Pacific Research and Policy Centre

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/4763

Browse

End date: 2009Subject: search.filters.subject.Fiji

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 14
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Working with boys and men for a change : lessons from Fiji : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Developmental Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2005) Romanos, Annie
    Male involvement in sexual and reproductive health and anti-violence interventions are two of the more common entry points in working with men to achieve gender equality. The most promising interventions are those that challenge gender norms, questioning men's views of themselves and stimulating their interest about gender equality in different ways. Although most interventions inevitably alter gender norms in an effort to change the behaviour of project recipients, if not executed in a gender-sensitive fashion, these interventions may exacerbate rather than alleviate existing inequalities. One important issue therefore is when, and to what extent, programming involving men should compromise on feminist goals. The Men as Partners pilot programme and Women's Crisis Centre in Fiji worked with similar groups of men in two distinct ways. The former adopted a locally and culturally appropriate style of addressing men about gender issues and sexual and reproductive health, and the latter took a more radical, feminist, 'rights' stance in workshops with men regarding violence. Through consultation with project participants, family members, project staff, and affiliated NGOs, the research raises questions and discusses the implications for on-going work with men in the field of gender and development. It draws some conclusions about the extent to which each intervention contributed to the transformation of attitudes among men towards equality, and emphasises the need for new 'men in development' strategies to be unapologetically feminist in their focus.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    An analysis of the environmental planning framework for coastal developments in Fiji's coral coast tourist region : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of a degree in Masters of Philosophy in Resource and Environmental Planning at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1995) Tuvuki, Suliasi Wavu
    This thesis examines Fiji's environmental planning framework with particular reference to tourism development along the coast. This focus is an acknowledgement of the coastal ecosystems upon which the tourism industry depends. However, despite this emphasis, the findings in this thesis could be relevant to all types of development in Fiji. Firstly, the shortcomings of the present planning framework are identified, with particular attention being paid to the sectoral nature of the existing institutional and legal arrangements. The important role of EIA is also discussed and is applied to the situation in Fiji's. Particular attention is placed upon the way the present system does not sufficiently recognise the important role the indigenous Fijian plays in the development planning process. This seems unjust since the indigenous rural dweller is the most affected by tourism developments along the coast and so the case study area, Korolevu, was chosen to provide a typical example of how such large scale, unsustainable, coastal developments have in the past, because of flaws in the present system, were often established with little appreciation for the traditions, protocols and more sustainable environmental management practices of the traditional local people. Now that the international community is beginning to recognise the importance of providing sustainable development which preserves the environment in the fullest sense, including the cultural environment into which development is placed, the Government of Fiji is starting to recognise the importance of applying such strategies as Caring for the Earth (IUCN/UNEP/WWF 1991) and Agenda 21 (Sitarz 1993) to the situation in Fiji. The findings of this thesis result in various reforms which have the achievement of sustainable development practices in the Fijian cultural context as the underlying focus. These reforms emphasise the need to recognise and implement indigenous rights into the environmental planning framework at policy, institutional and legal levels. The incorporation of the indigenous Fijian's interests in this framework is an essential component to providing sustainable practices in Fiji. This inclusion can only be achieved by providing meaningful public participation opportunities for such communities. Ultimately, the IUCN/UNEP/WWF (1991) and Sitarz (1993) documents and, in addition, New Zealand's Resource Management Act (1992) collectively provide a useful model out of which the Fiji Government could develop its own environmental management regime which promotes sustainable development through the identification, avoidance, mitigation and remedying of the many environmental problems encountered in Fiji's coastal environment.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Participation of women in development, with particular emphasis on people participation in the Fiji pine forestry sector : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Master of Philosophy ... Development Studies, Massey University
    (Massey University, 1993) Fellmann, Felix
    The study examines the degree and authenticity of women's and men's participation at four levels of the development arena: The development organisations of Development Assistance Countries (DAC), the New Zealand Development Cooperation Division of the Ministry of External Relations and Trade (MERT), the Fiji Pine Limited and the two participating case study villages of the Fiji Pine project; Vakabull and Tau. The thesis starts with the premise that the degree of participation depends on the question: who controls the central institutions of a given society? For the development organisations of the Development Assistance Countries, strongly positive, significant correlations were seen between the independent variable of the Proportion of Women Parliamentarians and the dependent variables of the UNDP Gender Index, Proportion of GNP spent on Development cooperation and the Proportion of Development Budget spent on Women in Development. These results present strong evidence that a high proportion of women power-holders are influential in improving development solidarity and gender equality at the policy level. Compared to most Development Assistance countries, nominal women's representation in the Ministry of External Relations and Trade of New Zealand's Development Cooperation Division was above average with an increasing number of women in mid-hierarchy positions. Overall, the study of the Development Cooperation Division found a low level of gender awareness and a high variability of conceptual understanding of participation among the survey participants. Within the organisation of Fiji Pine Limited significant inequality was found in regard to women's access to training. Furthermore, as was the case with the Development Cooperation Division, the degree of gender awareness was low and the conceptual understanding of participation highly variable among the survey participants. The village case study found that for women, patriarchy is most strongly pronounced during adolescent, early marriage and the reproduction phase, and that patriarchal control reduced with age. Women were found to participate to a low degree, and in a passive mode in project implementation. While women had access to most of the project's inputs and benefits, they practically never had control over them. Overall, the men and women of Vakabull and Tau villages were participating in a passive mode which was characterised by minimal information flow, little project related knowledge, little project co-responsibility and inadequate conflict solving structures. The study found that women could be more actively involved in the tree nurseries, tree planting and tree weeding in the area of independent contractors. The second avenue for active women's participation was professional women extension workers, forestry managers and project administrators. Overall, the thesis confirmed the view that the degree of participation in development is a function of the importance of the roles played by gender in their society's central institutions.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Self reliance and the YMCA's of Fiji and Western Samoa : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Masters of Philosophy degree in Development Studies
    (Massey University, 1995) Oliver, Dennis
    The role of Non-Government Organisations (NGO's) in the process of development in Third World countries has become a focus of attention over the last decade. Their work is seen as an important contribution in the development of the human resource. Most NGO's have become users of overseas aid. In recent years they have been challenged by the overseas funding agencies to become financially self-reliant. This study enquires about the nature of the meaning of the concept of self-reliance, whether it is a universally held value or whether it is a logical by-product of the world capitalist system. The YMCA's of Fiji and Western Samoa are used as case studies along with some other NGO's in Fiji and Western Samoa. The study concludes that the YMCA of Western Samoa is not likely to become more than fifty percent financially self-reliant because of a severely limited resource base, especially the absence of a sizable middle class. It is also immersed in a national climate of dependency from the family, community and government level. The YMCA of Fiji is making progress and will in all likelihood achieve operational financial self-reliance but in setting its goals on self-reliance it has been captured by the middle class and has reduced its programme with the poor and the rural people.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Paid domestic work and labour rights in Fiji : a case study : a thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2006) Duncan, Lynda
    This research explores the experiences of paid domestic workers and their expatriate employers in Fiji to enable further understanding of employment conditions in the informal work sector, a sector characterised by the absence of labour laws and employment regulation. The study investigates the perspectives of both domestic workers and employers on the employment relationship, conditions of work and the economic opportunity provided by this type of wage work. Responses obtained from individual interviews with domestic workers and expatriate employers were analysed to develop themes relating to the employment of domestic workers. These themes centre on the working terms and conditions of paid domestic workers, the nature of the employment relationship, and perceptions of employment law and labour rights for domestic workers. The results of the research show that employment laws that specify worker entitlements and employer obligations are not always necessary to ensure decent working conditions. This contrasts with conclusions reached in other studies on paid domestic work, which have found that the private, isolated nature of the employment arrangement and the absence of formal labour protection have contributed to a particularly exploitative employment environment. Paid domestic workers were provided with better working conditions than they had experienced in the formal sector and generally enjoyed a positive relationship with their employer. The experience of expatriate employers of employment conditions in their home countries played a significant role in this outcome. However, it is clear that wage workers in the informal sector are reliant on employer goodwill and integrity in determining working conditions. This finding points to a need for some form of regulation of working conditions in the informal sector and further research to determine how regulation might be achieved without disrupting the viability of economic opportunities within the sector.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The factors and causes for the failure of states in the South Pacific : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Defence and Strategic Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2002) Leske, Samuel Wade
    The modern notion of the state has had a difficult time in permeating the South Pacific. The problem is that the tiny South Pacific communities are in many ways simply too small to act as states in the traditional sense. Where this combines with severe ethnic and economic problems it is a powder keg that can result in a state's failure. The Pacific is clearly the most important region in New Zealand's immediate area of direct strategic interest, as it is in that region that all of New Zealand's goods must flow to reach the lucrative markets of the world. It is also through this region that the threats to New Zealand must pass. These threats are not necessarily foreign military forces, but things which can indirectly pose a threat to New Zealand's sovereignty such as the detrimental influence of the drugs trade on our society, the proximity of vulnerable economics to organised crime cartels and the risks, and problems associated with displaced persons forced from their Pacific homes in the wake of a state's collapse. A state's failure in New Zealand's area of direct strategic interest would pose a significant threat to New Zealand's territorial and economic security. To preserve New Zealand's sovereignty and to assist in protecting those within our area of strategic interest, New Zealand needs to be able to recognise those factors which can trigger a substantial failure within a state. An economically vulnerable state can be just a bigger threat to New Zealand as a violently imploding one. To understand and predict the possible outcomes for states in the South Pacific the idea of the state must be first understood. The inception of the modern state following the Treaty of Westphalia is a good place to start. Issues of sovereignty and ethnicity need to be considered when examining the state but despite these major issues the definition of a state can always be linked back to the ability of the controlling entity to exercise a monopoly of violence over its subjects. This forms the basis of the definition of the state and as an indicator used to determine if a state is failing or not. Though the monopoly of violence is a good indicator it is not the cause. There must be a number of factors that allow a state's controlling entity to loose control. These factors lead to a competition between groups that want to gain the ability to exercise a monopoly of violence over the state. The result of this competition is civil war, instability and ultimately the complete collapse of the societal and economic structure of the state.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Environmental management in Fiji : a socio-political exploration of global, regional and state dynamics : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2001) Turnbull, Iéré Jane
    The techniques of environmental impact assessment, environmental planning and protected areas are manifestations of the cultural modernisation of western society with its growth of rationality, bureaucratisation and the centrality accorded to science. Environmental impact assessment and planning techniques are also part of a growing international perspective on environmentalism that is moving towards common environmental standards and policies. The concept of formally protected areas is being subsumed into this globalist perspective, part of a scientifically-based discourse that argues loss of biodiversity is a global issue requiring a global solution. Global environmentalism accounts for the way the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) promotes these modern environmental management techniques to relatively undeveloped Pacific island countries. It also accounts for the way that SPREP's discourse normalises the involvement of outsiders in Pacific island environmental management. But neither global environmentalism nor cultural modernisation account for the limited way that the state in Fiji, one the most developed Pacific island countries, has practised these techniques. Neither does the search for sustainable development, topical amongst the development assistance agencies funding environmental projects in the South Pacific. The Fijian state does not actively control adverse environmental effects from economic growth. Economic and class division amongst indigenous Fijians has shaped the state's environmental management. Fiji has a hierarchical, hereditary chiefly system promoted as the basis of collective identity and culture, and a wise, unifying and stabilising influence. The systems of land tenure and rent distribution for native land leases adopted by the colonial administration have made many chiefs wealthy, and many have participated in commerce. Many have also held political power. These chiefly élite have a vested interest in both economic development and the political, land tenure and rent distribution systems. They have been able to use these systems to manipulate public opinion within their own institutions and land-owning constituencies. The state has applied environmental management in ways that meet the basic expectations of a modern state, while at the same time ensuring its efforts do not threaten its power base among the indigenous Fijians by bringing the communal ideal into conflict with the discourse of economic development.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The 1960 Fiji sugar dispute : the cane growers versus the CSR Company : a thesis presented ... for the degree of Master of Arts in History
    (Massey University, 1970) Charan, Prem K
    Sugar is Fiji's chief export and accounts for over eighty per cent of its total export earnings. The set up of the Fijian sugar industry is perhaps unique in the world. The buying and processing of cane as well as the distribution of sugar up until 1962 were entirely in the hands of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (usually referred to as the CSR or the Company) of Australia. The Company was also the owner or lessee of nearly half of the colony's total cane lands which were leased or sub-leased to over 5,200 small Indian tenant farmers. In its milling operations and transport network the CSR employed over 2,500 workers. Thus the CSR enjoyed a monopoly in the manufacture and distribution of sugar as well as holding an oligopoly as far as control of cane lands was concerned. From this strong position it could deal with the cane farmers successfully over matters such as cane payments to the farmers or conditions regarding harvesting and transporting of cane to its mills. If the cane growers failed to reach a favourable agreement with the CSR over the sale and purchase of cane they were faced with the unenviable position of having in hand a commercial crop with no buyers. The growers' position was aggravated by the fact that the cane crop deteriorated if it was not harvested in season and further it remained at the mercy of floods, hurricanes, droughts or even fires which were not uncommon occurences in the sugar districts. The livelihood of over 80 percent of the Indian farmers depended solely upon the income derived from the sales of sugar cane which brought by far the biggest return of any other crop. Sugar cane growing thus dominated the farming activities of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu's western coastal plains, the only plains large enough for extensive agricultural use.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The breeding biology of two populations of the white-rumped swiftlet (Aerodramus spodiopygius assimilis) in Fiji and (Aerodramus spodiopygius chillagoensis) in Queensland, with special reference to factors that regulate clutch size in birds : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1987) Tarburton, Michael Kenneth
    White-rumped Swiftlets Aerodramus spodiopygius (Apodidae) build nests of vegetable material and cement (from their saliva) in the dark sections of caves at Chillagoe in Queensland, Australia, and in Fiji. Fijian colonies average 1,762 nests while the colonies at Chillagoe contained an average of 77 nests. Breeding takes place between September and March in Fiji, and from October to March at Chillagoe. There is no sexual dimorphism and both sexes share in incubation and the feeding of nestlings. At Chillagoe the clutch is one egg whereas in Fiji it is two eggs laid three to five days apart. At Chillagoe incubation took 27. 8 days in the poor year and 26.6 days in the good year. In Fiji incubation averaged 23 days and 58% of eggs hatched compared to 64% of eggs at Chillagoe. The Fijian birds successfully fledged an average of 92%, a breeding success of 53% or 1.1 young fledged per breeding pair. From the two single-chick broods the birds at Chillagoe fledged 69%. a breeding success of 44% or 0.9 young fledged per pair in the good breeding season. In the poor year at Chillagoe hatching success was 60%. fledging success was 50%, reducing breeding success to 30%. At Chillagoe the fledging period was increased from 46.9 days in the good year to 49.8 days in the poor year. At both locations most chick mortality resulted from chicks falling from their nests. Lost eggs or chicks were normally replaced by eight to fourteen days. Chicks in Fiji were fed an average of 2.2 times a day, whereas those at Chillagoe were fed an average of 5.2 times a day in the good season and 3.0 times a day in the poor season. Placing the data for this species with those for other species of apodids shows a positive correlation between egg size and adult size and a negative correlation between feeding frequency and the nestling period. Producing a third egg would not benefit the Fijian Swiftlet, which could not hatch significantly more eggs when given a third egg and could not fledge significantly more chicks when given three chicks instead of their normal brood of two. Fijian birds fed the artificially enlarged broods more frequently than normal sized broods, but neither the number of feeds per chick nor the number of chicks fledged in the larger broods was increased. Parents are apparently maximising the number of fledglings that they can raise. It is suggested that when there is a food shortage in the breeding season some passerines will lose more newly fledged chicks than normal whereas White-rumped Swiftlets in Fiji will lose more nestlings than normal. Nest size is not restricting clutch size as swiflets at Chillagoe did not raise more young when their nests were enlarged, and predators cannot be restricting clutch size because their nests are in total darkness. The swiftlets at Chillagoe are on the "mainland" yet produce a smaller clutch than those on the Fiji Islands. This is the reverse of predictions from the theory of "competitive release" on islands, therefore this theory cannot be used to explain the smaller clutch size of the birds at Chillagoe. The remaining factor is the food supply which is controlled by the occurrence of rain.The abundance of aerial insects was greater during days when rain fell. Adult swiftlets gathered less food in the dry season and in the dry periods between rain, and chicks put on more weight during rain periods, indicating that food was the critical factor restricting chick growth. Additionally, artifici.ally enlarged broods grew more slowly and never fledged more chicks than single-chick broods. This demonstrates that the abundance of food during the breeding season is the factor that not only regulates chick growth but also restricts clutch size. The food supply at Chillagoe does not last long enough for swiftlets to raise two single-chick broods, but it does last long enough for a unique strategy to have been developed which allows them to raise two chicks without producing a two-chick brood. This strategy involves the female laying the second egg after the first chick is fully feathered so that the first chick completes most of the incubation of the egg. The second egg hatches after the first chick fledges. The timing of laying the second egg leaves both parents free to forage for one chick only and allows them to raise two chicks in the shortened breeding (rainy) season that is characteristic of the savannah.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    An evaluation of the role and effects of tourism policies on the development and growth of the tourist industry in New Zealand and in Fiji : a comparative study : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Studies at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1982) Taal, Alieu Badara Saja
    [Please note: this is a shortened version of the abstract which is very long.] This thesis is an examination of the proposition that tourism development is to a great extent dependent upon the effectiveness of government tourism policies and government tourism organisations. Put another way, the greater the degree of effectiveness of tourism policies and organisations. the greater the degree of tourist industry development. Tourism policies and organisations are seen here as playing functional roles towards the development of the tourist industry. There are two basic hypotheses to be tested in the thesis, namely: (a) There are causal relations between tourism organisations and policies, and tourist industry development. (b) There are evaluable functions that tourism policies and organisations play in the development of the tourist industry. To test the validity of the above propositions, government tourism policies and organisations in New Zealand and Fiji are researched. analysed and evaluated.