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The world’s more than 200 000 protected areas come in many forms, on land and at sea, and occur in every country (Bertzky et al. 2012). They are places that people establish to conserve natural and cultural heritage and to sustain their benefits for society. Among other values, protected areas allow people to connect with nature for their inspiration, education, well-being and recreation. While protecting ecosystems that are essential for life, they can support human livelihoods and aspirations and offer nature-based solutions for the complex challenges faced by the world today.

This dissertation examines the relationship between contemporary development projects and the Fijian idea vanua which is commonly translated as “land” but entails meanings of people, community, and custom. Often treated as a rigid cosmological entity with its own cultural order, in this dissertation I argue that when viewed as an environmental framework in which historical actors and ideas are constantly moving in and out, vanua is actually flexible, open-ended, and has the capacity to interact and collaborate with contemporary development projects such as environmental conservation and commercial farming. This capacity is built from the entanglement of diverse historical forces (e.g. indigenous politics, pre-colonial capitalism, colonial policies) which still resonate in the environment today, and is able to affect the realization of the universal values (e.g. environmentalism, development) intended to be introduced. Here I use a small coastal village called Waitabu located on Taveuni Island as the ethnographic setting to demonstrate how these processes are played out.

To establish, develop, operate and maintain for the benefit of the people of the United States an educational and scientific center in the form of a tropical botanical garden or gardens, together with such facilities as libraries, herbaria, laboratories and museums which are appropriate and necessary for encouraging and conducting research in basic and applied tropical botany.

The Pacific Islands region is currently experiencing an intensification of interest in culture of an enabler, rather than an inhibitor of development.

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC)

The Pacific tropical botanical garden was chartered by an Act of the United States Congress in August 19, 1964 to form a non-profit corporation with these purposes: a) to establish, develop, operate and maintain for the benefit of the people of the United States an educational and scientific center in the form of a tropical botanical garden or gardens, together with such facilities as libraries, herbaria , laboratories and museums which are appropriate and necessary for encouraging and conducting research in basic and applied tropical botany. b) to foster and encourage fundamental research with respect to tropical plant life and to encourage research and study of the uses of tropical flora in agriculture, forestry, horticulture, medicine and other sciences; c) to disseminate through publications and other media the knowledge acquired at the gardens relative to basic and applied tropical botany d) to collect and ciltivate tropical flora of every nature and origin and to preserve for the people of the United States species of tropical plant life threatened and extinction e) to provide a beneficial facility which will contribute to the education, instruction, and recreation of the people of the United States.