Times on Kadavu
The Fiji Times did a comprehensive coverage on the impact of TC Harold on the villagers of Kadavu.
Sadly, many did not have accessibility to the newspaper.
However, those dark days are bygone and after a lapse of ten years the villagers of Kadavu finally got to read their favourite and our number one The Fiji Times.
Indeed I agree with those on the beautiful island of Kadavu that they needed to be connected to a reliable news source and that they had been kept in the dark for too long about developments around the country.
Kadavu villager Samuela Gudru, 49, said he wanted The Fiji Times because it had been part of Fiji and the island’s heritage for years.
I wholeheartedly thank The Fiji Times for reaching out to the Kadavu villagers and I hope that the Nai Lalakai will be made accessible to the villagers so they get to read credible and reliable news.
Go on The Fiji Times!
RAJNESH ISHWAR LINGAM, Nadawa, Nasinu
Tabu areas
It’s indeed awesome that villages in the Yasawa Island chain want Government to sanction marine protected areas (FT:25/06).
Villages have now come to realise that they need to protect their qoliqoli and the best way possible is by way of legally gazetting the area as a marine protected area (MPA).
What’s great about this is that the qoliqoli owners can also include conditions in the MPA to suit their needs.
Landowners around Fiji who have qoliqoli areas need to take heed of what the villages in the Yasawas are doing and gazette specific areas as MPAs.
A great way to protect and develop marine resource sustainability.
Encouraging signs indeed!
SIMON HAZELMAN, Rava Estate, Savusavu
School planting
I’m glad to have prompted Dr Floyd Robinson to go down memory lane (FT 27/6/’20).
In fact the time when I was teaching at the then Jai Narayan College, there was a garden bed which ran the full length in front of the main classroom block and was full of weeds.
There were a lot of students who arrived at school early.
I gave them a purpose for being there at that time.
I brought some gardening tools from home and asked some of the students to remove the weeds and prepare the bed for planting.
I bought some packets of ‘planting’ dhaniya seeds from the market (about a million seeds for $1 a pack).
Another team planted these while yet another group watered and cared for the young plants. I even had ‘dhaniya’ police to ensure the crop didn’t dwindle from poachers.
The canteen staff had their eye on the healthy crop.
It soon came time to harvest the mature plants.
The students sold bundles to the teachers and made quite a lot of money most of which went to the school’s fundraising effort with a small amount going back into the project to purchase more seeds.
It was a bumper year.
JULIE SUTHERLAND, Tamavua
Responsibility for governance
Writing on the issue of regional institutions and governance in light of the USP saga ( “The reinstatement of Prof Ahluwalia” FT 27/6 ), Prof Biman Prasad says “At times international aid donors and partner countries without the knowledge or consent of their taxpayers, look the other way when it comes to governance issue”.
It suits them to do this.
It is political expedient for them.
But, in the final analysis, the responsibility for good governance rests with us, not with them.
We can’t absolve our responsibility for good governance by accusing the international partners for glossing over governance issues.
For them it has often become a catch 22 situation.
They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
When they do they are accused of meddling and playing big brother.
When they don’t they are accused of looking the other way.
Even of hypocrisy.
When we fail to handle democratic good governance we must take responsibility for it.
That’s what being independent means.
RAJEND NAIDU, Sydney, Australia
