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Production Final

WI L D I SLAN DS

Welcome
60
to the
ADVENTURE FEBRUARY 2007
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TECHNO MOSES:
Ben Keene, co-creator of
Tribewanted.com, hopes to
recruit 5,000 people to his
Web tribe and turn it into a
real one on Vorovoro, in Fiji.
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WI L D I SLAN DS

TRIBE
What would happen if two entrepreneurs
formed an online community and then whisked
its members off to build paradise in the
South Pacific? Let the experiment begin.
TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES VLAHOS

On January 14, 2006, Ben Keene received an email that changed his life. The
weather outside was rainy, windy, and freezing—typical for winter in Devon,
England—and Keene was holed up in his loft office, the window fogged with mist. He
had just taken a sip of hot tea when the message from his friend Mark James popped
up, and Keene did a double take at the subject line: “A TRIBE IS WANTED.”
Keene and James, both 26, had been brainstorming ideas for an Internet start-up,
and Keene was used to receiving email messages full of improbable schemes from his
friend. The business plan outlined in the current message didn’t disappoint: We will
establish an online community and call it a tribe, James had written. Members will create
profiles, post photos, and chat online—the usual stuff—and then do something with no
known precedent in the history of the Internet: The virtual tribe will become a real one.
We will travel to a desert island, James wrote, and form a partnership with an
indigenous tribe. We will build an environmentally friendly tourist facility and show it
off to the world as a model of low-impact development. We will be a 21st-century
tribe, and you, Ben Keene, will be a chief.
James’s inspiration had come in part from social-networking sites such as
Friendster.com and MySpace.com, which were massively popular and attracted hun-
dreds of millions of visitors a year. In his view, these sites were full of untapped poten-
tial for altruism. People spent countless hours online but did little more than swap
mindless messages and bootleg MP3s. Participants on SecondLife.com even paid to
develop island properties that would never exist outside of their computers.
In the tribe that James envisioned, members would steer the development of a real
island—making decisions about infrastructure, recreational facilities, rules, and more—

through discussions and online voting. Then, trav-

MAPS: STEVE WALKOWIAK (OPENING
SPREAD); OLAF HAJEK (THIS PAGE)

eling in shifts, they would visit the island at a cost

of a few hundred dollars a week to construct facil-
ities with the locals. Members of the indigenous
tribe would benefit economically; those in the
Internet one would experience a tropical adven-
ture that they could never get at a Club Med.
Keene skimmed the email incredulously and
then read its half dozen paragraphs more care-
fully. For the past couple of years he had worked

62 ADVENTURE FEBRUARY 2007

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for a company that took college students on extended trips pairing Vorovoro was a made-to-order castaway isle: 200
FIRST FOOTERS
)

adventure travel with community development. James’s idea offered a
similar payoff as well as additional benefits: The experience wouldn’t
be limited to students, and it would last not just for weeks but, in theory,
(
acres, surrounded by reefs, fronted by golden-
sand beaches, and shrouded in jungle. It sat a
Keene (fourth from
left) poses with a few short boat ride from world-class surf breaks and

for years, via the Web involvement. Agreeing to move forward, he and “First Footers.” From the Great Sea Reef, which covers 77,000 square
James punched “private island” and “lease” into Google and started left: Warren Wright, miles and is reputedly the third largest reef sys-
Becky Hunter, Paul
talking to the handful of brokers who dealt with such rarefied real Ovenden, Doug Holt, tem in the world. After several long discussions,
estate. “We looked at islands all over,” Keene later recalled. “Some were and Ryan Smith. Keene came to a decision: “We could either sit
);

just too expensive and others were cheap but in dangerous areas. Soon dreaming of the island or empty out our bank
we discovered a South Pacific island in Fiji that looked perfect.” accounts and go for it.”

FEBRUARY 2007 ADVENTURE 63

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ON SEPTEMBER 1 TUI MALI STOOD
on the beach with his tribe gathered around and
watched as an overloaded boat entered Voro-
voro’s turquoise lagoon and eased to a stop with
a crunch against the sand. The palangi, or white-
skinned people, clambered over the gunwales,
and, carrying enormous backpacks, sacks of
rice, and bags of produce, waded ashore.
Since the spring launch of Tribewanted.com,
920 members from 25 countries had signed
up—“this is the best thing since Woodstock,”
one of them gushed—and the boat carried
Keene and the 13 “First Footers” who had vol-
unteered to be pioneering colonists. I was one
of them, signing up for a two-week trip to the
island. Half of the Footers were from England
and the rest were from the United States and
New Zealand; their ages ranged from 17 to 59.
They were students, engineers, a machinist, a man
who described himself as an “aging hippie,” and
a transsexual woman. Most of the group had
met in person for the first time only hours ear-
lier. (Mark James, meanwhile,
stayed home to run the site.)
As the newcomers pressed
forward to shake Tui Mali’s
hand, the chief felt a surge
of anticipation. “The world
is coming to Vorovoro,” he
thought. His tribe, or yavusa,
was hosting a meke, an elabo-
rate welcoming ceremony,
and he had woken up at 4
a.m. to pray for good weather.
Now, on a sunny afternoon,
an important new phase was
beginning in the history of
his people.
64 ADVENTURE FEBRUARY 2007
On the main Fijian islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, communi-
ties were modernizing rapidly, but on the outlying ones where the yavusa
lived, people practiced a subsistence lifestyle that had changed little in
generations. Hints of the current era had surfaced among the tribe’s 400
members—a few carried cell phones, some had jobs at a lumber mill on
Vanua Levu—but most lived in huts with no electricity or indoor plumbing
and survived by catching fish, growing cassava, and collecting rainwater.
Tui Mali, seeking jobs and income for his people, had decided to
develop Vorovoro, the gem of his fiefdom, which was uninhabited save
for the chief and a few relatives. (Everyone else resided on Mali, an island
immediately to the east, or in a village on Vanua Levu.) In February 2006,
with the help of a tech-savvy nephew, Tui Mali listed Vorovoro’s availability
on the Web, and less than a month later, he heard from Keene and James.
Charging flights on their credit cards, the Brits went to Fiji, where they
soon learned that negotiations would involve more than a quick meeting
and some paperwork. They hiked all over Vorovoro, conferred with the
Below, from left: Native Land Trust Board (NLTB), and sat outdoors for dozens of hours
Tui Mali, chief of the drinking grog, a narcotic brew made from the kava plant. Most of all, they
local yavusa (tribe), discussed the project with Tui Mali and his relatives. After five days,
sits fireside at the
welcoming ceremony; Keene and James reached an agreement with the chief and the NLTB:
elected chief Wright, Tribewanted would pay $53,000 for a three-year lease and $26,500 in
aka “Poques,” relaxes donations to the community; jobs were promised as well. Tribewanted’s
in camp.
small staff earned only modest salaries and the tourist facilities the tribe
THE CHIEFS built would ultimately belong to the Fijians. “We are all excited about
Tribewanted,” Tui Mali told a local newspaper reporter. “It will provide
us with work for the next three years.”
Tui Mali led the First Footers into a large clearing behind the beach
and sat on the ground with his legs crossed. More than a hundred of the
yavusa, dressed traditionally in palm-frond skirts and colorful bula shirts,
gathered before him with the new tribe members. Gazing at the motley
assembly, Tui Mali recalled how Keene had
originally explained that an “online com-
munity” was similar—well, sort of—to the
yavusa; both were networks of intercon-
nected people. “The only difference is that
our tribe is global and we communicate vir-
tually as opposed to getting on a boat and
going to the next village,” Keene had said.
The young man knelt before Tui Mali
now. With his freckles and reddish hair,
Ben Keene could have been a Boy Scout
FEAT.feb.Tribe.qxp 2/6/07 5:29 PM Page 65
at his Eagle Court, but, as of today, he was “Chief Bengazi.” The new
chief read a short statement in Fijian and extended his hands. Dan-
gling from them on a length of cord was the most sacred of all tradi-
tional offerings: a tabua, or whale tooth. “I hope that you accept us into
your community,” Bengazi said.
Tui Mali’s reasons for saying yes weren’t purely financial. Though he
had long wanted to attract tourists to Vorovoro, he wasn’t interested in
having a massive resort occupy the island. Moreover, he believed that
Keene and James would respect his culture and kin. In August, a repre-
sentative for the reality-TV show Survivor had come to Tui Mali to dis-
cuss using Vorovoro, but the chief turned him down, a decision that was
principled but costly: Survivor reportedly found a location on Vanua
Levu and promised a payout that made Tribewanted’s look like loose
change—$3.5 million, per the Fiji Times, in jobs and local spending.
Tui Mali accepted the whale tooth and gave a short speech. Nor-
mally there is a line in the sand, he said, with tourists on one side and
Fijians on the other, but not on Vorovoro. “From today forward we are
one tribe,” he said.
With that, the meke began. Shirtless men with painted
faces chanted and clacked sticks rhythmically as women in
turquoise skirts and leafy necklaces danced in long, swaying The island
lines. The chief could smell the lovo, a traditional feast of
roast pig, turtle, and fish, slow-cooking in an underground
was perfect
oven, and somebody passed him his first bowl of grog. Then and THE ISLAND
everybody in the clearing, the yavusa and the First Footers
alike, linked arms, formed a giant circle, and cheered.
WAS OURS.
It seemed
THE PLAN ON VOROVORO WAS TO CREATE A
sort of Ewok Eden: a discreet complex of traditional-style
possible to
huts that blended in under the palms, consumed a mini- know every last
mum of natural resources, and relied, where possible, on coconut and
nonpolluting technologies such as solar power. Crops
would be planted in the small valley behind the village, grain of sand.
WI L D I SLAN DS WELCOME TO THE TRIBE
and protein would come largely from fresh fish
THE COMMUNITY caught in local waters by the yavusa.
On September 2 the festive ceremonial
From left: Tribewanted
members haul a log to
ground in the seaside clearing had become a
the village construction cluttered construction site; nails, scraps of
site; First Footers gather wood, and tools were everywhere. Two of the
around a fire near camp;
the locals construct a
tribe’s younger members—Ryan Smith, 23, a
bure, or central lodge; toolmaker and avid backpacker from Crestline,
surveying Vorovoro California, and Raina Jensen, 23, who had just
from the island’s
westernmost peak.
graduated from college in Vermont—hauled
logs up from the beach with the Fijians. Tui
Mali used a tape measure to gauge the dimen-
sions for the great bure, an open-sided, thatch-
roof structure that had been approved—by
a 96 percent “yes” vote online—as the new
tribe’s central meeting place. Dixie Tanner, a
44-year-old reflexologist and the British version
of a Sedona New Ager, and 24-year-old Becky
Hunter, until recently a British soap opera star
and now on staff as a Tribal TV presenter, both
worked with Epeli. The elderly Fijian man was
showing them how to weave palm fronds into
walls for an outdoor shower.
Into this scene calmly strode a tall man in a
sweat-stained red shirt and a tan bush hat. He
puffed at the soggy stub of a hand-rolled ciga-
rette; smiled frequently, showing small, crooked
teeth; and delivered orders to workers with the
raspy voice of a late-night deejay: “Right, so
you’ll get some sacks for the recycling. . . . We’ll
need to rip up leaves and throw them in the
composting bins. . . . There’s a little broken
glass on the beach that somebody can pick up.”
Warren Wright was a chief. The tribe would
elect a different leader each month to serve
alongside Keene and Tui Mali, and Wright had
won the first election. A 45-year-old from
Cornwall, England, he had drifted between
FEBRUARY 2007 ADVENTURE 65
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jobs—construction, catering, sales—before finding

that he could make his living by playing poker
online, earning him his nickname, “Poques.” He
routinely won thousands of dollars in tournaments
and once snagged a $12,000 prize. Divorced, he had
left his only daughter in the care of her mother. With
neither office job nor family to hold him back,
Poques wanted to stay for years, not weeks, on
Vorovoro, and planned to remake himself, by ditch-
ing vices such as smoking and drinking and accom-
plishing something meaningful. “I represent many
people from around the world joined together to live
in harmony with each other and the environment,”
he told Tui Mali at the opening ceremony.
Poques was coming my way now. I was standing
in a clearing with a saw in hand and a less than glam-
orous task: fixing the bathroom, which had been
built as a two-story structure with a wooden top level
of three stalls and a cinder block lower level for
waste collection. The steps to the top had been hur-
riedly constructed and the braces beneath them
were too thin, so I was sawing new bolsters.
“You’ll take the pieces of wood, right, and nail
them under each of the stairs, right?” he said.
“Gorgeous.”
“Right,” I said uncertainly.
“Brilliant.” He walked off. ALL HAIL THE VIRTUAL CHIEF!
A few minutes later, Doug Holt, 59, a retiree YOUR GUIDE TO WINNING A VOROVORO ELECTION BY ANIKA GUPTA
from Arizona, walked up. Holt was a good-hearted Each month one member of Tribewanted.com design. Scan the commu-
guy but not gregarious like Poques; this was a man is elected co-chief of Vorovoro Island and serves nity forums to figure out
who spent a decade building an underground alongside Tui Mali, the ancestral head of the Fijian what issues are foremost
bunker home in the desert and who said that his island’s yavusa (tribe), and Tribewanted founder Ben on members’ minds.
dream job would be to work alone in a lighthouse. Keene. Like every other decision on the island—from
His version of the desert-island fantasy was the outhouse selection to religious shrine construction— BE A CHIEF OF THE
the election is a democratic process, and each of the PEOPLE. November winner
lonely one: not Swiss Family Robinson but Tom 1,025 members can cast an online vote. But there’s “Swings From Trees,”
Hanks’s Cast Away. He glared at the blocks. “Why, more to winning the chiefdom than looking sleek in championed an open in-box
why?” he asked. “Those stairs aren’t going any- a sulu skirt. Here’s your guide to running a virtual policy: “If there is anything
where. If you asked me, I wouldn’t do anything at campaign—with tips from successful candidates. that tribe members have a
all.” He shook his head and left. huge urgency for, or feel that
Holt had run for chief, too, but finished second, KNOW THE JOB managed teams of up to the island development is
DESCRIPTION. According 35 people in the fields of missing something, then
and there was friction between him and Poques to Tribewanted.com, sales and construction. please email me direct.”
even though Holt had been awarded the title of elected chiefs “manage Also, I was in the Guin-
deputy chief. Not knowing who was correct, I an island development ness World Records BE HUMBLE IN
decided to stick with the original plan. The budget of $3,000 per with the Bletchley Boys’ VICTORY. If you win the
Vorovoro wood, however, was only slightly softer month,” so build your Brigade for peeling the chiefdom, celebrate like
than titanium, and when I tried to hammer the campaign around good most potatoes in an the public servant you now
ideas of how to spend hour by hand.” are. “I would like to open
nails, the material mocked me, either splitting or it. You’ll also have to this up to all tribe mem-
causing the nails to bend. By the end of the day, I “introduce [new tribe WAX POETIC. Examine, bers so that together as a
had a couple of blisters, a smashed thumb, and a members] to cultural sen- once again, Poques: “I tribe we can reach maxi-
net accomplishment of: absolutely nothing. sitivities and island living, would like to leave my mum potential in Novem-
I wondered how many of the other tribe mem- update tribe members legacy in the hearts and ber,” posted Swings From
bers were similarly challenged. As a group, we with news and blog, and souls of the members that Trees following his win. “I
take part in Tribal TV and follow me, with the belief have already met some of
were long on enthusiasm and short on practical a documentary.” that as a tribe we can and the tribe members that
know-how, and the annals of utopian history, I shall overcome problems will be on the island, and
knew, were filled with tales of inept communities SELL YOURSELF. To de- collectively.” though we may be few, I
gone bust: hippie Valhallas that collapsed in piles clare your candidacy, fill can guarantee that we will
of rotten timber and abandoned macramé; pioneer out Tribewanted’s detailed CONDUCT YOUR OWN do all we can.”
Promised Lands that became barren Starvation questionnaire. Tip: Play up OPINION POLL. Hun-
your people skills and past dreds of tribe members BE STUBBORN IN DEFEAT.
Camps. It was a good thing that here on Vorovoro accomplishments. Con- log on every week to learn If you lose, don’t fret,
we had the yavusa, who actually knew what they sider this statement from about and discuss every- there’s always next time.
were doing, to provide a safety net. “Poques,” the September thing from scuba diving Chiefs hold office for only
That evening, tired and frustrated, I went down 2006 chief: “I have to Tribewanted tattoo one month.

Get behind the scenes on Vorovoro with an island video tour and photo outtakes
66 ADVENTURE FEBRUARY 2007 from Contributing Editor James Vlahos, at www.ngadventure.com.
FEAT.feb.Tribe.qxp 2/6/07 5:29 PM Page 67

WI L D I SLAN DS WELCOME TO THE TRIBE

a short trail behind the village to the outdoor shower, which was com- the nun, a camel, and a sexual act that definitely
plete with a rope and pulley for hoisting the water pail overhead. Stand- isn’t referenced in the Good Book.
ing in the moonlit jungle, I twisted the valve and a refreshing drizzle Va was the island’s head cook, and I’d formed
came down from the showerhead. It was a nifty piece of tribal tech, and a vague impression of her as a mild, cheerful
I swelled with pioneer pride. I was just reaching for the coconut soap woman. Now we were getting to be buddies, and
when the rigging holding the pail ripped loose and the heavy bucket I detected a more mischievous personality. On
plummeted, guillotine style, nearly taking off my head. Vorovoro the usual depressing wall between
tourists and locals was noticeably low: digging
postholes, shoveling compost, and washing dishes
THE PRIMARY ATTRACTION OF DESERT ISLAND LIFE, I side by side draws people together.
came to believe, is not the sandy beaches or turquoise waters but rather As we drank beer (lukewarm) and Fijian rum
the fact that the standard fantasy island is quite small. Like Vorovoro. (high proof), the night got rowdier. Dan Keene
The island was perfect and the island was ours—safe, familiar, and inti- hosted an island Olympics with contests in
mate in a way that the wider world never would be. It seemed possible coconut hurling and crab racing; Poques broke out
to know every last coconut and grain of sand. Below, from top: the cards for Texas Hold ’em; Suzi Scarborough, a
One morning midway through the first week, I set out to discover Snorkeling in 49-year-old woman from central Florida, appeared
more of our territory. From camp I hiked up a broad, golden beach until Vorovoro’s lagoon; fireside in a black dominatrix getup complete with
with bets placed, the
I reached the island’s wave-battered western tip. I had never before been new tribe and the fishnet stockings and whip. “I like to keep things
past this point and rounded the corner to gaze down a wild, rocky coast yavusa cheer a crab lively,” she said. Scarborough had undergone a sex-
backed by sheer bluffs. There were no people but abundant signs of life: race. Opposite: change operation only three years earlier. As an
Keene surveys the
Red crabs scuttled across the tidal flats; a black-and-white-striped sea virtual and the real. engineer working for a military systems contractor,
snake wriggled up a nearby slab of rock. Looking at the serpent, I recalled Scarborough said she grew “tired of being held
our second day on the island, when Dan Keene, Ben’s younger brother, THE REWARDS prisoner to everyone else’s expectations.” After the
led a safety briefing and had a troubling exchange with a tribe member transition she embraced unconventional activities
that went something like this:
Tribe member: “Are there any dangerous animals on the island?”
Keene: “No, none, don’t worry.”
Tribe member: “Great, thanks.”
Keene: “The only thing we have is sea snakes. Their bite is
highly poisonous and there is no known antidote. Next?”
I steered wide of the snake. Before long I came to the first of
several sea caves. Island lore holds that these were once hideouts
for pirates, and I crawled up one of the winding tubes until I
reached a dead end jammed with driftwood. At the eastern end of
the island, I entered into a maze of mangroves. After blundering
about for 30 minutes, I emerged on an unfamiliar coast, then
rounded a toothy peninsula, and voilà, was back to the village in
time for lunch. Such is the pleasure of small-island exploration.
My bond to the geography was growing—there was still the
tangled, hilly interior to explore—and I was also feeling more
connected to the people on the island. We had a beach bonfire
every evening, and on the seventh night I sat down next to a
middle-aged Fijian woman named Va, with whom I often worked
in the camp kitchen. As we watched the flames dance against a
backdrop of the ocean and starry sky, she asked about my job as
a writer, and I trotted out some tales that I thought would
impress her—climbing moun-
tains, exploring caves.
“Hmmm,” Va said after (“I used to miss out on a lot”) such
I’d rambled on for a while. “I as going to Burning Man, dressing
have heard once about two up as a pirate or Santa Claus—not
travelers, a priest and a nun, on Halloween or Christmas, mind
who got lost while trying to you—and most recently, joining
cross the Sahara.” She launched an island tribe.
into a long narrative about It was at this point in the festiv-
their travails—sandstorms, star- ities when it became clear that
vation, thirst—and minutes Chief Bengazi—the Sergey Brin
passed before I realized she of the South Pacific—was drunk.
was telling a joke. The punch He stumbled away from the crab-
line came, and it was excep- racing table and began singing joy-
tionally funny and exception- ously and dancing spastically. It
ally dirty, involving the priest, looked (Continued on page 87)
FEAT.feb.Tribe.qxp 2/6/07 5:29 PM Page 87
WELCOME TO THE TRIBE
(Continued from page 67)
as if his smile was going to split his face in two.
All of us, to a certain degree, took it for granted
that we were here on the island, getting to play
tribe, but only Ben Keene had known the idea
when it was just an email and a dream.
FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS PEOPLE
have yearned for mythically perfect places—
“where every torrent flows with wine,” as the
Greek poet Telecleides put it in the fifth century
B.C.—and quite often, those places are envi-
sioned as tropical islands in the South Seas. This
makes practical sense. New societies need a
blank canvas and breathing room, favorable
weather and abundant natural resources, and if
there’s anywhere on Earth where you could
actually establish such a “fortunate isle”—in the
parlance of utopian literature—the South
Pacific is probably it.
In real life, though, if you tell your friends
that you’re heading off to create a happy new
civilization among the palms, don’t expect
them to rejoice—they’ll probably imagine
Jonestown and warn you to steer clear of the
Kool-Aid. Tell them about a visionary such as
Keene and they’ll picture David Koresh. The
modern view of utopian communities is a
conflicted one, and while almost everybody
fantasizes about jump-starting civilization on a
forgotten island (witness the huge popularity of
the TV show Lost), it is deemed inevitable that
the settlers will struggle horrifically (ibid, Lost).
Fictional books brim with examples, and
before embarking for Fiji, Keene looked to
them for real-world wisdom. His analysis of
Lord of the Flies was that the characters wound
up sharpening sticks and pushing chubby boys
off of cliffs because they were trapped; on
Vorovoro people would always be coming and
going, so tensions wouldn’t build up and boil
over. Plus, the tribe had a Web site where mem-
bers aired thousands of opinions, so Keene
hoped that “whatever conflict we have takes
place virtually.” The backpackers in the film The
Beach mistakenly believed they could divorce
themselves from reality, while society on Voro-
voro would remain healthy by staying economi-
cally and socially connected. “We never set out to
shut ourselves off from the world,” Keene said.
He and James, in fact, hoped to do the
opposite. In classic utopian tradition, they
wanted to stand far enough apart from society
that they could create a new and better way of
life, but not so far that they couldn’t show it off.
Aided by a powerful public relations team,
Tribewanted has been featured in newspapers
on four continents and on the Today show and
Good Morning America. Plans call for the island
to be rigged for Internet access so that every day,
members can post photos, blogs, podcasts, and
episodes of Tribal TV. The purpose of all of the
PR? “People can follow the story and see that
simple living without lots of materialism is actu-
ally fantastic,” Keene said.
Tribewanted’s challenge, however, was to
develop paradise without destroying it, to be a
financial success as well as an ideological one,
and by the fall, the company was struggling. Nei-
ther blessed with independent wealth nor sup-
ported by venture capital, Keene and James were
operating on a hand-to-mouth basis out of mem-
bership revenue, which they needed to increase.
The original business plan called for 4,000 more
members (for a total of 5,000), with up to a
hundred on the island at a time, which, many of
the First Footers believed, was too many given
Vorovoro’s small size. A dozen visitors was
paradise—eight times as many would be a zoo.
One option was to have fewer people but to
charge more. The current rate of $220 a week,
including food and airport transportation, was
cheap bordering on a steal. Keene considered
himself a capitalist who needed to keep “money
in the bank and gas in the boat” or all of the
good intentions would be for naught; a realist
who knew that Vorovoro was a real place, not a
problem-free utopia. “This is an experiment,”
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WELCOME TO THE TRIBE

he said toward the end of the first week. “If you

ask me to judge the project right now, I’d say
there will be some amazing things that come
out of it—and some things that people, and
even I, don’t think are very good.”
Keene’s words proved prescient, but the
trouble came sooner than he or anyone else
expected. On September 9, several Internet
tribe members were in a boat returning from
Vanua Levu when they saw an alarming sight.
Rising from the center of the island, dark and
thick, was a column of smoke.

“THE ISLAND IS ON FIRE! THE

island is on fire!”
People onshore were just finishing lunch
when they heard the frantic calls from the
boat. Becky Hunter dashed into the jungle,
kicked through bushes and shin-slashing
vines, reached a clearing, and looked up. A
long, crackling line of flames was consuming
a brushy hillside. From somewhere inside of
the fire line, she could hear people shouting.
We’ve got to get them out of there, Hunter
thought. They don’t realize how big it is. She
yelled as loudly as she could until, through the
shimmering haze, Poques appeared atop the
hill. “We can stop this thing!” he yelled. “Let’s
get a bucket brigade going! Everybody can
bloody well stand around watching, but I’m
going to do something!”
Hunter kept shouting, urging the Internet
tribe members to retreat. Finally Poques
returned to the beach with a few others. His
sooty face was twisted with rage and he was
shouting: The fire could be stopped, five of the
yavusa were in the interior fighting it. What
about everything that Tui Mali had said on
September 1? “So much for the idea of one
tribe,” Poques said bitterly.
There was no time to dwell on his anger.
Keene had left the island earlier to go scuba
diving, and Sara-Jane Bowness, another
Tribewanted staffer, was able to confer with
him by cell phone. Now she and Hunter made
an announcement: Grab a daypack and fill it
with your essentials. Be aboard the boat in ten
minutes. The Internet tribe is evacuating.
I ran to my tent, threw a few items in a
pack, and returned, but nobody seemed to be
moving toward the boat. I stood around feeling
impotent, and then, without making a conscious
decision, wandered off into the trees.
Dense green jungle ended abruptly and was
replaced by acres of blackened earth. Smoke
rose from the ground, and pockets of flames
lapped at the edges of the burned area, which
radiated intense heat like the coals of some giant
barbecue. Through the smoke Va calmly strolled
up. She had bare feet and was holding a giant
banana leaf by its long stem. “Bula, James,” she
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said as pleasantly as if she were greeting me at island-development budget of $3,000. It was had been enhanced by a long wooden dining
breakfast. She began swatting the hot spots with passed by the tribe. Democracy had its limits on table, a volleyball net rigged between two palms,
the leaf. Then after a couple of minutes: “Could Vorovoro—the members could never take over coconut shells split for use as ashtrays around the
you get me some water?” and oust Keene and James, because the pair campfire, and a hammock for beachside naps.
I ran out to the beach, found a bucket, and owned the company, held the lease, and had The tribal tech, however charming, re-
dunked it in the sea. When I turned around I final say on all financial matters—but Poques minded me that eco-utopia was illusory. Our
saw Bowness. “The boat is leaving,” she said proved that those limits could be expanded. He group had come to experience “primitive”
tensely. “You have to get off of the island. We also triumphed when people voted to abolish a living—to sleep under the stars, bathe with
have to go, now.” three-weeks-a-year cap on visits. “The whole ad- water from a bucket, look at the horizon with-
I thought of the fire and how we could stop venture is far from over,” he said. “I want to see out seeing a single building—while the yavusa
it from inflicting more damage. I thought of the project out from day one to the very end.” hoped the revenue we brought would allow
Poques, of Va in her bare feet, of all of the them to escape some of these very same
palangi running away in the boat. ON MY LAST DAY ON THE ISLAND, things. The Internet had connected two dis-
“No, I’m not going,” I told Bowness. I joined Dan Keene and Ryan Smith on a short parate groups of people from opposite sides
“I’m sorry.” boat ride to go snorkeling at the Great Sea Reef, of the globe, but ultimately it would make us
known locally as Cakaulevu. Holding my more alike. Keene knew it too and, believing
POQUES, HOLT, SCARBOROUGH,A breath, I dove to 25 feet along a coral wall that modernization was inevitable, thought
couple other insurgents, and I worked with the patrolled by dozens of small yellow-and-purple that all the new tribe could do was try to steer
Fijians to battle the wildfire, sweating heavily to fish. A larger one, multicolored like rainbow development in a positive direction.
put out the last of the destructive flames. By late sherbet, caught my eye, and I tailed it until my The job was shared by all of us. We needed
afternoon the situation was under control. The air ran out. When I surfaced, Smith and Keene to build a jetty so that arriving boats wouldn’t
blaze had torched about 20 acres, nearly a tenth were laughing. “There was a big reef shark right damage the coral in the lagoon, to cap the num-
of the island, but the damage was largely limited behind you,” Keene said. ber of visitors at any one time, to figure out what
to the undergrowth, with only a few trees signif- The snorkeling trip was the farthest I’d we could grow on the island so that supply runs
icantly charred. Within a rainy season or two, strayed from the village in two weeks, and when from Vanua Levu could be reduced. A boat was
Vorovoro will look as though nothing happened. I returned I was struck by how much we’d coming soon to take me back to the mainland,
The cause? One of the yavusa had been doing a accomplished. The Fijians had made significant and that was OK. I would make my opinions
controlled burn in a small plot of cassava when progress on the grand bure, and its log frame- known to the rest of the tribe. I needed to get
he was bitten by ants. He left to go rinse them work rose impressively into the sky. The clearing off the island and back online. ▲
off, forgot to extinguish the fire, and it went wild.
Those of us who stayed behind jokingly
called ourselves the “Vorovoro Volunteer Fire
Department,” and, slightly more seriously, won-
dered if we would be expelled from the tribe
when the others returned. For Poques the inci-
dent had exposed a critical rift: The tribe was an
altruistic enterprise—people united to do good
for the world—but it was also a business whose
employees had to worry about legal liability and
the bottom line. The fire also showed the tribe’s
strength, though, as a substantial group had
stuck around. Poques doubted that guests at a
big resort would have done the same.
When Keene returned with the evacuees late
in the afternoon on the next day, he played the
peacemaker. “We understand completely why
you wanted to stay and help put out the fire,” he
said. “And I’m sure you understand why we had
to give people the option to evacuate.” It was an
expert display of diplomacy. With a single rhetor-
ical sweep he extinguished the insurgency—we
weren’t rebels after all because management
approved of our actions—and affirmed the pro-
ject’s democratic ideals.
Poques was mollified, and the incident that
had temporarily pulled the tribe apart left us all
feeling closer. Later Poques would use the
issues raised by the fire to lobby Keene to
transfer more power from the management
to the members. Keene, convinced, floated a
proposal to give each month’s elected chief an