Fiji Water Leaves Natives Perpetually Parched

Experiencing the lush Fijian tropics is like being transported back to a prehistoric time zone entirely unspoiled by supposedly good things like "civilization" and "progress." At least that's how it appeared to me while on my honeymoon just a few short years ago. While the rest of the world continues to succumb to the modern ailment known more familiarly as urban sprawl, Fiji-born frogs, birds, insects and plant life seem to lazily yawn, stretch outward and revel in the simple goodness that is Mother Nature. Fiji's human residents appear to be equally as content, perhaps because they live the type of pure, unfettered, sustainable lifestyle that we are now only just beginning to praise. While the majority of its natives navigate the area's simple roads via foot or bike, there are still occasional car sightings, but they are few and far between compared to what the Western world is intimately familiar with.

Amid rolling land spilling forth with the type of exotic emerald vegetation and vibrantly pungent flowers that one might purchase already potted in Home Depot, a single 17-mile-long aquifer located in the Yaqara Calley of Viti Levu supplies the world's most beloved fresh, pure H20 in distinctive rectangular heavyweight Chinese plastic bottles. Of course, everyone's got to make ends meet...so it makes sense that the far off South Pacific island would sell such a valuable resource to the rest of the world. The problem is that the only one who is truly cleaning up is the Fiji Water company and well beyond their environmental transgressions and entirely non-green doings, it is difficult not to sit slack jawed when you find out what has been happening to the natives. As per Anna Lenzer's recent Mother Jones article, it is more than surprising to learn that the U.S. owned operation has "near-exclusive access" to the very same pure and clean water that the rest of the world happily chugs. The remaining water that Fiji island residents have access to is so contaminated that it is deemed unfit for human consumption, and rightfully so since parasitic infections and typhoid outbreaks occur on a regular basis.

Mother Jones' writer went behind the scenes, noting the absurd realities that plague the town of Rakiraki, home to the Fiji Water bottling facility. From regular droughts, inadequate wells, pipes so old that they are crumbling, water rations hovering around 4 gallons each week per family, water supplies clogged with leaves, frogs & detritis to water treatment plants that are either flooded or completely dysfunctional, it would appear that living on the island of Fiji is anything but blissful or adequately hydrated. However, Fiji Water's Former Senior VP of Sustainable Growth, Thomas Mooney, seems to think that the company is their knight in shining armour."When someone buys a bottle of Fiji," he told the U.S. News & World Report, "they're buying prosperity for the country..." whereas without Fiji Water, "Fiji is kind of screwed." By many accounts, it is actually their consistent silence while bearing witness to the Fijian government's continued human rights violations, coupled with their steadfast draining of Fiji's one pristine source of water that is truly flipping off the tiny island nation and its people.