Pacific Traditions Society

This campaign is mounted by supporters of Pacific Traditions Society (PTS). PTS is a 501(C)3 charitable organization that supports community-building educational programs that apply ancestral voyaging knowledge to solve modern problems. For the last thirty years PTS has focused on the Vaka Taumako Project - an effort by a Polynesian community to teach youth something no other Polynesians could do — how to build and navigate using only the designs, materials, and methods of their ancestors. Since 1996 the community of Taumako Island ( in the Southeast Solomon Islands) built several vessels and made many inter-island voyages. Now their survival is threatened by rising seas and violent storms of climate change. Now they are required to have an escort vessel when they teach children on their traditional vessels. Your help is urgently needed to get this vessel to them!

THEIR CRUCIAL NEED

Now their voyaging school is their means to survival. Here is how they can do it:

1) They are already building a Canoe House that will be completed in 2024.

2) They are ready to complete a new traditional vessel that will be protected in the Canoe House.

3) They need an escort boat to train next generations at sea and to make the community survive and thrive.

According to official Maritime rules an escort boat must be made of modern materials and outfitted with an engine. To be suitable the escort boat must be sail-powered. A small engine enables it to operate during any season, year-round, and any escort boat based at Taumako will be the only modern vessel based within 500 miles. So, in addition to the education of new generations to navigate and build voyaging vessels, the escort boat will provide desperately needed transport for medical and other emergencies for the entire region of SE Solomons and North Vanuatu. It will transport people to and from remote islands, and it will help to move cargo, such as food to Tikopia where people are starving now since a cyclone 6 weeks ago. Modest earnings from transport and fishing will pay for maintenance of the vessel and the voyaging school.

THE NEED

For 30 years PTS has acted as supporter and bridge between Taumako and the wider world in the Taumako effort to perpetuate and document their ancient voyaging and environmental knowledge. With the help of PTS, and at the request of Paramount Chief of Taumako, Koloso Kaveia, young Taumakans have been trained in videography and two feature length documentary films have been produced to tell their story. https://www.vaka.org/films

Larger private donations and grants have contributed significantly to PTS programs, such as the current construction of a Halevaka (Canoe House) and the future construction of a new traditional vessel. The Halevaka will protect and house the traditional vessels and lodge voyaging students. Communications equipment that has been donated to the school will enable exchange programs with university students internationally. A grant has already been received to

initiate exchange programs between Holau Vaka Taumako Association and other ancestral voyaging school organizations across the Pacific. Purchase of an escort boat is the last crucial piece needed.

PTS now appeals to grass roots (deep ocean-wise) supporters. A very suitable and proven vessel, the Earthlight, has the right features and requirements to fulfill the purpose. The sellers raised their children aboard her while voyaging around the Pacific. They now want other children to learn on this vessel and are holding her until the end of March for PTS to raise funds to buy her, so that Holau Vaka Taumako Association will become the owner/ operators.

Earthlight is a 52-foot Wharram Catamaran with a reasonable asking price of $59K Canadian. The exchange rates are on our side at this time, now converting to $43,559 USD. PTS expects to find other sources for the funds to manage the change of ownership and registration, to prepare the vessel, and to sail it to Taumako as soon as possible in the Spring of 2024, but we need your help to buy the boat.

YOU CAN MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE

It is so easy to feel that one person cannot solve the world’s problems. Earth and its oceans are in peril, many plant and animal species are endangered, human suffering and conflict between nation states are pervasive, climate change accelerates.

The deeper mission of PTS is to foster world peace. There are people in the world with cultural knowledge that emerged out of deep observation and kinship with the natural world… people for whom conflict resolution has been a way of life. Our planet is covered by 71% ocean, which is key to moderation of climate. Islands and island networks have been the crucible for learning how to live in interdependent prosperity with the environment and with each other—skills the world needs now.

To support the survival of the people who carry these treasures is to cast your vote for world peace and harmony. And every vote counts.

THANK YOU!

On behalf of Pacific Traditions Society, we thank you for supporting our work in whatever ways, large and small, you are able. Mahalo a Nui loa!!

Please give what you can to help us purchase this crucial vessel, and help us get the word out by sharing this with your friends and networks.