By
STEVE WATERSON Editor, Time South Pacific
The
news in the south pacific is dominated by conflicts and scandals,
coups and disasters. Australia, New Zealand and Papua New
Guinea account for 90% of the South Pacific's people, and
our coverage usually reflects the weight of numbers. Time's
writers do turn their talents to the smaller countries in
our vast ocean: recently we have written about the scourge
of money laundering, political murders in Samoa, the diplomatic
maneuverings of China and Taiwan in the region, the Fiji coup
and its aftermath, and the state of the arts in the South
Pacific. But we felt there were many stories that were not
being told-because of scale, remoteness or because of the
sometimes restricted view we have from our regional headquarters
in Sydney. So we sent correspondents and photographers out
to bring back the words and pictures for this special "Pacific
Journey" issue of the magazine.
They brought back a full net. Lisa Clausen spent time with villagers who live from the sea; Daniel Williams looked at the pervasive, and related, problems of obesity and diabetes; Michael Ware explored the aftermath of the Solomon Islands' bitter ethnic war; Leora Moldofsky assessed the changing place of women in the Pacific; Elizabeth Feizkhah hiked through Fiji's contentious mahogany forests; arts editor Michael Fitzgerald went tapa dancing; and deputy editor Tom Dusevic looked at the surge in migration to big-city life.
The logistics were not easy. Air-travel schedules were unreliable, and roads often more hazardous than tramping through the bush. The writers, away from their comfort zone, traveled rough, in canoes, rusting ferries, trucks and small planes. Williams was stranded in Kiribati for a week when Air Nauru was grounded by safety authorities in Brisbane; Clausen was bitten by reef fish while swimming in Samoa; Moldofsky donned a pineapple-patterned Mother Hubbard dress to attend a church service in Vanuatu; Ware was punched in the face by a rebel thug in Honiara; Feizkhah narrowly avoided drinking kava; Fitzgerald got sunburned when he was stuck on a small boat watching a junior surf carnival in Tonga; and Dusevic got down and dirty scouring the rubbish dumps of Rarotonga.
The photographers, including New Zealander Bryn Evans, Peter Bennetts from Melbourne, Sydney-based Michael Amendolia and Auckland's Nigel Marple, had a more relaxing time. Marple, 38, who shot our cover image, feels at home in the South Pacific. "You have to fit in with the local culture and the local style of doing things," he says. "You basically have to slow down-for people living in Sydney or Auckland, that's very difficult." Marple, who covered both of Sitiveni Rabuka's Fijian coups in the late '80s and went to Somalia and Bosnia for the Associated Press in the early '90s, finds the pace of the islands seductive. The highlight of this recent assignment? Striking up a friendship with sassy novelist and performance poet Sia Figiel ("she's smashing; an absolute hoot")-though "sitting on a tropical beach with a good book to read and waiting for a picture to happen was always pleasant." Nice work, indeed. We hope you enjoy reading this diverse portrait of the South Pacific, even if temperatures in Australia and New Zealand mean you're curled up at home in front of the fire, rather than on a beach in paradise.
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August 20-27, 2001 |
No. 33
COVER
STORY
The
New Pacific
Setting off to explore the islands, Time found an ocean of stories. Faced
with the challenges of the global village, some peoples are prospering,
easily melding old ways with new; others struggle to cling to tradition
in a cyclone of change
TO
OUR READERS...
TRAVELERS ADVISORY...
PACIFIC
BEAT: Bougainville talks; West Papua in coventry...
SPECIAL:
Pacific Journey
CLIMATE: Not Waving, Drowning... Kiribati
and Tuvalu fear being erased by rising seas
MIGRATION: Outgoing Tide... Small
nations are losing their best and brightest people
LAND RIGHTS: At Loggerheads... Landowners
and opportunists vie for Fiji's mahogany wealth
MEDIA: Telling It Like It Is... Nervous
governments make life tough for local newsmen
GOVERNMENT: The Falling-to-Pieces
Process... The Solomon Islands is riven by corruption and lawlessness
DRUGS: Brewing Trouble... As drinking
rules lose their grip, kava is becoming a social bane
RELIGION: Shopping for Jesus... In
Samoa, new brands of Christianity are giving old ones a jolt
BUSINESS: Blooming Economy... Fijian
housewives find growth potential in their backyards
WOMEN: No Room to Move... In Vanuatu,
women's freedom often sits uneasily with tradition
SCIENCE: Gene Blues... Tongans debate
whether to give researchers access to their dna
MEDICINE: Sweet and Deadly... Long-isolated
islanders are vulnerable to diet-related diseases
THE ARTS: Bringing Samoa to Book... Sia
Figiel writes about her homeland with novel candor
ENVIROMENT: Nowhere to Throw... Places
like the Cook Islands have little room for waste
FISHING: Conserving the Catch... Fearful
for the sea's health, Samoans apply their own First Aid
THE ARTS: Tapa Recording... Bark cloth
documents island peoples' lives and legends
THE ARTS: Islamic
art; Pee-wee's back...
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