DRUA – Fiji’s incredible legacy of naval architectural excellence.
Peter Nuttall Micronesian Center for Sustainable Transport, This article was published in the Fiji Sun a year ago since appearing on this blogsite. Drua Fleet of Ovalau 1855 Canoe Shed Tonga I Vola Siga Vou – (credit Island Encounters Photography) These truly are unprecedented times. Fiji, and its Pacific neighbours, are faced with two national disasters - the aftermath of Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold and the Covid19 pandemic. But a third, and possibly greatest threat, now looms large - a global economic depression likely of a magnitude unseen since the Great Depression. The effects of this will rock our vulnerable Pacific economies for the foreseeable future. One of the few silver linings from the Great Depression was the renaissance in traditional canoe building that happened in maritime Fiji and especially the Lau group. The great drua fleets that were commonplace through central Oceania had largely been dismantled by the start of the 1900s, displaced by the ne