For me, this journey really began seven years ago, when I first visited a small island called Tavewa in the Yasawas chain NE of the main Fijian island of Viti Levu (literally "big land").

In mid-January, I returned to see how things had changed an learn how the islanders and surrounding coral reefs deal with climate and land use pressure. I imagined returning many times over the past several years, but refrained, out of fear of spoiling an old memory.

I am will one day write a long piece about Tavewa. Here, I've included a snippet from my notes on a visit to a village on a neighbouring islands:

On one of my last days on Tavewa, I organized a short morning visit to the village of Matacawalevu on the island of the same name, with their agricultural officer. I had waited two days for the visit, and the events of the day made me wonder if it would take two more. As I sat by the coconut trees after breakfast, well-defined vertical cloud formed across the strait, like a thick piece of PVC piping stretching down from the fuzzy clouds above. Moments later it grew into the long cord of a water spout, the aquatic equivalent of a tornado that can bring water, fish and unsuspecting boaters into the air. It lasted less than a minute, not long enough for me to run to my bure and get my camera.

Just as the excitement over the water spout died, the outboard on the Coralview boat caught fire, causing a mixture of laughter and panic onshore. With the Coralview boat out or order, large billowing flames will do that, we were able to arrange for the agricultural officer, Sakeasa "Sake" Ralulu, to pick me up himself that afternoon. I lucked out and found the rare farmer who also happens to work for a water taxi service.

Sake, a young indigenous Fijian who laughs heartily at his own jokes, is trained as an agronomist and was eager to share his knowledge and show off to others that a scientist was visiting. Upon arrival at the village, we proceeded directly to a small house where I presented my sevusevu - some yaqona for making kava - to an elder. We then sat down in the Chief's hut for the traditional kava ceremony, though not with my kava or in my honour. The local minister was visiting to attend a birthday and shaving celebration that night. Some villages hold a ceremony to commemorate the first time a young boy shaves: an uncle with a steady hand usually gets the first stroke.

As we sat in the chief's hut and walked around the village, I asked Sake about the local agricultural practices and the vulnerability to the fickle weather of the Yasawas. The people of Matacawalevu grow a limited array of crops for local consumption: some hardy crops likes tavioka (cassava) and yams that can grow in the poorest and driest of soils, a mixture of fruits (breadfruit, mango, pawpaw or papaya, bananas), and few veggies like eggplant. The rest of the village's food comes from the local waters and coconut trees planted many years before. Only when there is a surplus are crops or fish sold for profit, usually to the local resorts, or bartered for items like sugar.

Each year, the crops like cassava and yams are planted by the villagers only when they receive word the Chief has planted his crops. The event is marked by a large celebration, featuring the usual array of kava, food and prayers. At the centre of the celebration are the prayers devoted to the weather. The villagers believe that if the rains do not come that year, it is because someone did not have faith. If everyone had truly believed in their prayers, it would have rained. So when there is a drought, blame gets shifted around the village, sometimes even falling on the minister.

As I walked past the large grassy area between the Chief's original hut, a preserved grassy mound with a few old support beams, and the village church, Sake summed up the philosophy: "Simon, we believe in two things: The chief and the church". If they listen the chief, whose planting decision is based on good advice, and believe that God will bring the rains, there will be a good harvest.

With faith the rain is in God's hands, Saki concentrates on managing the land. After years of persuasion, he finally convinced the village to begin planting at a different site, amongst some coconut trees on the north end of the island, and allow the existing field to go fallow for a time. Cassava and yams are exhaustive crops that can grow in the worst conditions, sucking every last drop of water and nutrient out the soil. During droughts, Saki has found that the soil in the existing planting area can dry completely and crack. By leaving it fallow for some time, he hopes the original planting area can be replenished with moisture and nutrients.

The improved management of their land will also make a big difference in the years the rains, or the prayers, fail.

One final note:

The elders in the village speak of the weather being hotter and drier than in the past. Saki wondered whether the elders perceive this worsening of the weather conditions due more to the struggle to extract food for an increasing village population and associated declines in soil quality than to an actual change in weather. His interpretation is very possible. Each family controls a portion of land in the village, which is distributed among their offspring. In the typically large Fijian families, that sometimes means the next generation is growing food for ten people, rather than two, from the same area of land. This could lead to the perception that the conditions for growing crops are worsening, either because of the perceived challenges of feeding more people, or because feeding more people has directly reduced soil quality and affected the growing conditions.

Chances are Saki and the elders are both correct. Yes, anecdotal observations of changes in climate can be very suspect: how many of us have parents who speak of battling arctic temperatures and monstrous snowbanks on the ten mile walk to school as a child? (I write that with apologies to my own parents, who grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where it very well may have been that cold outside). But the climate change officer at the Fijian Department of the Environment told me their research has shown the observations of elders in villages on Viti Levu (the main Fijian island) turned out to be astonishingly accurate. She spoke to one ninety-year old man who predicts the arrival of a cyclone by watching the stars, and has been as, if not more, accurate than the weather service.