Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations in New York and Chair of the Pacific Small Island Developing States Filipo Tarakinikini
The Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations in New York and Chair of the Pacific Small Island Developing States, Filipo Tarakinikini says that while debate on the proposed $1.4 billion waste-to-energy incinerator at Vuda-Saweni is healthy, legitimate, and necessary, he stresses that what Fiji must not do is allow the urgency of its energy and waste challenges to be weaponised into acceptance of a project that was considered too dangerous for a Western Sydney suburb.
Tarakinikini calls on the Government of Fiji to ensure the Environmental Impact Assessment process is genuinely independent, scientifically rigorous, and free from commercial pressure.
He calls on UNEP, the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), and our regional partners to provide Fiji with independent technical support, and calls on every Fijian citizen — at home and in the diaspora — to engage in this debate with the seriousness it deserves.
Tarakinikini says the Fijian people deserve complete, honest, and scientifically grounded information — not marketing brochures dressed up as environmental assessments.
Tarakinikini says he writes this not as a diplomat managing a talking point, but as a Fijian son — someone whose roots run deep into the soil of this archipelago, whose people fish those same waters off the Vuda coast, and whose faith teaches him that the earth we inherit is a sacred trust, not a commodity to be traded away for short-term convenience.
He says he has studied the science, examined the proponents’ track record, and he is compelled to speak plainly.
Tarakinikini says what is being proposed raises serious questions that the Government, the investors, and the international community must answer before a single shovel breaks ground.
He asks why was this project rejected in Australia and why is Ian Malouf bringing this project to Fiji.
Tarakinikini says the answer is not flattering as Malouf’s company, The Next Generation Pty Ltd, spent over seven years attempting to build this same type of incinerator at Eastern Creek in Western Sydney.
He says in 2019, after sustained community opposition and independent scrutiny, the NSW Independent Planning Commission formally cancelled the application.
Tarakinikini says their ruling was unambiguous: the project was “not in the public interest because there is uncertainty around the project’s impacts on air quality, water quality and human health.”
He adds on the very same day that decision was handed down, a magistrate fined Malouf’s Dial A Dump company for failing to properly cover asbestos waste — a disposal standards violation that speaks directly to whether this operator can be trusted to manage hazardous materials responsibly.
Tarakinikini says if this project could not meet Australia’s environmental and health standards — and was rejected after seven years of scrutiny by one of the most sophisticated planning systems in the world — why should Fiji, with far less regulatory infrastructure, accept it.
He says waste-to-energy incineration is marketed as clean, modern, and renewable however the independent science tells a different story.
Tarakinikini says burning 900,000 tonnes of mixed waste annually — as this facility proposes — produces a toxic cocktail of emissions.
He says these include dioxins and furans (among the most dangerous compounds known to medicine), polychlorinated biphenyls, PFAS “forever chemicals,” heavy metals including mercury and lead, and ultrafine particulates that pass through conventional filters.
Tarakinikini says studies of communities living near incinerators have found elevated rates of cancer, respiratory disease, miscarriage, premature birth, and congenital abnormalities.
He stresses that dioxins are of particular concern for a coastal fishing and farming community like Vuda-Saweni.
He says they are lipophilic — they accumulate in fat tissue and move up the food chain.
Tarakinikini says fish, shellfish, locally produced vegetables, and dairy all become vectors.
He says the World Health Organization has documented how farmers living near incinerators carry significantly higher blood dioxin loads than the surrounding population, precisely because of their consumption of local food.
Tarakinikini says incinerators emit more carbon dioxide per unit of electricity than coal-fired power plants.
He says this is not a renewable energy solution, it is a fossil fuel substitute wearing a green label.
Tarakinikini adds burning 900,000 tonnes of waste annually produces between 225,000 and 300,000 tonnes of highly toxic residue — fly ash and bottom ash laden with persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, and dioxins.
He says this ash does not disappear, it must be stored, managed, and contained — permanently, on Fijian soil.
Tarakinikini says the 900,000 tonnes of waste burned annually far exceeds Fiji’s own waste production
by 4 times Fiji’s own waste — the rest must be imported from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.
He says the scale of this facility is not calibrated to Fiji’s needs — it is calibrated to serve a regional waste disposal market, with Fiji as the host and the repository.
Tarakinikini says reports from Australia indicate plans to ship 150 tonnes of Australian waste to Fiji daily.
He says Fiji, which contributes less than 0.009% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which has led the world’s moral conscience on climate justice, which has championed BBNJ and the rights of ocean states at every forum — this same Fiji would become the incinerator of the Pacific, processing the waste of nations with far greater means to manage their own refuse responsibly.
Tarakinikini also says the proposed site is Vuda Point — Viseisei — the First Landing.
He says this is where our ancestors stepped ashore, and it is among the most spiritually, historically, and culturally significant sites in the entire Fijian archipelago.
He adds tourism operators, traditional landowners from Viseisei and Lauwaki, the Fiji Rugby Union, the Fiji Football Association, and tens of thousands of ordinary Fijians have said no.
Tarakinikini says their voices are not “just a few selfish people,” as the project’s proponent reportedly described them to an Australian newspaper.
He says they are the custodians of that land, and their objection carries the full weight of iTaukei sovereignty.
He says an 80MW power plant and industrial port on that coastline would not merely change the landscape, it would severe Fiji’s relationship with one of its most sacred sites — irreversibly.
Tarakinikini says he is not opposed to solving Fiji’s waste problem but the solution must be calibrated to Fiji’s scale, grounded in genuine sustainability, and must leave our children a cleaner country — not a toxic one.
He says the path forward should begin with a binding national waste management framework before any project of this scale is considered.
