The tourist enters Vanuatu looking forward to a tropical mini-break. Sunshine, white sand, blue water, and all at an affordable price. What could be more perfect? Welcomed at the airport by a smiling chauffeur, he is driven to his resort. He is momentarily troubled as he passes through the main town and notes dirt, smog, rundown shacks, and rubbish everywhere, but his expectations are happily restored when he arrives at the pristine Beach Bungalow Resort. The pacific style huts contrast quaint thatching with modern interior, and are complemented by the pristine white beach, nearly deserted save for a few other white tourists. The wife and kids head off to the pool, while he stoops down and picks up a handful of fine, soft sand, contemplating how perfect, how unspoiled, how pure this place is. “Paradise”, he thinks.
One popular tourism business in Vanuatu carries the logo “Some call is Paradise, we call it home”. This is both true and untrue. As we look at tourism in Vanuatu, is it interesting to contrast the two experiences of the land- the visitors view of paradise, yet this land is home to many people.
While our tourist proclaims ‘paradise’, the land-owner may see only ‘home’- a land that has passed through the hands of his ancestors, that carries shared identity and history, land that has borne generations of children, that has hosted customs and been the landmark for culture. This land, that was once his home, has been replaced by a different story- the story of a tourist seeking paradise.
Land in Vanuatu is not able to be owned by foreigners. This is designed to protect foreign investors coming in and buying up all the land. However, some may say this law is just a smokescreen- hiding a reality the deeply favours the foreign investor. The Australian man who has developed the Beach Bungalow Resort has leased the land from the local owners. His lease period is a standard 75 years.
To secure the land, he will have entered negotiations with the chief of the village, or the head of the family that owned the land. The amount he offered will have seemed astronomical to the land-owners; an amount that would have paid for school fees for all the village children, would have allowed them to buy a highly coveted truck, paid for medicines, changed their lives considerably. And after all this, they still own the land- it is only a lease. The Australian man would have pointed out the benefits to the community, would have talked about the infrastructure that would be put in place to sustain the resort and how this would be a great community project. Infrastructure, water, power; a golden future, a quick deal.
However, a few years down the track, with the Beach Bungalow Resort boasting a 5-star rating and pulling in wads of tourists, the picture looks a little different for the land-owners. In hindsight, the 2km of coast leased seems a bit too long, as the villagers can no longer access the beach from any point (sure, this is illegal, but all the access ways to the beach are resort land, and trespassing is illegal too). Gone is the livelihood provided by fishing, disappearing is the craft of canoe-making and fish hook carving. Even if they could reach it, the water is foreign now- wharves, jet-boats, yachts, pollution...
The promised infrastructure hasn’t been such a good deal either. Houses and farmland had to be moved for the roads, and the village truck broke a long time ago. The village meeting place was moved away from visibility from the road, and the crops are no longer so reliable as the land becomes more and more crowded. The youth in the village have entered the cash economy, the chief’s son is the bartender at the resort, and several of the girls are working in the room service department.
When 75 years is up, perhaps everything will go back to how it used to be for the villagers- living off the land, fresh fish from the sea sustaining everyone, strong community ties... But only if the great-granchildren of the current inhabitants managed to raise the billions of vatu required to purchase all the buildings and infrastructure off the Australian owners. With little to no money, and the Australians with all the bargaining power, it seems more likely that the 75 year lease will be renewed for another 75 years. There is no turning back now.
Pushed back into the outer reaches of their ancestral land, most young people choose to move to the main town to try and find work. They meet with other young people from other islands who are in the same position, and together all these thousands try and find work, cohabiting in slums if necessary.
This is a stark contrast to the life of their forefathers, who were born and raised in coastal villages where their livelihood was the land and the water. Home is no longer home.
We look back to our friendly tourist, so enthralled by the sunset and the view that he scoops up a small vial of sand as a memento. Placing it on his windowsill back home, it often catches his eye and brings a smile to his face as he fondly remembers his little trip to ‘paradise’.
