Ocean Conservation & Tidalpunk

Moored on the Nuku’alofa wharf was a boat – the Uto ni Yalo – built both to honour and in the style of the great Pacific seafarers of centuries past.

Its crew had sailed from Fiji, a seven-day voyage given unkind winds, for a different sort of climate protest.

“It is a gentle but powerful reminder of what our ancestors, our forefathers, were able to achieve without fossil fuels to navigate our ocean, vast ocean,” Rufino Varea, a climate activist from the Fijian island of Rotuma said.

“Our Torres Strait Island communities are suffering the same fate as many to Pacific islands. Our houses flooded, our cemeteries being washed away and salt water contaminating drinking water."

“It’s not some vague future threat. It’s here right now.”

“Like we are talking to a wall, just a bunch of cement blocks.