endangered Fijian iguanas

Hollywood tiptoed around endangered Fijian iguanas

In the aftermath of claims of social and environmental insensitivity thrown at the makers of the film, The Beach, the JKk

company behind a new movie shot in Fiji was out to prove its green credentials.

The Tom Hanks-starring

Dreamworks production

“Castaway”, has finished its second phase of on-location shooting on the island of Monuriki in the Mamanuca group of western Fiji.

Monuriki, an eroded volcanic island, has all the appeal of a Hollywood-style “desert island” - it rises dramatically out of a reef-rimmed azure sea.

It is almost encircled by dazzling, white-sand beaches and it is the home of one of the rarest reptiles on Earth - the “critically endangered” crested iguana.

Concerned Fiji residents

contacted the WWF SPP office in late March after seeing around 100 film crew members and all their equipment on the island.

WWF investigations revealed that Castaway Productions Inc had gone to considerable lengths to avoid the public relations disaster that plagued Twentieth Century Fox, the makers of The Beach.

They were accused of uprooting trees, bulldozing beaches in Thailand’s Phi Phi island and underpaying the Thai Government.

Castaway Productions arranged for local consultant Dick Watling to carry

out a detailed environmental impact assessment ahead of the film shoot in Fiji.

The film company had apparently followed the consultant’s advice and, for the first time in Fiji, agreed on an environmental code of conduct with the local landowners.

The environmental code was negotiated along with a lease for access to the island to the end of 2000 through the Native Lands Trust Board (NLTB).

Under the environmental code, the production crew had promised to leave

the island in exactly the state they found it.

Any tree that was removed for the purposes of filming, had to be replaced with at least three of the same species.

Any rock that was removed, had to be replaced in exactly the same place after filming and there was to be no

introduction of a single weed or other alien species.

“We are hoping that by our example, the NLTB will take this as a guideline for future work in Fiji,” said location manager Mary Morgan. “We’re the first people to bring it to their consciousness and we hope other companies will come here to work in an environmentally sensitive manner.”

Dreamworks had apparently

paid the landowners (through

the NLTB) US$2l,OOO for the lease of Monuriki.

A 1999 study of the island’s dwindling crested iguana population for the National Trust of Fiji revealed that the greatest threat to the species is Monuriki’s 50-odd resident goats which have been eating

out the iguanas’ beach forest habitat since the 19705.

The report predicted that if goat grazing continued on the island, the already depleted iguana population will be gone within five to 15 years.

Mary Morgan said the film company had wanted to remove the goats from the island.

Castaway Productions had offered the Monuriki landowners a bounty of FDSIOO per goat but the offer had been refused. ■

‘Castaway’ star Tom Hanks was in Fiji early this year for filming