Fire is an increasingly serious threat across Fiji's Vanua Levu. Shona Jennings writes from the field on why lasting resilience depends on people as much as infrastructure.
Travelling across Fiji's Vanua Levu, it is impossible to miss the signs of fire. From hilltops, plumes of smoke rise across the landscape. Roadside banks are blackened and scorched, while active fires smoulder and flare across the island.
This week, while conducting an evaluation of the Climate Resilient Islands project for MFAT, implemented by Live & Learn Fiji, a consistent concern emerged from discussions with forestry, agriculture and conservation officials: fire is becoming an increasingly serious threat.
Some fires are accidental, sparked by discarded cigarette butts and fanned by strong winds. Others are linked to long-standing slash-and-burn farming practices. Historically, Fiji's lush vegetation helped prevent fires from spreading widely, but El Niño-driven dry conditions have changed the equation. Officials spoke not only of threats to plantation forests, but also to communities, watersheds and fragile ecosystems.
The challenge is not simply technical. It is behavioural. Many farmers continue practices that provide short-term benefits, such as clearing land with fire or relying on ash to boost crop growth, without fully understanding the long-term impacts on soil health, erosion and downstream reef ecosystems.
Projects such as Climate Resilient Islands are demonstrating practical alternatives through agroforestry and nature-based solutions: integrating trees and crops, using green mulch to retain moisture, planting vetiver grass to reduce erosion, and replacing burning with sustainable soil management practices.
As one government interviewee put it: "We need to stop the bushfires completely. They kill the plants, the wildlife and the environment, and they undermine all the work we've been doing."
The comment captures a reality familiar to many development practitioners: resilience is not built through infrastructure alone. Lasting change depends on supporting people, communities and institutions to see and manage their landscapes differently.
