Voted the Happiest Country on Earth in 2006, Vanuatu has a crisis in the far north of its tropical islands. Parents and their live coconut crabs are left stranded as the only airline servicing the Torres Island area, refuse to carry the live crabs.
Villagers have been traveling to the airfield for the once-a-week flight, for the past month, with their cargo of live coconut crabs, anxiously meeting the plane each time it lands. They are told repeatedly there is no space available for the crabs to be air lifted to Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu.
“The villagers urgently need the crabs to be sold so they have the cash to pay their school fees,” Michael Rahurou told us. “Each time the villagers make the unsuccessful journey and the airline agent sends the villagers home again, some more crabs die and have to be replaced.” The villagers have the money to pay for the freight, but the airline is adamant in its refusal to help the local people.
The real tragedy is these crabs are highly prized by the tourist-serving restaurants in Vila. In some areas of Vanuatu islands, these valuable crabs are on the endangered list, but not in the Torres Islands area.
A spokesman for Air Vanuatu said: “We cannot carry the live coconut crabs as they are not in a suitable container to be freighted. Coconut crabs have the ability to nip off a finger, so it is important the crabs are securely tied and packaged.”
When coconut crabs are secured for sale, by the villagers, they are tightly trussed up by coconut palm leaf strips. It would be virtually impossible to believe that a coconut crab would be able to free itself from its bindings. The crabs are then securely packaged into a traditional woven coconut leaf basket.
This is not a new problem. Several years ago the villagers raised the same complaint with Air Vanuatu. As the domestic side of the airline is known to be the most lucrative part of their entire operation, surely Air Vanuatu would be capable of supplying a suitable container to the villagers, to transport their live coconut crabs. Containers could be purchased for under $Au20 each (retail) and could be recycled. After all airlines supply containers for other things like transporting food, or pets etc on international trips.
In Vanuatu there is no free education and when parents have no ability to raise the funds for the school fees, children go uneducated. These parents subsist on less than $1 per day.
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Tags: air vanuatu, coconut crabs, coconut crabs endangered species, education, live coconut crabs, Port Vila, South Pacific, torres islands, tropical islands, tropical islands of Vanuatu, Vanuatu
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