The Duavata Sustainable Tourism Collective is a Fiji-based tourism network. As part of the Blue Pacific Continent, we are the traditional custodians of the largest ocean on the planet. A healthy planet relies on a healthy Pacific Ocean and traditional knowledge has enabled generations of Pacific Islanders to have a significant role in the conservation, management and sustainable use of the ocean and its resources. What happens on land affects our marine environment. Traditional indigenous landowners are the steward of the majority of land in Fiji and we partner to support the sustainable management of our land.
As an island nation on the frontline of the impacts of climate change we believe that it is incumbent on every nation, business, organisation and individual to do their part in ensuring that we address the climate crisis facing our planet. Aligned to the policies of our government, we declare a climate emergency.
We are the collective voice of like-minded tourism operators who believe that tourism has a responsibility to enhance the environment and cultural heritage.
Sustainable tourism is embedded in the operations of all of our members. Our values and principles highlight the critical importance that ecosystem health plays in our ability to manage the changes to the climate that we are already experiencing.
Duavata values and principles
- Sustainable Tourism is the interconnection between experiences within local communities, the environment and culture.
- We promote the leadership and traditional practices of resource owners in managing their vanua.
- We offer experiences that are founded on and interconnected with the environment and its conservation.
- We strive to integrate cultural heritage and cultural industries into our experiences. We see travel as a learning experience and a respectful exchange of ideas.
- We expect our guests to give back more than they take.
- We strive to continuously enhance the human and natural resources required for the future through our everyday sustainability and conservation practices.
What we do
- We are the collective voice of like-minded tourism operators who believe that tourism has a responsibility to enhance the environment and cultural heritage.
- We provide peer support to each other to continuously improve our own and collective practices. We support peer to peer learning and training between operators and their community partners on specific sustainability measures (nursery development, waste management, marine conservation, sustainable sourcing etc).
- We provide mentoring support to others within the industry and seek to encourage more participation in sustainable tourism.
Our commitments
We’ve signed up to Tourism Declares, an initiative that supports tourism businesses, organisations and individuals in declaring a climate emergency and taking purposeful action to reduce their carbon emissions as per the advice from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030.
Like all signatories, we have committed to the following five actions:
- Develop a ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ within the next 12 months, which sets out our intentions to reduce carbon emissions over the next decade.
- Share an initial public declaration of our ‘Climate Emergency Plan’, and update on progress each year.
- Accept current IPCC advice stating the need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030 in order to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming. We’ll ensure our ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ represents actions designed to achieve this as a minimum, through delivering transparent, measurable and increasing reductions in the total carbon emissions per customer arising from our operations and the travel services sold by us.
- Encourage our suppliers and partners to make the same declaration; sharing best practice amongst peers; and actively participate in the Tourism Declares community
- Advocate for change. We recognise the need for system change across the industry to accelerate a just transition towards carbon-free tourism.
Download: Duavata Sustainable Tourism Collective climate emergency declaration
