Jerry remembers the day he was first headhunted for the logging industry on his home island of Vanua Levu in Fiji.
He had grown up exploring, hunting and fishing in the forest around his home in Drawa village and word had spread he was a knowledgeable tree spotter. A knock on the door one morning and an invitation to show up at the timber mill led to his early career in Fiji’s logging industry.
“I had been recognised [in Fiji] as a tree spotter and I was trained as a harvesting planner ... I was surveying all around Fiji but for logging,” explained Jerry.
He understood how to access tricky ridges and gullies in Fiji’s hilly forests and was skilled at finding the perfect timber tree—like the Damanu (Fijian Kalanoa), which can also be found tall and imposing in Drawa’s expansive protected forest.
The main road on Vanua Levu from Labasa to the Drawa turnoff is a landscape pockmarked with logging coups at various stages of growth and clearing. Logging in native forest is less visible from here, but both native and plantation logging are important industry in Fiji, especially on Vanua Levu.
Between 2001–2024, 84% of all tree cover loss and forest destruction in Fiji was from the Northern (Vanua Levu) and Western regions—with 21,000 hectares of forest cleared in the Northern region during this time.
Yet once off the main road and on the narrow track to Drawa village, the vegetation thickens and soon the deeply forested Drawa Conservation Area reveals itself.
It's here that Jerry turned his skills to conservation 10 years ago when the Drawa Forest Project started, in part thanks to his grandfather who was passionate about protecting forests.
Jerry says he was a real visionary with a deep connection to nature. “He hated any tree to be cut down. He brought all the mataqali (clans) together and spearheaded the carbon project.”
Jerry was asked to lead the project, harnessing his love and knowledge of forests into something positive for the environment and his community.
“For this new area of conservation, it was a big challenge for me because harvesting and conservation are two very different things. But I really enjoy conservation, especially in protecting forest not only for us but for future generations,” he says.
“When I am in the forest, I am really happy if I can find old, old trees—the biggest tree ever. That is what I really have a passion for.”
Now, Jerry leads a team of rangers from across the mataqali that comprise the Drawa Block Community Cooperative—the owners of the forest carbon project. Usually, four rangers at a time accompany him into the forest to monitor the boundaries and report on forest health for the carbon standard.
At 21 years old Senitiki Talaebula is one of the rangers from Drawa village who heads out to the forest with Jerry whenever he gets the opportunity. Senitiki was just a kid when the project started—he’s grown up with the carbon project and conservation as part of his life.
“I came on as a ranger because I am from Drawa and I wanted to find out things about our own forest. My father was also a ranger. I am only following in his footsteps and the stories he shared in the evenings,” says Senitiki.
He’s worked with Jerry for over a year and says “there are many new things I have learnt from him ... surveying forests, GPS tracking, names of animals, names of plants. I have been to places I had never been before because of my work with Jerry.”
“We Indigenous People are connected to the forests. We [Drawa] have our totem plant—the Vono and our totem animal, the Kula (Collared Lory). We must rightfully care for them because we are connected to our natural resources, the land. We are all connected,” he says.
Jerry also emphasises the relationship between people and the forest, known as toki. “We have our name, a tree, a fish and a bird. So we are linked to nature from our ancestors,” Jerry explains.
The Drawa Conservation Area is close to 4,000 hectares of stunning Pacific rainforest, yet less than 2,000 is legally protected, which leaves the rest still vulnerable to logging. It’s the legally protected area that has been generating carbon income since the project started. Now, the forest custodians have made the decision to legally protect all the forest and expand the carbon project for the benefit of the entire community.
Preparing for this work has included surveying the additional 2,000 hectares of forest the project owners have been carefully keeping safe until now. This forest is prime logging forest—rich with thick, straight and easily accessible trees.
“A lot of logging companies are coming around asking for the forest to be logged but we are lucky and proud to be there against them to protect the forest because we know the effects of logging and what nature can provide for us in our daily life,” says Jerry.
There is plenty of work for the rangers—preparing for the project extension, as well as monitoring the boundaries of the entire conservation area. When mapping boundaries, the team will focus on ‘risk areas’ which are places where the protected forest meets neighbouring logging coups or farms.
One benefit of the carbon income is that they can pay local rangers. "We also provide training for them—practical training. I normally train them in the forest, from all those years I have been in the forest,” says Jerry.
“We mark the boundaries and record findings, including birds and rare trees that are found only in our forest. We also assess disturbance and note any invasive species because for us to know forest health, it depends on the physical presence of invasive species.”
"For my personal view, the Drawa forest is the best in the region. And I always share this with other clans who invite me, or at stakeholder meetings with other NGOs ... it’s something I am always proud of.”
Ranger teams can spend a few days or even a few weeks in the forest doing this work. Jerry explains they often “camp in caves that were used by our ancestors back in the day for hunting and fishing."
One cave Jerry and his team use is a rocky overhang on the edge of a clear stream that has provided shelter for the people of Drawa and other mataqali for countless generations.
The path to the cave is edged with wild red ginger. On one side of the rock are spiral carvings—a mark of Drawa’s ancestors and the cultural significance of the cave as place for rest and gathering over the ages.
Dinner is gathered from the forest and river: eel, freshwater prawns, river snails and otta (wild fern). Cassava is carried from the village to supplement the meal. Other than coffee and sugar, there is little else the rangers need for food.
“This is our breakfast, lunch and dinner,” says Senitki with a grin, as he returns from fishing in a deep waterhole—his bucket brimming with small eels, huge prawns and snails. Here, homemade spears and goggles are essential gear for any forest trip.
The stream Senitiki and his fellow rangers—Inoke and Kinijoti—fish from flows from the upper reaches of the conservation area down towards the village of Drawa.
The river winds past a sturdy blue house that was home to Jerry’s late grandfather, Timoti Ratusaki, and his extended family. It’s early morning as the mists roll off the foothills, when Timoti’s sister-in-law Lidiana Ravea rises early to pray with her family and prepare breakfast—steaming sweet buns cooked on the open fire and fresh lemongrass from the garden for tea.
Lidiana is proud of her forest garden, nourished by the river, rain, cool forest and fertile soil, and which provides so much of what they need.
“The land is our natural resource. It protects us and protects our lives, especially our forests. It provides the air we breathe and helps us in our everyday living,” she says.
“For me, the work done by Jerry [and the Drawa Block Cooperative] is important because they have helped uplift the livelihood in Drawa and to preserve its natural resources so that our descendants can use them in the years to come.”
Lidiana is part of a women’s group who receive carbon income from the project, money they used in Drawa to set up a small village shop. As the project progressed over the years, women across the eight participating mataqalis also invested in water and sanitation for their homes.
How carbon income is spent is decided by each of the mataqali. Jerry’s clan has been building a new community hall in Drawa and are planning for better pathways through the village.
A scholarship fund run by the Drawa Block Cooperative supports school leavers to access higher education and equipment.
The number of young people in tertiary education from the project’s villages has grown from six students in 2015 to 51 in 2025, supported in part by the community-run scholarship program.
Community members continue to rely on the forest for food, medicine and firewood—58% visit at least weekly—showing that intact forests remain essential and reduce dependence on outside and store-bought resources. And the cool forest environment supports the village gardens and farms on the agricultural reserves next to the forest.
At the end of the day, as it begins to cool and Lidiana starts thinking about dinner, she walks the trail from her house and along the river to her taro garden under a large shady tree and edged with chilli plants, bananas and papayas. She fills a large bowl with fresh taro for fritters and coconut fish, plucks the reddest chillies for the table, then shakes a papaya tree, expertly catching the ripest one as it falls. This is life in Drawa.
The Drawa Forest Project has been earning income from carbon since 2015.
The expansion of the crediting area to include an additional 2,000 hectares was supported by Climate Resilient by Nature, an initiative of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and in partnership with WWF-Australia, Live and Learn Environmental Education and Nakau. Live and Learn Fiji is the local project partner.
© 2026 Nakau
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