21 Fiji
McKenzie
People don’t realise that if you’re destroying mangroves, you’re making the climate issue worse
Over the past four decades, at least 54 floods have surged through Nadi, damaging homes, businesses and displacing thousands of people, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). At the same time, Fiji has allowed tourism developers to clear the mangrove forests nearby that once limited the damage caused by floods.
In the 1980s and 1990s Fiji began offering international hotel chains an “attractive package of incentives, including tax-free status for 20 years.
Denarau Island was transformed into a tourist hub with a collection of five-star hotels operated by brands including Marriott, Hilton and Wyndham, as well as an 18-hole golf course, shopping malls and a marina.
Between 2000 and 2018, a study found that 120 hectares of mangroves were destroyed by tourism development in Ba province, where Nadi is located: a third of all mangrove deforestation in the region.