The Department of Environment-organised climate change team in the Yasawa Group conducted assessments on Teci and Bukama villages in the
tikina of Yasawa yesterday.
In Bukama Village the two major climate change issues of major impact are the coastal erosion and water problem.
“There are two major problems in Bukama Village, one is coastal erosion that seems to have accelerated over the last few years. For trees there are no mangroves on the coast, which is relatively unpredictable. There is no barrier reef so waves can move directly to the beach,” USP environment researcher Dr Helene Jacot said.
“The other problem seems to be water because sometimes they have different sources when it’s dry for several weeks.”
Dr Helene said they found food security was quite good because of the presence of plantations.
So there is no problem getting vegetables and they have good fishing grounds even though there are less people going fishing.
She reiterated that for Bukama villagers the major problem was coastal erosion and water supply.
“The first thing with regards to water is to increase the number of water tanks in the village for rain water while for the coastal erosion it is very difficult to make recommendations from such an assessment because coastal erosion is based on physical problems that you need to measure precisely before you say you need something there or you remove something there,” Dr Helene said.
“There is no general solution because there is one solution for each place, and further study will be needed for that.”
The team that made the assessment on Teci Village found that the major climate change effect is the frequency of flooding in the village.
Mr Naushad Yakub from the Wild Life Foundation Society said Teci Village had two sources of water that meet at the same point, one is the spring and the other one is from the dam.
“So when it rains heavily the area is flooded. And if the tides comes in the water level gets really high. When it’s flooding the water can remain for four days before it goes down. Seawater intrudes into the land table water. The shore line used to be 30 to 40 meters from where it is today, they used to have houses there, they had to move inland,” Mr Yakub said.
“On one side they used to have the village graveyard, now half the site is gone through coastal erosion.
“The problem also originates by the high wave intensity,” he said.
Mr Yakub said they were glad that Teci Village had taken the initiative in having a disaster management plan.
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