Fiji's historic Levuka needs help after Winston

Transcript

Business people and heritage workers in Fiji's UNESCO world heritage site of Levuka say the historic town and its people need help after Cyclone Winston.

The town on the eastern island of Ovalau sustained a lot of damage during the February storm.

Sally Round has been talking to people in Levuka.

Levuka is seen as a rare example of a Pacific colonial port town and gained a UNESCO listing three years ago. 

After Winston, an initial assessment found five historic buildings completely destroyed, 13 buildings with their roofs completely gone, and 20 needing minor repairs. 

A heritage aid worker and former chief of the Levuka Town Council Suliana Sandys says listed historic homes on the hill suffered the worst.

SULIANA SANDYS: It's put us back a few more years. Even before Cyclone Winston we had our little challenges that we were trying to overcome but now it's even more.

Fiji's post cyclone rebuild is especially tricky in Levuka as many damaged buildings need specially sawn timber to keep them looking original.

SULIANA SANDYS: It's not only physical damage but emotional damage as well. The home owners are really feeling it having lost part of their heritage.

The owner of two shops in the historic town Bhupendra Kumar says he closed one after it was inundated by high waves during Winston.

He says other building owners are also finding it a struggle to do repairs.

BHUPENDRA KUMAR: A lot of these old timbers came from the States in the old days. It's Oregon (pine). This timber, we can't get it now and unless some organisation comes in in a big way ... like for example a couple of building owners because of the damage and the flooding have decided to close down.

The Vice President of the Levuka Tourism Association John Milesi says the cyclone has set back Levuka's growing niche tourism industry.

He says after the cyclone tourist bookings fell off considerably and marketing is still proving difficult because people think the town has gone.

 JOHN MILESI: The town is just battered but the shops and the old buildings within the heritage site they're fine. You know there's bits of work needs to be done on them but I mean it's not totally wiped out like you would see some of the villages around here. It's just battered and a bit bruised.

John Milesi says the local economy needs the flow of tourists. 

JOHN MILESI: It's most important to do that to get some money going for the people on the island. All the root crops and the veges and fruit and everything all got wiped so so you have a situation where people are given rations  but that only happens once a month and so they need money to be able to go the supermarket and buy food.

But Mr Milesi is fairly optimistic and says enquiries from tourists are slowly starting to rise again.

Meanwhile Suliana Sandys says everyone needs to pull together to ensure Levuka's future.

SULIANA SANDYS: We need an engineer. We need a building planner. Although there's funds available, what has been poured in by government and other parties are not used accordingly . We do not have a heritage officer based in Levuka, we do not have a CEO for Levuka town council in place, (there's) the lack of legislation just to help us protect the conservation of the town.

Ms Sandys says the town also suffers from people not respecting the town's historic nature and she says there need to be stiffer penalties and more understanding of the town's heritage.