"This is a win-win situation!"
Surfers have a rep for being
pro-environment. A
remnant of the long-gone counter-culture days of the early
seventies.
It ain’t true.
But still we diligently affix Big Oil Don’t Surf
stickers on our SUVs and write passionate screeds on Instagram
posts criticising government for inaction on climate change and for
its use of fossil fuels while celebrating energy and water guzzling
wave pools built on parched inland soil.
We buy boards, we bust ‘em, we throw ‘em away.
Our bodies are wrapped in cheap cottons and nylons made in
Bangladeshi hellholes for “surf companies” owned by venture
capitalists, profit-at-all-cost villains who have no idea of the
beauty and brilliance of nature.
The pro-environment thing is, therefore, a chimera, a mask we
wear for whatever reason, surfer identity, ignorance.
Now, a project by a New Zealand company, exposes surfers for
what we are, as heroic butchers of the natural world.
As reported by Newsroom’s wonderful lead investigations editor,
Melanie Reid, (mama of Elliot Paerata Reid, wild
shredder from our time-travel wetsuit movie a couple of years
back).
A New Zealand-registered company
is facing intense opposition to its proposal to excavate 2.5
hectares of coral reef at a Fijian island group in an attempt
to improve surf waves at one of the most celebrated diving spots in
the world.
Ambitiously named World Wave Project (WWP), the
company plans to dig up sections of coral reefs off the remote
Qamea and Taveuni Islands in Fiji in what it describes as a “world
leading project” to create “a world class wave”.
In its own public consultation submission, WWP
boasted it believed the planned waves would bring in 200
tourists per day spending $1000 per day across 300 days, “creating
long term employment.”
The proposed development, at two sites near Qamea,
would use a jack-up barge mounted with an excavator to dig two
channels through coral reefs in a region globally renowned for its
pristine waters and popular diving.
In an extensive and highly polished list of
ready-to-go answers on the company’s website, rationale for the
project is described as follows:
“The surfing population has exploded in the last few
decades. As a result, the number of quality surfing locations
around the world have become more crowded; the demand for surf
breaks is massive and continually increasing, forcing surfers to
travel further and consume more resources for the same surfing
experience. We believe that creating more waves will lead to more
surfers and more stewards of our oceans.”
And,
“This is a win-win project, given the works
lease is temporary (only during construction), once complete the
new breaks are open to everyone to utilise and are protected
forever by the Fiji government, and there is the opportunity for
positive ecological impact by removing algae from the top of inert
reef, allowing living coral to grow again.”
Brings to mind the New Zealand-born reporter Petey Arnett’s
quote from the Vietnam war, “We had to destroy the village in order
to save it!”
Heroic butchers, yes?
