Press Release Detail

Abhishek Sapra grew up travelling the world. He left our shores some 27 years ago with his parents Dr Sharad Sapra and Mrs. Uma Sapra. Abhishek’s father is the former Director for United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) Global Innovation Centre and he dedicated himself to the betterment of the lives of children and their families around the world. Due to the nature of his father’s work, Abhishek lived in various countries like the Maldives, Iran, Kenya, Bangladesh and India, to name a few. Abhishek always cherished his childhood memories on their family estate in Taveuni, and hoped to one day return. “My earliest childhood memories are of my maternal grandparents waking me up at 4am and my grandfather putting me on his shoulders and taking me out to the forest”. It is memories like these that brought Abhishek Sapra back to Fiji. 

Growing Up With Nature
Returning to the family estate Kalougata in Vuna, Taveuni, 12 years ago, was a heart-touching moment for him. The 38-year-old shares that the 80-acre estate has been in the family for over 145 years. “I remember waking up and going out with my grandfather and waiting for the chickens to lay their eggs in the bush so we could collect what we needed for breakfast.” Abhishek remembers going into the forest and seeing hundreds of Kula birds, parrots and wild pigeons, orange and multi-colored fruit doves in the daytime and around dusk there would be a cloud of fruit bats leaving their daytime homes to search for food. “In the sea, we had crabs, eels, hermit crabs, sea snails and numerous other creatures which we would collect and snack on while the older children fished in preparation for the next meal.” “We even turned to the forest in search of cure for ailments.” Abhishek added that when people were sick, his maternal grandmother would pluck the leaves of a tree or scrape its bark and use it to treat the specific illness. “It was a different world back in the 1980s,” he said.

A Sore Sight
After graduating with a degree in Public Relations and Advertising from City College of New York, Abhishek decided to return home to Fiji. But, the family estate was not as he remembered.  “I was heartbroken to see so much forest being cut to make way for farming. “The estate seemed dead, a long, silent stretch of mono-cropped land devoid of insect life, birds, and bats.” Abhishek added that much of the ground was exposed, cracking dry and where there used to be soil you could see protrusions of volcanic rock. “It was harder to farm kava because the sun would heat up the surrounding rocks and kill the sensitive kava nodes in the ground. Strong winds would leave our older kava plants twisted and damaged and heavy rains would wash away the remaining topsoil,” he said.

Rebuilding through Fiji’s national tree-planting programme
Abhishek did not waste any time and began work to restore the estate to what it used to be. “Todate, we have planted over 9000 trees on our own, which we collected from the existing forests,” he said. “A friend of ours saw what we were doing and told us about the 30 Million Trees in 15 Years initiative and we jumped at the opportunity to be part of this as the trees could help us to rehabilitate our property.” On Wednesday 15th September, 2021 staff of the Ministry of Forestry delivered over 5000 seedlings including native trees namely bauvudi, cibicibi, tarawau, kaudamu and kavika to Kalougata estate. “So far we have been given about 10 species of trees and have planted over 600 of the trees already. With favorable weather, we hope to plant 

the entire stock of trees before the end of this year,” Abhishek said. Efforts to rebuild and reforest Kalougata Estate has taken a lot of work and sacrifice but Abhishek has not been doing this alone. “I started replanting trees with this lad Apolosi who was 12 years old at the time. He dropped out of school and no amount of persuasion would make him go back. He helped me start everything and I taught him everything I know.”  Apolosi now manages the estate projects along with the water supply for 200 people living on the estate. “Apolosi and his family are central to my success along with other families living with us. I am truly blessed and so is the estate which is aptly named Kalougata, which means blessed in iTaukei,” said Abhishek. “I understand the success of this sort of project and the idea behind it was mine but I do feel a better sto

ry for Fiji would be that of Apolosi and his success through his own hard work to help replant thousands of trees to create a better environment and standard of living for his family and encouraging his family back in their village to save their trees and forests.” “He is, in my view, the real future we want to see for our children - one of perseverance, growth and success alongside being the guardians of our natural heritage.” “Apart from Apolosi, I employ six locals, who reside with their families on the estate,” he said.