Togoru Residents Fear Development Causing Problems
Overwhelmed already by the rising sea level, Togoru villagers in Navua are yet again fearing the effects of recent man made developments around their mangrove coast.
Landowner, Lavenia McGoon said her fight against nature to protect her land has been a tiring but worthwhile fight.
Initial developments to build a mariner and a hotel in the mangrove swamp has disturbed and added more stress to residents of Togoru.
“Already I have lost more than 50 meters of our land from the shoreline because of the rising sea level and now developers are coming here using large machineries to destroy our environment to make money for themselves,” Mrs McGoon said.
“In the past, when it rained, we never experienced flooding but due to the developments, any drop of rain has caused all the properties to be flooded knee deep,”
“The digging has caused blockage and there is no proper drainage.” A once beautiful mangrove shoreline has now become a developer’s curious playground.
“Many years back, a developer tried building a mariner here and we stopped it, they were killing organisms and cutting our food supply short just by cultivating through these mangroves,”
“We have women living here who depend on their catch to be a source of income for their family or just have food on the table, now it’s a challenge to even get a good catch,” she said.
Mrs McGoon has urged the government and written to the Ministry of Environment to look into the issue and put a stop once and for all.
Ministry of Environment Permanent Secretary, Joshua Wycliffe said a team of inspectors visited the site early this month and are taking action on recent data obtained from the site.
“We received complaints on the 25th of March and inspectors went for inspections after the two complaints were made.
“They did find a non compliance and they are taking action based on that and working with the particular organisation.”
He said when complaints are received, an investigation team is dispatched immediately to the site and mandatory checks are done. “We will review everything as we do look at it scientifically and technically on where the problem is and fix that gap in that area. If we find a breach or a certain impact that has been overlooked or not done, then we stop that particular operation,” he said.