Our first few weeks in Fiji have been a series of juxtapositions. Aimee and I live in an admittedly grimy, traffic ridden city but are only a bus ride away from pristine beaches. I spend my working hours researching Ocean Policy Frameworks in the South Pacific but still happily chow down on tuna which is almost assuredly undersized. Everyone has been so kind and generous since we have arrived. Our landlords gave us the last avocado off their tree our first week here.
The start to my summer at the California State Coastal Conservancy has been an exciting one with attending meetings, meeting the movers and shakers of conservation and climate adaptation in the state, conducting interesting research, and visiting projects.
Bula vinaka and hello!
It’s amazing to think we’ve been in Suva for three weeks already, or should I say, only three weeks? We’ll be here until the end of August, so although three weeks sounds like a fairly decent amount of time to spend on a tropical island, we still have a lot to accomplish, both for our CBE Summer Fellowship work at IUCN and in terms of checking off our bucket lists. I’ll describe some of our experiences and let Alex, my fellow CBE Fellow at IUCN Oceania, cover the rest.