King tide hits Lese Kavora

COVER STORY

By MARTIN LIRI
OUR parents scolded us when we tried to drag the canoe along the sand or mud from the shoreline to the beach.
That is according to Camilo Ekari, now 66 years old, as he recited some of the practices that seem normal these days.
At that time and as a Lese Kavora teenager some 50 years ago, Camilo Ekari, never fully understood why it was a practice never allowed.
To him that was the easier and more logically way to move the canoe up to the beach so that the tide didn’t take it away overnight.
It took him many years after he gone through secondary school in Mainohana, Bereina in the Central Province, then later onto Sogeri National High School and subsequently to University of Technology – that all these seemingly simple practices made more sense to him.
There are many other lessons he learnt from his parents – father Ekari Sareako and Mirisa Kauvu, who have both passed on.
Like many other parents from that era in the 1960s, they taught their children many important lessons in life.
“We were scolded, then ordered to move the canoes up the beach using logs that acted as levers,” Camilo said.
But if there were many of them – they would lift the canoes and carry them up to the beach.
When you drag it up the beach the indents left in the sand by that action – was giving the tide a leeway to make its way over the beach and into the village – something he learned much later in life.
It was those kinds of practices that doubled up as preventative measures to ensure that the tide was kept out from infiltrating the village.
These were some of the stories shared as the Lese Kavora villagers like Camilo, and others from the Gulf, gathered recently in Port Moresby to discuss initiatives to help their relatives back home.
They were responding to an emergency call to assist their village which was struck by a rather unprecedented king tide on March 10, 2024.
“In my 66 years I have never seen anything like what happened recently,” Camilo said.

Over 200 people were affected when the king tide went over the sand banks and infiltrated the village which was under water – up to knee height level.
Kavora is one of the five Lese villages along the coastlines of the Gulf of Papua, which is situated along the southern coast of Papua New Guinea. They used to be part of the traditional village known as Isouposa, well before the arrival of the missionaries in the 1800s.
The village is now part of local history, and which its descendants refer to as “Papa Karikara” in the Toaripi language, is an interesting fact that is bound to become relevant in landowner conversations.
The PNG LNG pipeline, that connects to Port Moresby, travels along waters that these Lese villages, Miaru, Iokea and Sepoe villages – which form the Moripi tribe – use as traditional fishing grounds. The second project, Papua LNG is expected to have two pipelines run along the same route, posing interesting questions on what kind of environmental effects these pipelines will have on the traditional fishing practices and the marine life that uses these waters.
The effects of climate change forced villages to relocate inland which saw the establishment of Oalai as Avihara, Ilava and Kavora disintegrated into separate villages.
Kavora is nestled on a delta-like landmass surrounded by waterways that connect to the greater Miaru river and the mouth on the Lese side.
In the 1960 and 70s during the years when Co-operative Societies were vibrant business models, Lese villages had cargo and passenger boats regularly travel this waterway.

Lese Avihara, which was also affected by the King Tide on March 10, used to host a very busy port where cargo boats offloaded wholesale goods for the co-operative run wholesale and retail outlets there. The boats would travel river to Oalai which was an equally busy point as the Lese Catholic Mission beside its spiritual responsibilities, also had a well stocked tradestore and looked after the airstrip that serviced weekly flights.
Lese villages were very active producers of copra and tonnes of these was the reason why these boats frequented this area.
The other Lese village – Hapa – took its name from the English word harbour, which is where the wharf was situated.
Considerations to dredge the waterway among other initiatives are bound to spring up in discussions as alternative solutions to address the effects of raising sea levels in the area.
That fateful day on March 10 has made those conversations more urgent now as long term solutions move up the priority list for the people of this area.
The Kavora and Avihara villagers were to a certain extent fortunate that the tide struck at around 11am during the day so they were able to monitor it. No lives were lost.
Usual practice is that when a usual tide hits every villager is hard at work trying their utmost best to use spades and shovels to move ground to stop the water from infiltrating further into upper ground.
But the villagers were no match to the unusual high tide at 11am on March 10 as it worked its way past barriers that would in the past stop it.
The 200-plus Kavora people – from children to adults – were helpless as they watched their sandy village infiltrated by water.
Kavora actually has a estimated population of close to 800 – most of whom live in Port Moresby and other parts of PNG and overseas.
Food crops – cassava, sugarcanes, vegetables, and bananas – grown near each household were now under serious threat of dying because of the saltwater effects. Betel nut trees, breadfruit trees, citrus trees were also under threat as well.
As the tide went out the villagers moved into salvaging mode trying to prevent permanent damage to their plants.
According to a committee member of the Lese Kavora Ma Taiva (High Tide) Committee Damien Liri, it had rained very heavily that time as well.
The villagers did something that sounded quite weird but seemed sensible to them in a desperate attempt salvage the survival of their most important plants.
“So they (villagers) used water from their water tanks (which are mainly reserved for drinking), pouring these into the ground where the betel nut and breadfruit trees stood.”
Only time will tell over the next few weeks if they were successful in saving those plants which have bigger roots deep into the ground.
Those smaller ones whose roots do not go that deep were completed destroyed.
On March 17 a meeting was organised at Gerehu in Port Moresby to discuss ways to assist the stricken villagers. Gulf Governor Sir Christopher Haiveta, from Lese Oalai village, but who has plenty of close relatives in Kavora, attended the meeting.
The Kavora Siroi Ma Taiva Committee, which had been put together last year to raise funds to find ways to prevent the water infiltrating the village – was endorsed with the first task now to spearhead the relief efforts.
Headed by chairman Alex Anthony, the villagers endorsed the committee which also voted in well known musician Basil Greg as the vice chairman. The rest of the committee is James Hapea (secretary), Mary Oaseoka Wia (treasurer), Damien Liri, George Hairoe, Gustave Ivarature, Alan Lei Eri and Lincoln Lafe.
At the Gerehu meeting Governor Haiveta said he was assisting Lese Kavora in an individual capacity because of his bloodlines.
However, various Gulf Provincial Disaster Committee personnel attended the Gerehu meeting and praised the efforts of the Kavora villagers which they would share with other parts of Gulf.
Almost 40 other parts of Gulf were struck by disaster, especially flooding during the past couple of months and Governor Haiveta and his team are implementing a provincial action plan that they hatched to counter the disaster cases.
Contributions in cash and kind from Haiveta and Kerema Open MP Thomas Opa for the relief efforts have been appreciated by the villagers. Families from Kavora, Avihara, Oalai and others who have contributed food and bottled water to the relief efforts have been thanked for their support as first lot of supplies arrived in Kavora on March 20.
The next day the food was distributed in the middle of the village, which was now dry.
The Gulf Community in Brisbane and other parts of Australia have made contact to assist. A second relief supply is being organised for next week, which is also intended to accommodate contributions from those who missed the first supply efforts. During the Gerehu meeting there were points raised about the long-term plans for Kavora. There have been suggestions of relocation to the high ground which is where the Trans Highway passes through connecting Port Moresby to the Gulf capital of Kerema.
But traditional lands have been demarcated in small allotments so the kavora village cannot settle as a communal group in one large block like their current village setting.
Therefore, relocation would see the complete demise of Lese Kavora as a village – a fact that most are quite reluctant to even contemplate.

• Freelance writer Martin Liri comes from Lese Kavora.