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Pita Vatucawaqa  

Protecting Fiji's rural communities from the impacts of human waste

Waste management is one of the largest environmental problems facing Fiji. The Department of Environment does not believe that a single rubbish dump in the country is environmentally safe and f requent f looding means that pollution from pit latrines and village piggeries can lead to serious health problems. Waste leaching into Fiji’s waterways is also having a serious impact on the fishing resources on which rural villages depend.

Pita Vatucawaqa is the Chair of the Environment Committee in Vunisinu, a village of 125 people in Rewa

"It was only when we went on a field trip to see the dying coral reef that I realised that the depletion of our fisheries is also caused by leaks from our toilets, waste from piggeries, and our grey water."   Pita Vatucawaqa

Province, on the island of Viti Levu. Located just 45 minutes drive from Suva Vunisinu is the pilot site for the International Waters Project, a project designed specifically to try and find effective ways for Fiji’s rural communities to improve the management of solid and liquid waste.

Peace Corps Volunteer Mary Ackley has been living in Vunisinu since November 2003. As a qualified civil engineer she has been able to provide the community with direct hands on advice and assistance with their environmental projects. She believes that the success of Vunisinu’s environmental projects is greatly assisted by the strength and vision of just one person.

“The community of Vunisinu has really embraced this project but without Pita we would probably have nothing here. He’s been such a great organiser. He understands the scientific concepts and he is great at explaining it to other people. He devotes his whole life to it. He spends 50 hours a week on this work and the only benefit he’s getting is the genuine belief that he’s doing something he can pass on to future generations,” she says.

Pita himself says it was only after attending a three-week workshop, organised by the Fiji International Waters Project in early 2004 that he really started to understand the causes of growing health and environment problems in the community.

“It was only when we went on a field trip to see the dying coral reef that I realised that the depletion of our fisheries is also caused by leaks from our toilets, waste from piggeries, and our grey water, “ he says.

One of the villages’ first demonstration projects was to build a composting toilet with funding from the Institute of Applied Sciences (IAS) and technical assistance from Peace Corps Volunteer, Mary Ackley.

Pita says he is now pretty happy about the new composting toilet. “Our village is virtually under sea level and all the nutrients from our toilets are leaking straight into the river and causing all the problems. For me it’s much better because, every year or so, I had to move my pit toilet, but this compost toilet is going to last forever. I’m going to use it, my son is going to use it, my grandchildren are going to use it—until the timber gets rotten and we have to change it - it’s just one toilet and it’s not harming the environment.

Mary Ackley says the reason they decided to use a wheelie-bin system was because Vunisinu is prone to such frequent flooding. “Pita has had to relocate the family’s pit toilet more than 10 times over the last 10 years. We thought the water wouldn’t bother it until it reached a certain level and then we could always wheel it out and move it to higher ground,” she says.

Pita now believes that all the organic waste from the village should be composted. “The kitchen, pig waste and human waste is good for our fruits and it’s good for the environment. When I did the composting from the kitchen waste it was only after people actually saw the big, healthy, eggplant that they actually realised there was something to it. It really is a case of seeing is believing - that is the main mountain that we have to move.”