Residents of the tiny Tahitian village of Teahupo’o said that they are considering more protests to stop Olympic organizers from building a three-story aluminum tower on a reef where the surfing competition for next year’s Paris Games is to be held.
Surfers around the world were thrilled when the perfect wave in front of Teahupo’o was chosen for the Games surfing event, despite its location in French Polynesia, almost 16,000km from Paris.
The idyllic lagoon-side village has long hosted some of the best contests on the professional World Surf League’s (WSL) championship tour, using a modest wooden tower for judges on the reef that is dismantled after every event.
Photo: Reuters
Organizing committee Paris 2024, which has highlighted its ambition to minimize the Games’ environmental impacts, plans to spend nearly US$5 million to build a much larger tower with toilets, air-conditioning and space for 40 people that it says is needed to meet safety standards.
However, Teahupo’o residents, including top surfer Matahi Drollet, say the new construction would cause significant damage to the coral reef, and risked impacting the marine ecosystem and the perfect wave itself.
“They have been using, judging, filming and doing lives from this actual tower for the professional WSL for the last 15 years,” Drollet said in a video message during a protest against the tower this month.
“The impact and the risk are too important for only three days of contest,” he added.
The WSL said it had used the existing tower “with the full support and approval of the Tahitian government.”
“We believe it is important for Paris 2024 to engage with and listen to the local community as they contemplate their decisions related to the Olympic competition at this iconic wave,” WSL said in an e-mailed statement.
An online petition calling for the scrapping of plans for the 14m aluminum scaffolding and 800m service channel through the reef had gathered more than 100,000 signatures by yesterday.
“Our objective from the onset has been to minimize the impact this new tower has on Teahupo’o,” Paris 2024 said, adding that it wanted to work with residents and surfers to study “all possible options to improve the current project.”
Aimata Levy, vice president of environmental association Vai Ara O Teahupoo, said that residents were waiting for a proper ecological impact report and are expecting to discuss their concerns with Paris 2024 organizers in the next few days.
“For sure we will not accept any new foundations in the lagoon,” she said. “I listen to the [concerns about] the safety of the 40 people who will be on the scaffolding, their own security. I want them to hear, what about the security of the 40 families who live around and [use] this lagoon every day? It’s security for us, too.”
Josh Humbert, another protest organizer, said that village residents were meeting to discuss further peaceful demonstrations about the tower and other Olympic works, including a bridge that had been built so close to the ocean it was likely to need a rock wall to stop erosion.
“If they do that, it will kill the wave that all the kids learn to surf on ... it’s like the training grounds before they become advanced surfers that can go out and tackle the much heavier reef,” said Humbert, a former president of the Teahupo’o Surf Club.
“The people who live in Teahupo’o, we’d love to see a good contest, we’d love to see it done properly,” he said.
“The Olympics people, they’re what we would call in the surf world, kooks,” he said. “They’re not surfers and they don’t understand how things work in surfing.”
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