“Matuku ’a e Tau” is a Tongan phrase that translates to “the end of warfare.”
It is a phrase long-tied to the pivotal moment in Tongan history when the country’s first king gathered his warriors under a “special tree” and, according to Tonga’s minister of justice and tourism, declared, “Beginning today, no more war in Tonga. Tonga will become a Christian country.”
Roughly 200 years later, that same tree — named after the king’s declaration — still stands on the grounds of the Royal Palace on Lifuka island. Except now, the tree is tied to the start of yet another protective effort: the construction of a “much-needed seawall” designed to protect the island from the ocean’s advance along its southwestern coast.
According to a Thursday press release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org, the seawall’s construction — which has received funding from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — had become increasingly urgent, seeing as erosion threatened to erase parts of the island’s heritage and infrastructure.
For instance, the release states that prior to construction, seawater had advanced to a point roughly two meters away from the island’s Royal Palace, nearly claiming the ancestral home of Tonga’s first king. Elsewhere on the island, the encroaching ocean caused Lifuka’s hospital to relocate, a church to be abandoned and a radio tower to be shut down.
“The erosion is quite a lot, not just around this area, but all the way through from here to the next village,” said Pita Taufatofua, current governor of Tonga’s Ha’apai island group.
Recognizing the need for an “improvement project,” Taufatofua said he requested work to be done on the foreshore, joining others who had earnestly petitioned for a seawall.
“Fortunately, the representative for this constituency took up the challenge,” he explained.
That representative was Mo‘ale Finau, Tonga’s minister of justice and tourism. A native to the island, Finau shared the governor’s concern for Lifuka.
“I grew up walking on the beach,” he said, adding that his concern for the island’s receding shoreline had him “praying almost on a daily basis.”
Yet, Finau’s prayers transformed concern into action when he devised plans to construct a two-kilometer seawall made up of eight 1,000-foot sections spanning the island’s southwest coast — the area most vulnerable to tsunamis and erosion.
“When we build a wall,” he said, “no more erosion, at least at the part where the wall is.”
Upon developing plans for the seawall, Finau shared he approached his childhood friend Sione Fukofuka, who had built a successful construction company in the United States and was eager to help and give back to those in his native community.
“(Fukofuka) only comes here because he’s my good friend,” Finau explained. “We both believe in our responsibility for the people of this island.”
Fukofuka brought his construction crew with him to help build the seawall using the U.S. standards he’d learned while working in Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. By using these standards, the seawall is expected to successfully help eradicate erosion and withstand up to 1,000 tons of impact or 4,800 pounds per square inch from a tsunami.
But construction expertise wasn’t the only necessary component to begin making the eight-phase construction project a reality. According to the release, Finau worked with leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Tonga to help fund the first two phases of the seawall project.
Committed to the people, the church jumped in.
“The church is all about the people,” said Elder Sione Tuione, an Area Seventy in the church’s Pacific Area. “We want to help protect those people in the islands of Ha’apai.”
Having secured both proper expertise and funding, work on the first phase of the seawall’s construction began in earnest in front of the Royal Palace — a location Finau strategically selected to preserve the heart of Tongan history.
“The very first king of Tonga was born and raised here,” Finau said. “I decided to start right here because this is the center of the history of the Kingdom of Tonga.”
At the palace, crews have not only built the protective barrier but have also reclaimed what had been lost, filling in the eroded area with soil and replanting native flora. Plans to similarly “beautify and restore” other parts of the island’s southwestern coast are also part of the seawall construction project.
“Part of my thinking was to beautify the island home of our king, because this is history,” Finau explained.
According to the church’s release, workers completed both phase one and two of the seawall’s construction by mid-July. But their progress did not come without challenges.
“(We’ve) got to rush, rush to finish what we’re doing, and once the water comes up, we have to get away,” Fukofuka said, explaining his crews had needed to work double shifts through high tides that twice daily threatened their progress.
Despite this and other obstacles, however, Fukofuka and his crews were able to meet the project’s deadline for the second phase, after which a ceremony was held to celebrate their progress.
“The project that has been completed is the project to save lives in the harbor,” Finau said at the ceremony. “We are protecting the waterfront and harbor for the next 50 to 100 years. This seawall will surely help to protect the history of our nation.”
During the ceremony, Finau also thanked the construction workers, as well as the church for their contributions. He said, “I’m thankful to the church for helping out in this project. If the help didn’t come, I don’t think it would be here this moment.”
Looking ahead, Finau said phase three of the project will begin after Fukofuka and his crew take a couple weeks for rest and recovery. Meanwhile, funding for the remaining six phases of construction looks promising, according to the release.
“If the government need(s) our help, I’m sure we can offer help,” said Elder Tuione. “We want to make sure that we stay until the end of what we started. We don’t want to start anything to leave it halfway.”
