Blending the Old Backbone with the New Economic Strength: Sugar Industry and the Tourism Sector in Fiji

Tourism has been found to positively contribute and as well play critical roles in the economic development of small island developing states of the Pacific. Before the COVID- 19 pandemic hit the globe, tourism was a major driver of the small island developing states economies, foreign exchange earnings, and employment for most Pacific Island Nations’ citizens, particularly Fiji. As a crosscutting sector, tourism in Fiji has the potential to generate shared benefits along the value chain, through linking with agriculture, fisheries, trade, and rural community development, among others. Tourism in Fiji can also serve as a catalyst for environmental protection, including waste management, promotion of circular economies, and biodiversity conservation, and contribute toward low-carbon development, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. Conversely, tourism being a resource-intensive sector has the potential to affect host countries and communities’ natural settings and cultural heritage. This chapter examines the role of traditional wisdom of marginalized smallholder Girmitiya sugarcane farmers of Fiji for environmental conservation and maintenance, for the role it plays in the resilience of the sugarcane farms and inevitably the sugar industry, and for the significance of their traditional wisdom being included in ecotourism opportunities for strengthening their income and creation of livelihood opportunities.