The Islanders’ View

ON A TINY Pacific atoll, a jumbo jet disgorges hundreds of tourists.

They are greeted by locals dressed in jeans, strumming plastic ukeleles. Pol lution has killed the island’s vegetation, tall buildings hide the sky. A visit to the local sacred site reveals fake marae stones: the originals were donated to a Japanese com pany in return for a hundred motorbikes.

The souvenir shops display goods made in Asia; the islanders have forgotten how to weave and carve and besides, the pandanus trees have all died.

This bitter scenario for the future was

described by a Cook Islands student in an essay on tourism. “Tourism is like a pla gue,” she wrote. “It destroys people, their culture, heritage and environment.” Temu Okotai, manager for Marketing and De velopment for the Cook Island Tourist Au thority, wrote in 1979: “If we did not need the money tourism can bring, I would be most happy not to have a tourist industry.

Cook Islanders are in agreement on that.”

Almost everything written about tour ism in the Pacific represents the optimis tic views of governments wanting approval for their policies, officials whose jobs de

pend on implementing those policies, or investors anxious to paint the situation in the best possible light. In contrast, soci ologists and anthropologists condemn the damage tourism wreaks on local cultures.

But we rarely hear the views of the island ers whose lives are affected by develop ments over which they have no control. As Mr Okotai points out, “How do you con trol tourism? And more importantly, at what stage of development is the maxi mum capacity reached?”.

Most islanders recognise the perils of an economy dependent on tourism. The spectre of Honolulu, as an example of how local cultures can be damaged by mass tourism, worries them. In an article in Pa cific Tourism , published by the Univer sity of the South Pacific, Malama and Penelope Meleisea wrote that a tourist in dustry should be the icing on the eco nomic cake. “Western Samoa has no need to promote itself as a plastic Hollywood fantasy of the South Seas,” they wrote.

Although it is generally accepted that tourism creates employment, it also cre ates vast social and economic gaps and ra cial resentments. In the hotel industry, for example, locals usually fill unskilled jobs while higher paid, higher status jobs are taken by Europeans and expatriates.

Many islanders resent the way the commercialisation of traditional skills and crafts and the use of non-traditional tools and materials have resulted in poor quality items being churned out for tourists. One Solomon Islander points out that carving done for money has lost its original function and artistic quality, though he realises tourist demand for the Solomon Islands carvings does have a po sitive effect: it motivates young people to become carvers, thus keeping alive the traditional arts.

All over the Pacific, a two-tier craft in dustry has sprung up: top quality work for the connoisseurs, inferior items for the souvenir shops. In Rotorua’s Whakare warewa thermal area, traditional Maori crafts are maintained with funds from tourist revenue, though mass-produced souvenirs with Maori motifs are sold in nearby shops. After listing the ways in which traditional wood-carving in Fiji has deteriorated through being commerci alised, one Fijian youth concedes that: “Fijian wood-carving could be a forgotten art if it were not for Tongan weaving: there’s no point hand-weaving a basket when you can buy a string bag, but tourist demand for local crafts brings an income to the vil lages.” A Tongan woman comments that performing traditional dances such as the tau olunga dance or the kailao, or war dance, for tourists reduces their authentic ity and dignity; yet despite their being bas tardised, these traditions ironically are also being kept alive by tourism. □