PREVIOUS: Fig. 55. Close up of the various connections made using local timber and twine from coconut husks.
We emerged from the dense jungle onto a clearing where another ancient maneaba stood and stopped in front. The old man who had been driving me from village to village on his motorcycle understood by this point that anything old or different I was interested in. A group of children appeared: ”imatang! Imatang!” They followed me as I stepped under the maneaba. The temperature was decidedly lower inside, the pandanus leaves underfoot dense. After taking some photos I emerged and started to get back on the bike - but where was the old man? I looked around and he was lying on a kiakia across the way waving at me. I walked over and he grinned before introducing me to the other occupant within. He was sitting in only the second round kiakia I had seen on the island - the first one being in Kaboua’s resort. I knew immediately I had found the builder and his family. He promptly got his son to climb a tree and get us fresh coconuts and we relaxed under the kiakia for some time.
OPPOSITE: Fig. 56. My driver and an innovative local builder in his round kiakia . Abaiang.
After proposing the above the design, I made my way to Kiribati. What seemed like potentially revolutionary ideas on my part, for example the raised and floating typologies, I found had already started to become explored through the evolutionary nature of local vernacular architecture. The locals were very much aware of the benefits of their existing vernacular, but had not yet pushed it beyond simply raising their building higher.
Could they make their own cement and bind it to the coral aggregate that was being mined as the US Army Engineers used to? Foon, a governmental officer, didn’t know, but said the British had built churches in the Southern islands using locally made lime cement83. On Abaiang there was also evidence in the old churches that lime has been burned to create cement with coral. Coral itself is readily available, especially dead coral, as the barrier reefs are very close to the surface of an ever warming ocean. It washes up every day in large piles on the shores of the islands and there is an industry in its collection and processing into aggregate.
Innovation is all around. While enterprising families are opening small guesthouses over the water for the imatang,84 emulating what they see in the luxury resorts of more developed island nations, back home on a smaller scale these innovations are being implemented in the communities too as a response to the floods. Other small innovations take place with against the lack of materials: one of the local kava85 bars made the simple alteration of turning concrete blockwork on
83. Michael Foon Interview. See Appendix.
84. Literally meaning “someone from Matang” or simply a white man.
85. Kava is a popular non-alcoholic drink made from a powdered root found in Fiji. It has a light numbing effect when had in large quantities and kava bars provide large bowls from which groups can share and drink for long hours.
its side in order to allow the breeze off the lagoon to pass through.
Kaboua John is one of the young community leaders innovating and pushing Kiribati forward. Previously working for KiriCAN, he now lives on Abaiang with his family where is Agricultural Officer for the island. His day job involves travelling around the island helping locals grow better food and showing them how they can get the most out of the poor soils. He adds nutrients using seaweed collected from the shores. Rich in phosphate he is able to grow tomatoes and eggplants, which was not previously possible. Alongside this, he has built, with the support of his extended family and friends, an eco-resort utilising outstanding building typologies found from around Abaiang. In a first for the island he has also built a series of raised tebuia that allow for you to sleep peacefully as the tide comes in. The water beneath you also provides a significant cooling effect to aid with sleep over the warm nights.
Hamdi writes of the benefits of “emergence”86 and the benefits of reading the underlying narratives of a place, pinpointing bottlenecks to positive change and relieving these through small interventions. Over time this cultivation will then facilitate an emergence of a positive and productive community.
As architects and planners we need to “act spontaneously, to improvise and to build in small increments”.87 Hamdi tells of a bus stop where the road was widened to allow the bus to pull over safely. Trees were planted around the bus stop to provide shade for those waiting, at the same time facilitating potential small
PREVIOUS: Fig. 57. Looking over the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary to the lagoon. Abaiang.
OPPOSITE TOP LEFT: Fig. 58. Guesthouse for Tabon Te Keke . North Tarawa.
OPPOSITE BOTTOM LEFT: Fig. 59. An innovative hybrid of a rainwater-harvesting roof and a traditional thatch roof.
OPPOSITE TOP RIGHT: Fig. 60. Raised up for storage underneath. Typical island transport parked in front.
OPPOSITE BOTTOM RIGHT: Fig. 61. A local kava bar using ventilated concrete block. Tarawa.
PREVIOUS: Fig. 62. Sunset view over Kaboua’s Terau Beach Bungalow.
OPPOSITE TOP: Fig. 63. Collecting seaweed from the beach. Tarawa.
OPPOSITE BOTTOM: Fig. 64. Seaweed is used to create planting beds in otherwise poor soil. Tarawa.
businesses to gather there to provide services.88 He argues that we must avoid a fully interventionist approach where everything is upset and in flux and at the same time becomes dependent on Western support indefinitely to function. We must also avoid the high-tech intellectualism that we use in Western city planning which demands an expertise far removed from that which the local ordinary people can take on, and create bureaucratic Western-like structures which would “displace marginal entrepreneurs and ordinary people in favour of project officers, government bureaucrats, formal business and contractors drawn always from outside our place of work and sometimes from other countries.”89
My initial designs were not far off the beginning steps being taken by local innovators and prior to my arrival I perhaps had underestimated the ingenuity and solutions beginning to be developed. Raising of structures has already begun but there is a need for more of a structured approach and the development of a plan for the future. This is where the strength of architecture can come into playin developing places through the fusion of technology, processes and fellow local collaborators.
88. Hamdi, p. 99.
89. Hamdi,, p. 98.
THE ARCHITECT’S EVOLVING ROLE
PREVIOUS: Fig. 67. It is a tough neighbourhood. North Tarawa.
The role of the architect when approaching large issues, such as climate change, needs to be re-configured. Traditionally, architects have been focused on the production of a singular object, and there is an almost universal demand or expectation that they will have total control over the final product and its use. This leads to a twofold expectation on the architect: firstly that he must be fully knowledgeable and have complete control over the project in order to ensure a successful outcome and that this pressure also makes him a heroic figure, that only he can do what needs to be done.
The “black box”90 of architecture is created as architects take onunilaterally - enormous responsibility as well as associated legal liability. They include both functional and environmental performance, aesthetic appeal, spatial design, honesty of material and structural efficiency. This is in aversion to other consultants such as engineers who avoid responsibilities as much as possible and make larger profits as things go right, and lesser losses when things go wrong.91
This assumption of responsibility is what elevates the status of the architect and his “noble”92 profession. There is a strong value system in place. One where the drawing has a special significance and must have an appeal in and of itself beyond whatever the design therein might be - there have been instances where now famous architects have been failed as students because of their poor drawings.93 Maslow's ideas of individual expression and identity for those at the top of his pyramid find themselves highly correlated with architects and their need
90. Banham, p. 294.
91. Ibid., p. 294.
92. Ibid., p. 294.
93. Ibid., p. 295.
for self assertion as they progress to self-actualisation - “what a man can be he must be”.94
This lack of acknowledgment of a greater collaborative effort only further works to isolate the architect. The idea of the sketch being the source of truth and the stroke of genius and genesis of a project can make for a great marketing spiel, however it is highly damaging to the development of architectural research to say so - “a sketch is reductive”.95
Jean Baudrillard wrote much about the postmodern society we currently live in: its speed, its perfectionism and ceaseless desire for the “Hyper-real”. His ideas have been applied to the architectural world by starchitects such as Rem Koolhaas. As much of mass media is today, the marketing and branding campaigns of the big architecture firms provide glossy perfect images of steel and glass in harmonious surroundings - more perfect than perfect, more harmonious than harmonious. Things which feed our desires beyond the possibility of what reality can really deliver. There is no end to this - as Baudrillard himself notes: “one can only counter this fascination with real-time - the equivalent of high fidelity - with a moral objection and there is not much point in that.”96
There is no doubt that being a set of highly trained professionals, their contributions to space are important and they are indeed best placed to negotiate the divide between the immediate and the long term. They are the bridge between art and science - having a cultural sensibility while still rooted in the practical and
94. Barnes, Matthew, “A. H. Maslow (1943) A Theory of Human Motivation,” Classics in the History of Psychology <http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm> [accessed 1 September 2017]
95. Till, p. 109.
96. Baudrillard, p. 6.
buildable. They just need to learn to bypass their hubris and realise that they don’t need to do it all by themselves, because in the end they really don’t.
Identity is generated over a long period of time. It is not created by a single individual or auteur, but is instead something borne out of tradition and custom, themselves borne out of responses to limitations and need. This makes identity incredibly hard to replicate or replace by a designer. Philosophers like Heidegger have said that identity is perhaps most powerfully linked to place and architecture, in particular the creation of one's home. Likewise the response to any major challenge involving the built environment cannot be made in a hasty fashion, but should start with the development of a framework to integrate as many of the moving pieces as possible and plan this out over time. This transdisciplinary approach is fundamental to resilience thinking and people centred reconstruction.
The perfectionistic, controlling architect needs to learn to let go and realise that whether they like it or not, others will be necessary to the process. Collaboration is a necessity and the final outcome is not something that can be predetermined. This absence of expectation of perfection can lead us to Till’s idea of Low-Fi architecture - as compared to the Hi-Fi architecture of Koolhaas. LowFi goes beyond the shiny skins of commercial architecture and engages afresh with the social and ethical underpinnings that are apparent through the inherent contingencies of architecture.97 The profession is dependent on the work of so many other players and an honest engagement of that fact can provide an honest outcome. This is in no ways lesser to the Hi-fi approach. In fact by confronting the realities, and a potential end result, we as architects can plan for better final outcomes and work to mitigate issues that may arise.
97. Till, p. 145.
When it comes to large problems such as climate change it is important that the architect understand that there is also an ethical component that they need to respond to as part of their remit - “issues of social ethics are inherent in the design of any building, and just to ignore them does not mean that they will go away”.98 For too long, many architects have seen sustainability as merely a set of criteria that need to be met in a BREEAM assessment and not plugged into a long-term vision. If we continue to only view such a problem in a technological context then our responses will only be technological in nature. If it is reframed in a sociological context then the idea of well-being and impact on people activates the ethical for the architect - “As an ethical issue, the architectural approach to sustainability becomes more than short term technical fixes: it has to take on the wider interactions between nature and society, humans and nonhumans.”99
As Koolhaas himself said: “Architecture stands with one leg in a world that’s 3,000 years old and another leg in the 21st century. This almost ballet-like stretch makes our profession surprisingly deep. You could say that we’re the last profession that has a memory, or the last profession whose roots go back 3,000 years and still demonstrates the relevance of those long roads today. Initially, I thought we were actually misplaced to deal with the present, but what we offer the present is memory.”100
Indeed owner-driven housing leads to better outcomes - already proven through greater sense of happiness in the Kiribati people than this author has seen elsewhere, and an important form of self-expression and self-determination.
98. Till, p. 182.
99. Till, p. 182.
100. Budds, Diana, “Rem Koolhaas:” Co.Design (Co.Design, 2016) <https://www.fastcodesign. com/3060135/rem-koolhaas-architecture-has-a-serious-problem-today> [accessed 3 September 2017]
NEXT: Fig. 68. Schoolchildren greet the camera dronetechnology captures the imagination. Betio, Tarawa.
People-centred reconstruction involves performing a more supervisory role rather than directorial role in development of new homes. It means allowing people to stay on their lands and build their homes or be involved in rebuilding of them. Local people are involved right through the whole process, not just in the construction phase and have a say in the planning and even master-planning of the community. The role of the architect in these cases is to both supervise, provide advice and technical knowledge, passing on best practice to ensure good outcomes. This can mean working with, or defining construction standards and local building regulations. This should not be to the high standards of that in the West but rather can be ‘incremental’ standards - start with small changes or requirements that make a big impact and then look at others that would make the next biggest impact once the previous set of items have been well adopted. Disaster awareness and training to prepare and deal with disasters is also important. The overall aim is to be flexible, and look to how an existing situation can be made better over time, rather than bringing in a predefined solution. It means not ignoring the contributions of local leaders, artisans and protecting environmental, cultural and financial systems that people rely upon in order to go about their daily lives.101
More often than not, a small change can make a long-lasting impact. These include: raising foundations; only allowing biodegradable imports; implementing planning guidelines; and considered small pushes are what is needed to incentivise and make it easier for large scale positive change to occur. Architects need to negotiate between short term expediency that is client driven and long term requirements which go hand in hand with their ethical responsibilities.
CONCLUSIONS
PREVIOUS: Fig. 69. Sunset over the lagoon. North Tarawa.
Kiribati presents a perfect case study, that can provide insight for many other similar communities around the world. Coastal community survival is a big issue going forward for years to come and there are many issues at play and many moving parts of which this paper only introduces.
Other countries that have similar climates and coral atoll typologies that reached a higher level of development or gross national income have been successful based on various factors whether that be cultural interest from a Western perspective, vicinity or ease of access to major economic regions, or simply world class facilities for tourism. These areas, such as the Caribbean, have been somewhat a victim of their success with massive destruction to corals, overfishing, and population growth beyond what the ecosystem can possibly manage. In the case of Kiribati however there is plenty to work with to protect this paradise and adapt this amazing community and culture.
The people of Kiribati, off the back of their deep cultural roots and highly successful vernacular architecture can ensure that they do indeed learn the lessons of the West and seek not to abandon their way of life, nor replace it, but adapt it as the environment around them changes. Their strengths far outweigh their weaknesses and they present a happiness of life that goes beyond architecture. It is therefore, in this case, the role, and indeed the duty of the architect, to listen and guide this evolution.
Michael Foon (National Disaster Risk Management Officer for the Republic of Kiribati) 14/06/2017
So could you maybe tell me a little bit about your role and what you do?
I’m the National Disaster Risk Management Officer that entails coordinating all government departments in response and building resilience to disasters so it's both risk reduction and disaster response. At the moment it’s a one man team, I’m trying to coordinate everyone-
That’s a pretty tough job
Well, thank you, yes it is, it is with very little resources to mobilise so it’s difficult at times.
So when you say coordinating, are you coordinating with bodies such as the Red Cross?
We work with some - my particular focus is on government departments and local governments...
Because the Red Cross is somewhat separate from government aren’t they - they like to do their own thing.
Yeah, yeah, [the] Red Cross they like to go themselves auxiliary to governments [to have] freedom to do whatever they want but we reach out to them, especially in response to disasters [because] we know they are able to mobilise resources, external resources and so when it comes to response we try to facilitate this from overseas.
What kind of disasters is Kiribati susceptible to?
Well at the moment we find ourselves responding more often to storm events and also storm surge events, that's waves generated by storms that affect coastal areas. Those are the typical ones.
So is that normally only occurring here on Tarawa or on the outer islands?
Throughout Kiribati. Even on Christmas Island - it is a bit behind but it still experiences the waves and we have to respond there as well.
So storms create sea surges and then flooding?
PREVIOUS: Fig. 70. A local shopkeeper sells rice by the kilo, tinned food, flip flops, and mobile recharge. North Tarawa.
We have flooding, usually flooding of coastal areas, but at times very high waves that just smash houses and sea walls.
Have there been any major events lately?
Not recently. The last major one we had was in 2015. That was caused by Cyclone Pam passing close to Fiji on it’s way to Vanuatu. That’s when the southern islands, the southern Gilbert islands, were affected...there were a lot of waves generated...on one island in particular - that’s Tamana in the southern Gilbert group - about 65 homes were completely destroyed by the waves.
So what was your response to that?
Well our immediate response was to bring food relief and non-food items, [such as] tents, and work with the Kiribati Red Cross to provide them some Red Cross relief stocks on hand. We have the means to transport them, so we worked with them to transport them. And also work with the Australian and New Zealand High Commissions here they were able to provide some funds that goes into buying water pumps and water tanks and brought to the islands. The main impacts were low damage to homes plus the impact that it has on the water table because the water has just washed up onto the villages and contaminate the water wells. So we had to go clean up the wells, pump out sea water and restore the water supply.
And this was what the pumps were used for?
Yes.
What about rebuilding homes - is that something that falls under your area?
Not at the moment. When we responded to Cyclone Pam it was under a different administration and at that time the policy was not to go down to the housing level in terms of response not rebuilding back homes, but I think that’s changing now. We are beginning to focus on assisting people stop events like that. in 2015 the Red Cross was the only organisation focused on rebuilding...they have to extent provided materials for rebuilding the homes in Tamana they brought pine posts that can be used to build homes further off the ground.
And did they work with the local people in building those?
Yes, I think they provided the materials and there was a local volunteer from Australia that goes and helps people rebuild their homes. Apart from that there was no other assistance in materials for people to completely rebuild the house.
So the materials they were provided were just those posts?
Yeah just the posts.
So the rest of the home could be rebuilt in the traditional Kiribati style? Yeah.
But the post allowed the building to be raised higher. I will be going out to Abaiang102 tomorrow where there are more traditional Kiribati homes - perhaps more than here. Is that right?
I think Abaiang is more modernised than other outer islands because of its close proximity to the capital. There is a lot of ferries that goes out to Abaiang but there is still a lot of local buildings. You know the traditional Kiribati huts, the huts we have here, I think they were designed by our ancestors in response to these types of events. I think in their lifetime they must have experienced something quite similar to want to build homes that are raised up on platforms that would just allow water to pass through underneath without these issues and now that there is a move to adopting a different lifestyle and adopting designs from overseas that are even more vulnerable than before, like now especially on South Tarawa if there is a storm surge event there will be a lot of people affected compared to the outer islands because most people in the outer islands live in those raised platforms.
I spoke to someone that said in Betio they had a major flood a couple of years ago where people had to moved out of a hospital.
Ah that was during Cyclone Pam as well. I think a few weeks before we had just waves without the storm, just waves coming and bounding on the shores and then a few weeks later that's when we started receiving the winds.
Were any lives lost during those events?
No. Most events happen during the day when people are awake and aware. I think if it had happened at night - especially on Tamana - there would be casualties.
The outer islands are outer islands and obviously very far away. How do you communicate if there is a disaster in order to have a good response time?
At the moment we rely entirely on two means of communication. First one is the UHF radios that are available on the outer islands. The police - on the outer islands there is a police post - and the hospitals and clinics are also equipped with them as are the airstrips...apart from that we rely on the PPA radio station….
And that travels far enough?
Ahh all the islands in Kiribati are able to receive radio signals, but the only downside with the radio is that is operates for only a few hours each day. If there was an event after working hours, especially at night…
So there is no satellite phone or anything like this?
No, I think apart from the clinics Red Cross I am not aware of anyone else operating satellite phones. We are in the process of acquiring some for our President and our Office, but apart from that I am not sure…
They are quite expensive aren’t they?
Yeah, they are quite expensive.
I guess they could only be used in an emergency? I don’t know…
Yeah the ongoing costs to keep them running…
Are there any other plans to increase communication?
Yes, I think a few years back, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration donated five “jelly beetles” that's sattelite connected systems that are used by the weather service people to communicate and transmit weather observations between the islands. We have five of those in the outer islands and that system has texting capabilities and warning capabilities…
So Tarawa is well-protected then - it has a quick connection out… Yeah.
What other islands have this as well?
I think ...there are only about five other islands that have services that are fully utilising the warning capability of those systems. We plan to purchase a few more so that all the other islands are covered and there is capability to send out the warning to the outer islands after working hours.
On the plane coming over I sat next to a guy that works for the Red Cross...he was coming out here to check the communication systems for the Red Cross and he was saying they are using radio, an analog signal, to transmit text as well, as a potential new technology - or using an existing technology you’ve already got in order to transmit all the warnings, which is quite cool.
Yeah.
So if there was a disaster - maybe I will give two scenarios- if there was a big king tide here in Tarawa again and it hit Betio and it hit Bairiki and the whole place was flooded what would be the immediate response to that scenario. Do you have supplies offshore or what would you do?
No, at the moment we don’t have relief items stationed on the island but rather rely on the UN system so if there is an event like that it is beyond our capability to respond our immediate next course of action would be to notify UN agencies. These are based in Fiji and we are connected to them.
So Fiji has all the stuff you need in order to respond very quickly?
Yes. Also there is an Australian and New Zealand High Commission that’s stationed here and I that as well the UN relief supplies are based in Brisbane, Australia that’s what I heard. Or New Zealand. That way it’s easier to get them across. I think if you look at, or go on the assumption that the islands would basically be flooded you would need high ground or a safe place in order to store them.
What if there was a disaster event tomorrow in Abaiang - or somewhere close by - would you be able to directly respond to that or would that be once again be assisting response from Fiji and Australia?
Well it’s usually - well our first course of action in an event is to assess the damages
and what needs to be done. If we find that it’s beyond our capability to respond then we would notify our partners otherwise if there is something that we can do straight away we mobilise this for the outer islands.
Does this include evacuation of people as well?
Yes yes. That’s what we did in Tamana, we worked with the local island council to mobilise people away from the coast. It involves mobilising resources that need to be freed up and collecting them.
So collecting boats and saying we need your boats?
Oh yeah we can do that {laughter}. I think we have the authority under the National Disaster Act to acquire whatever resources we need to respond.
You also said that the traditional architecture of Kiribati is almost perfectly designed to respond to any changes in sea level. When you have a large king tide how high does that normally get? Does that increase beyond the normal raised part of a traditional Kiribati home?
Not usually. Usually I think we have never received waves on land higher than a metre. I have never seen that…
But a metre is still pretty powerful if it’s a strong wave…
Yeah yeah it is. In some locations I think they have experienced that... in areas that noone has...places outside of the village that we have, you know, waves about a metre on top of...but usually the highest king tides are usually just centimetres away from them…
At least for now?
Yeah and then when there’s like there’s significant water during that high tides, these smaller waves keep coming in and it just gets flooded.
So during these sorts of events the traditional homes stay? They stay in place they don’t get destroyed? The new ones get destroyed?
Usually yes. I think the news ones that get built, you know the modern buildings we have…
The concrete ones?
Yeah the concrete ones…
Well they just get flooded don’t they?
Yeah, and usually we have on most of the islands, coastal erosion is quite heavy and so you find, you know, that those traditional buildings are more resilient than the permanent ones, because the permanent ones will just be sitting there waiting for the erosion to approach the coast to where they are, but the local buildings were are able to be moved away from the shore and we found that most of the islands, especially the outer islands, most of the, you know, the villages, the coastal shore of the villages, people have relocated to the other side and the ones that are left are the ones now requesting for sea walls and other permanent buildings. Why do you think that so many buildings are now built on the ground rather than raised as they traditionally were?
Well I’m not sure. I think with organisation and now money people can afford to build better homes - whatever they think is a better home. Watching movies…
Looking to the West…
Yeah, sort of Western culture and living different lifestyles and they think that’s better. Whereas now I think that the infrastructure is more vulnerable than before. Why do you think that concrete block is being used so much? Is that because it is stronger, and able to withstand damage?
I think it’s the cheapest option there is for building homes.
Rather than using timber?
Oh timber is more expensive than block. In the outer islands people don’t buy blocks they buy cement bags and they make their own blocks and that’s the cheapest way to build a home.
And that cheaper than doing traditional methods of using all the bits of a palm tree?
No no it’s more expensive but it’s easier. Using palm woods will require you to keep on maintaining it.
Because it reduces the maintenance costs…
Yeah, yeah using the traditional thatches you have to change it every 2-3 years rather than using this, you know, corrugated iron which can stay there for 10 or 20 years. Everything still requires maintenance though if your home gets flooded it requires a lot of maintenance...{laughter} {laughter} You know if you go around to places, people...their mentality towards maintaining things are a bit different from what you see in the Western world here if you build a permanent structure...people hardly go back to fix it, once it’s done it’s done and left like that until it falls down.
I see that but at the same time I see that a lot of care goes into keeping the house very clean inside and the surrounding of the house is all brushed clean, so there’s still a lot of care in maintaining the home.
I think so, but that’s another thing. I think it’s just maintaining the structure itself because it involves cost.
About concrete, I suppose for my final question, how do you make concrete here. Where do you get it from?
Most of it is imported from Fiji - that’s the cheapest one.
Because I saw that there’s a facility over here103 that’s mining out coral aggregate… Yeah, yeah, that’s supposed to be a safe alternative to beach mining. Because, you know, most of the ocean problems we have, especially on South Tarawa is because there’s a lot of construction going on with people building homes, there’s a lot of big projects, people start mining, extracting sand and gravel from the beach and that causes a lot of erosion. The solution was to start up a company that started dredging lagoon materials, material that is supposedly being washed away and falling into the deep…
So it’s supposed to be eco but it’s not really so eco?
I think it’s not really eco. {Laughter} You know that’s the sort of safer alternative than
103. On the causeway connection between Betio Island and Bairiki, where the governmental departments are.
taking beach…
It’s moving a group of people whose livelihoods would depend on sand-mining and moving them to another thing which is less damaging?
Yeah.
So they are mining, what, coral aggregate?
Coral aggregate yep.
But to create concrete they still need lime or some sort of cement… Cement yeah. Usually cement that is being used and that is imported from Fiji, most of it.
Well can you make it here or is it available to make here?
I think that’s a question that people like you can answer {laughter} I’m not sure what it involves.
Because I’m always curious about how self-sufficient an island like this can be?
Like, if you go to the Southern islands, most of the churches that were built by British missionaries...use locally made limestone, like they burn the coral stones…
And make concrete?
Yeah make concrete. But they stop making those now and I think it’s easier and cheaper to buy concrete than to make your own.
And when you ship stuff in, I suppose you are producing more waste that waybecause it comes with packaging and all comes in a container.
Yeah.
Going along the island I see a lot of containers everywhere. Those containers, are they there for a short amount of time or do they go away?
Usually a short amount of time. Once everything inside is taken out they are taken back to the boat and shipped back.
And ok, last question, just about waste management. You’ve got a big tipBetio.
Yeah, is that - what are the future plans for waste management in Kiribati?
I think that’s a question for the environment people - have you been to the Ministry
of Environment? KAP?
Ah, no, not yet, I’m going to go over to KAP in a bit and talk to them as well. I’m not sure at the moment what the plan is for that, but probably extending those reclaimed areas to be used as infill for waste. And you know it’s a big improvement to before when there was rubbish everywhere and they just dump it into the sea. Now it’s more contained compared to 2 years before.
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All images taken by author apart from the following exceptions:
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