Hi everyone! To start off the week, we will be looking at Fiji! I could not find any stations measuring the air quality in Fiji (i.e. the IQAir website I usually refer to has no data on Fiji!), hence, let us just examine where Fiji is on the world map!
It is a relatively small island located in the Pacific Ocean. I think a good tag for me to use on this post would be OCEANIA. I want my tags to start with vowels just so it looks nice in the “BROWSE BY TAG” portion at the side of my blog. My apologies. Let’s get back to work.
As of 2020, the IAMAT states that the air quality in Fiji is unsafe. But why is this so? Isn’t Fiji an island in the middle of nowhere? Could it possibly have industries and vehicles too? Recent data indicated that PM2.5 concentrations in Fiji is 11 micrograms/cubic metres in Fiji annually, and this value exceeds the recommended maximum, which is 10 micrograms/cubic metres.
A lot of the pollution in Fiji is caused by plastic. The WWF-Pacific Volunteer Program is a non-governmental organization that seeks to free Fiji from plastics by 2025. According to them, they aim to reduce marine pollution by clearing marine debris and nutrient pollution through coastal clean-ups, product bans and restrictions, and plastic recovery, reuse, and recycling. But can these be achieved? I will try to answer this question in the next blog post.
There have also been attempts to manage wastewater in Fiji. In the Bavu and Namaqumaqua villages in the southeastern coral coast of Fiji, there have been developments in wastewater treatment technologies, to provide communities with better sanitation and hygiene. This was done in collaboration with government agencies and villagers. As I mentioned previously on my post on Bolivia, integrating community knowledges helps increase the effectiveness of intervention measures. There have also been efforts to properly manage toilet systems. The ecoVIP2 toilet was created a few years ago. You can click on the link to view how the toilets look like. It might not seem much to you, but to these people living in the Global South, these toilets are a sign of modernity and development. By having these toilets in place, there will be fewer improper waste disposals in flooding areas, slopes, or underground infrastructures. Put simply, groundwater contamination will be reduced.
Now let’s return back to the air. Why did the IAMAT proclaim that the air quality in Fiji is bad? Well, according to QUT, air pollution is caused mainly by cooking, domestic refuse, agricultural processes, solid waste burning, and transport. It surprises me that islanders could pollute too! Click on the QUT website to find out how locals are engaged in fighting pollution. If you have any more information on pollution in Fiji, do share them in the comments section below. I will do my best to collate whatever I can find in the next blogpost.
See you in the next one! ✿
References
Fiji (n. d.) Beautiful World. Available from: https://www.beautifulworld.com/oceania/fiji/ [Accessed: 11 February 2022].
IAMAT (2020) Fiji General Health Risks: Air Pollution. 16 April. Available from: https://www.iamat.org/country/fiji/risk/air-pollution [Accessed: 7 February 2022].
QUT (n. d.) Assessment of Children’s Exposure to Air Pollution in Fiji, its Drivers and the Burden of Disease Attributable to it. Available from: https://research.qut.edu.au/ilaqh/projects/sensors-fiji/ [Accessed: 7 February 2022].
Reef Resilience Network (2021) Applications of Innovative Wastewater Technology in Fiji. 21 May. Available from: https://reefresilience.org/case-studies/fiji-wastewater-pollution/ [Accessed: 7 February 2022].
WWF – Pacific Volunteer Program (n. d.) Plastic Pollution – Free Fiji Campaign. United Nations Ocean Conference. Available from: https://oceanconference.un.org/commitments/?id=21080 [Accessed: 7 February 2022].