It is France’s turn to host the 2024 Olympics, and organizers have decided that the only logical place to hold the surfing competition is overseas in Tahiti.
However, Olympic regulations led to the construction of a new judging tower in a reef lagoon. And that sent a team of concerned scientists from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti.
Teahupoʻo is a rural village at the end of the road on the southwest coast of the island of Tahiti. Those who reside there live for and from the ocean, said Cindy Otcenasek, head of the environmental organization Vai Ara O Teahupoʻo, which translates to “the Teahupoʻo way.”
“People go and fish especially here in Teahupo’o, where we are two hours by car from town, from Papeʻete,” Otcenasek said. “So most of the people here make a living with agriculture or fishing.”
Every year, this village of about 1,500 people welcomes the world’s best surfers — and this summer that includes an Olympic event.
“It’s one of the most beautiful waves on the planet,” said Native Hawaiian professional surfer and marine conservation scientist Cliff Kapono.
“We in the surfing community, we have benefited from this wave at Teahupoʻo,” Kapono said. “And in turn benefited from the reef that is responsible for creating such a beautiful wave.”
However, plans to build a three-story aluminum judging tower on that reef may cause costly damage, according to recently published research by Kapono and a group of Hawaiʻi scientists.
They surveyed the coral at the proposed construction site in Teahupoʻo and identified more than 1,000 corals from 20 different species within the construction site indicating that Teahupoʻo is a thriving coral habitat. The group’s work was recently published in the journal Remote Sensing.
“Using technology called photogrammetry and structure for motion, we were able to reconstruct a three-dimensional map that showed within a region of a tennis court, there exists over $170,000 worth of coral reef that could be in jeopardy if the proposed tower is completed in construction,” Kapono said.
This judges' tower would be used during the 2024 Olympic surfing competition. It has the footprint of a tennis court and will include toilets, air conditioning and room for 40 people.
It would also require drilling 133 holes into the reef for the concrete foundations.
The team also mapped the lagoon area where the reef is being dredged to accommodate barge transport of tower materials, and the price tag there could run upwards of a million dollars. And that’s a conservative number based on State of Hawaiʻi valuation metrics, Kapono said.
“We don’t know if $175,000 of damage will occur, $1.3 million of damage will occur, or $1 worth of damage will occur. I think the take home message is to recognize that the Indigenous community of Teahupoʻo have concerns and that we now have data that supports their concern is justified,” Kapono said.
The controversial Olympic tower sparked protests back in October by local community groups like Vai Ara O Teahupoʻo. In response, Olympic organizers made a few tweaks to the plan. They agreed to a smaller tower, fewer holes, and small boats to transport tower material.
“We should not just expect entitlement based on foreign interests whether it’s for the Olympics or whether it’s for tourism or even for the industry of surfing,” Kapono said. “We should listen to these Indigenous communities and recognize that yeah, there is dollar values assigned to these coral reefs, but there’s also a cultural and intrinsic value that we should really respect.”
Otcenasek said people in Teahupoʻo depend on that reef for food. Not only that, but like any Indigenous community, Teahupoʻo has a history and a culture that is intrinsically tied to that place — to that beach, to that surf break, and to that reef.
There are specific names for the reef, like Havaʻe. The wave is called Pererure. Any damage to the reef would not only alter the surf break, but also its rich history.
“Olympics come because we have that heritage that comes from our ancestors, from our land, from our ocean. And we have to protect that heritage because we have the next generation that will come,” Otcenasek said. “I hope that our grand grand grandchildren will say, ‘Oh, it was like same. It never changed.’”
Otcenasek shared the Tahitian legend of Vehiatuaitamataei, a girl from neighboring Raʻiatea, who was the first human to ever surf Teahupoʻo.
“She came here. They used to have kind of a contest at the end of the road. There is like a small beach break where they used to surf. One day those three ladies from Raʻiatea came and they stay on the shore looking at the waves, looking at the wind,” Otcenasek said.
“Everyone was laughing saying, ʻOh you guys aren’t from here and you won’t be able to surf a wave.’ And she decided to go and to swim, but she didn’t stay on the beach break. She went on the reef and then she took a wave and everyone was like ‘Wow!’ She made it. It was a big wave.”
The chief of Teahupoʻo hears all this cheering. Villagers tell him it's Vehiatuaitamataei who caught the nicest wave they’d ever seen. The chief threatens to take her life if she doesn’t return home to Raʻiatea. He then takes her name so that everyone will think that he is the celebrated surfer of Teahupoʻo.
Otcenasek said there is still a family in Teahupoʻo with that name, and they take great pride in this history, which could be lost if this reef is damaged and that surf break altered.
Teahupoʻo is a world-famous surf spot, a tube-lovers paradise, and is on every surfer’s “must surf” list. It has a shallow coral bottom, which allows the wave to rise abruptly and collapse into a massive wall of water.
Any change to that reef will change the wave, and that’s a change that the people of Teahupoʻo will have to live with once the 2024 Olympics leave town.
“Of course, like images from here will be beautiful. It will be really nice for France. For us as people from here, that’s only what we have. We are not a big country, and hopefully nature will regenerate as fast as it can,” Otcenasek said.
“It’s hard for us as we are not scientists, so our voice are not really heard. As Tahitian we only know that there is balance between everything here between the mountains, the river, fresh water, and ocean, and reef,” Otcenasek said.
“Hopefully they will see that it’s a fragile ecosystem and that us island people will stay here, it’s our reality.”
Construction on the tower has begun — but the timeline for completion remains uncertain.
