservation Biology Institute.

Source: Reuters