OMR - Pukapuka - a wonderful island, with warm and friendly people that needs urgent help

OMR - Pukapuka - a wonderful island, with warm and friendly people that needs urgent help Pukapuka is the most isolated of the northern Cook Islands, situated more than 1000 Km north of Rarotonga (Raro for the local people). The Escape magazine (www.escapemagazine.travel) issue 14 june 2011 called it "splendid isolation". They say the people live "in harmony with the environment" and that biodiversity and food resources are always being protected. While this is true for the food resources whose consumption and repopulation is controlled, we found a different situation about the environment, the lifestyle in relation with it and as consequence of the change from the traditional life to the modern life brought many problems that require immediate attention. We arrived at Pukapuka after one week voyage from Raro with the Kwai vessel, a cargo / passengers boat based in Hawaii that represents one of the most important resources for the people living in Kiribas and Cook Islands as well as independent and adventure travellers. The trip was very excting, sleeping on the deck shared with other passengers directed to Palmeston, Nassau and Pukapuka. The crew formed by captain Brad and experienced sailors from US, Kiribas and Cook Islands made this traveling experience very interesting and pleasant. Some days before arriving in Pukapuka, we have been visiting Palmerston where the warm welcome by Tere Marsters (the island secretary who was traveling with us on the Kwai) and his wife Ivonne, in the beauty of the island, made our journey lovely. Mr Tere Marsters kindly called by phone the island secretary in Pukapuka to check that everything was ready for our arrival. Unfortunately, as soon as we arrived in Pukapuka we realized that our problems are only at the beginning. We were supposed to be accomodated in one of the government representative`s residence but we were told that it was no more available. It took a couple of days to know that a woman (probably the wife of the GR) had taken away from the accomodation all the tools from the kitchen or maybe from the house). So we have been accomodated by the Mayor in a house not clean, full of insects, animals and their desciments who probably had been been left unattended for years. People were so friendly and warm that we could not understand why the administrators could leave the house in that condition. The island's secretary did not help with our accomodation problem and redirected us to the Mayor, a kind person, but who did not help us properly with this matter. This was the beginning of an experience that we want to share with you, not for blaming anybody, but aiming to help a wonderful island with lovely people to face problems that when solved will put back the island and its lifestyle to it pristine beauty. Telling only about the magic atmosphere of Pukapuka in its isolation is not only partial but also negative because hiding the problems is not the right way to solve them and help Pukapukan people to develop in the direction they want. After some days, we have been slowly accomodated in another house, that had been used by the people working for a water tanks project. The house was nice and big, one of a few of that kind, considering that cyclone Percy in 2005 damaged about 90% of the houses and the lack of building materials due to the isolation of Pukapuka. Unfortunately, even that house was dirty and full of small animals, insects and their desciments. When we let the Mayor, who is a kind and friendly person, see what was in the trays of the kitchen, he just suggested us to not open the trays! We then realized that there was a problem more general than a unfortunate case. Maybe the people living there have never cleaned it or they just received it and left it in that condition, but the problem is also a lack of consciousness about hygienic concerns. Most time pukapukans live ouside their homes. Fishing, dancing, doing sport activities, organizing celebrations for particular events and with a lot of fun. We can understand that this makes the life at home less important compared to the events at open air, but in order to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants and the visitors and looking forward to open the island to a controlled ecotourism a lot must be done to develop proper infrastructures and improving the hygienic conditions on the island. The toilets are relatively new for the island, but they are not connected to septic tanks and to a proper piping system. Most of them have no flushing water. To have it, the toilets need pumps and the only electricity available is from solar panels. The solar panels brought by a project some time ago are not sufficient and the batteries are overexploited. This reduces the expected life of the batteries. Moreover the batteries are just located outside the houses on the sand, without proper sealed containers, and the broken ones are now leaking into the ground poisoning the soil. We were so tired from this situation, frustrated by the lack of a clean toilet and accomodation, the tiredness of the voyage by boat, that we could not attend all the invitation to the local kai-kai (the dinners with generous food where they also tell jokes with a lot of fun) organized by the people for special events. It was very hot and despite of the large number of motorbikes on the island we could not find anybody to rent us one, in order to explore the island. Moreover one of the camcorders needed for our 3D videos had problems and we did not how to fix it in place. Then, we have been about one week trying to clean the new accomodation to remove the insects and small animals inside. Day by day, trying to find an equilibrium with our lifestyle here we began exploring the island and realizing the underlying problems that have not been disclosed by the author of the article in the Escape magazine and that probably they will never bring to the public. The lifestyle here is very different from what it is supposed to be, especially considering the tales about Pukapuka that you can listen to in Raro. Pukapukans are not wild, their lifestyle is modern. They have TV and Internet now. Pio Ravarua, the man leading the local Telecom office is an expert and very open minded person. He has been very helpful for our work and to know many aspects of the island and its history. People have mobile phones, some cars, and many motorbikes. Many families have three motorbikes. Most people have jobs from the government. They mostly live with local fish, coconuts, taro, and a few fruits. Life is not expensive in term of money spent daily, so young people can save their money and buy motorbikes, electronic goods, mobile phones, etc. When a boat like the Kwai or by Taio Shipping company reaches the island with its cargo, people buy a lot of stuffs. The Escape magazine wrote about "limited imported food". This is somewhat true compared to the goods consumed in more populated islands but considering that about no item can be properly disposed or technical stuff repaired in place due to lack of spare maintainance parts and the isolation of the island, it turned to be a huge quantity of rubbish that cannot be disposed properly. Rubbish is everywhere in the village, outside the houses, and on the beaches. People do not have neither bins to divide the waste (plastic, metal, paper) for proper recycling nor machines to compress the rubbish in order to be later trasported out of the islands. They periodically or occasionally burn the rubbish, mixing coconut leaves, cans, and even plastic bottles, etc. It was somewhat shocking seeing that while in Rarotonga you can see a lot of gardeners taking care of the public roads and private houses, there is an active environment center and they started a recycling policies for the waste treatment, there is nothing similar in Pukapuka and probably in other northern islands. In the first pages of the Cook Islands phonebook, you can find the -so-called- "Rarotonga Waste Clean Up". And what about the outer islands? Why they should not have the same policy? In Mauke,the environment center with Basilio and his colleagues are taking care of the problem of treating the waste and many projects have been started. We tried to consider helping people in Pukapuka begin separating the waste. We soon realized that it is actually very difficult because they have no bins to put the rubbish in. The only bins they have are the old petrol cans that, unless painted, get rusty in about one year. Sometime inspectors visit the island, but what can they do or teach, if the islanders have no tools at all to treat the waste? They can only give some reccomendations and come back, but this is more expensive than sending them some tools. Considering that a one way trip to Pukapuka by the local Air company (Air Raro) - that has no competitors - costs about 1000 Eur per person one way, it is easy to understand that with that money tens of bins for disposing plastic, metal, paper, electronic goods for later processing could be sent instead. The Escape magazine said "the subsistence lifestyle and limited imported foods makes the Pukapukan physique strong, agile, and well-suited to sports". This is true, girls and boys are very beautiful and slim, but a definition of health, as outlined by international standards, should include the opportunity to face the diseases, especially for emergency needs. If a serious desease occurs to a pukapukan, the chance to timely reach an equipped hospital is very scarce. A flight from Raro to Pukapuka and back takes about 9 hours plus the time needed for arranging the transport so often more than one day passes before the emergency can be treated. The isolation of Pukapuka sadly can be fatal sometime. People here need more transports and policies to improve them. Unfortunately Cook islanders are not good sailors. The isolation of the far islands is also due to the fact that there are no government's boats and only a few private shipping company. A speedy boat, capable of running at 60 Km/h on the sea, could reach Pukapuka from Raro in less than one day. Moreover, Pukapuka is enough close to Samoa but no strong realationships exist between the two countries, so boats from there are very rare. A speedy boat could connect Pukapuka and Samoa in a few hours. Most crews of the cargo boats are from Fiji and Kiribas. Without their help the Cook Islands would be even more isolated. Despite of that, we have read that often people in Raro are not happy about the presence of foreign people like the fijans. We are very sad for that because those people risk their lifes on the boat, often working far from their home country for years. Sometime they drink a lot, maybe also because of the depression caused by leaving for a lot of time far from their families and beloved people, and sometime even die. It happens often in our country, Italy, that foreign people are considered taking the jobs of the loca people while they actually do the jobs that the local people are nor able or do not want to do. This is also the case for the Cook Islands and the Northern Islands in particular. There are a few local crews and boats, so people come from foreign countries to drive the boats. We want to help people in Pukapuka and the other islands by reporting the above problema, cooperating with the authotities, and evaluating possible area of cooperation with our NGO. While the beauty of Pukapuka with its magic atmosphere and the traditional lifestyle are unvaluable, the problem of the inevitable changes brought by modern lifestyle should be faced immediately to help pukapukans to keep their island clean and preserve the biodiversity and the environment. As regards the lifestyle in harmony with the environment, some words should be spent on some traditional practices. They have a couple of motu where the food resources are controlled and some birds are preserved. The Escape magazine says "Motu Kotawa, where a significant population of frigate birds nest undisturbed" lets suppose the environment is always preserved but it is not exactly that. Premitting that the hunters in Europe, who kill animals only for fun, are much less environment friendly, pukapukans kids, sometime are allowed to go on the motus, taking the birds from their nests to be cooked or taken home. Some people say they take the birds home to let the grow to be eaten later because they taste better than chicken. But what happens is that the kids do not really realize that taking the small birds in their hands, manipulating them without care, often make them die or break their wings. While this is not blamable as a massive bird killing (people say they only do it in certain periods when there are a lot of birds) and that is part of their traditional activities, probably it is a behaviour that in a modern environmental friendly conscience, oriented to ecotourism, could be turned to a bird's watching and the motu could become a natural reserve. Due to the problems we experienced on the islands, We'll talk next days to the people of the environment and emergency deprtments and will continue our report and project for Pukapuka as soon as we'll get the expected positive feedback from the Cook Islands authorities and administrators on this matters. We are grateful to the Cook Islands National Research Committee and in particular to Tina Samson for the kind and professional support received since the beginning of our research.