This week we have another article from Mauke from Te Ipukarea Society president June Hosking.

With so much threatening our cultural heritage and efforts to live in harmony with 'to tatou Ipukarea' it’s easy to get discouraged. So here I am in Mauke, at the beach praying for guidance and strength to stand for Creation Care in what feels like a hopeless battle. There’s only One who can turn the tide.

I’m soaking in the vast unknown, listening to the waves roll and gently crash, breathing deeply in our little cove, when I notice a man briskly walking the reef with a bucket, collecting ariri (sea snails). I walk out hoping to share a clever Niuean trick for extracting the animal without breaking or cooking the shell. But as soon as he spots me, he moves on quickly and doesn’t come back my way.

You see, many islands are running short on hermit crab homes. Poor unga (hermit crabs) turn up at our door in all sorts of makeshift ‘homes’— plastic caps, cracked shells with their backsides exposed, even half an eggshell or a fragile passionfruit shell. It’s clearly temporary at best!

Word must have spread among the local hermit crab community about potential housing upgrades. Why else would an unga expend the energy to climb ramp, vines or posts up to our house? One night, Andrew opened the door to find a large hermit crab completely naked!

That unga was lucky because Andrew had found a sack of old ariri shells at the dump earlier in the year. Every single one has since been claimed, giving our unga a fighting chance against roaming pigs.

While out on the reef, I spot a few small ariri. Andrew notices two larger ones; he leaves them and spends a while fishing, hoping to discourage another group of people with buckets from venturing to our recently picked over area.

Mauke’s population can more than double at this time of year. Many head out to the reef, chasing childhood memories, seemingly unaware that things have changed. Resources aren’t as plentiful as they once were. One person might only take the larger ariri, but the next will come along and collect the smaller ones.

I want to get angry, but recall 16 years ago, when we first arrived, I did the exact same thing. Back in the 1960s in Rarotonga, you could fill a bucket with ariri in an hour. But 30 years later, it took two hours to find just four. When we moved to Mauke, to our cove pristine and largely untouched, I couldn’t wait to taste ariri again. I collected a dozen in minutes and cooked them on the beach, leaving the shells for the hermits.

I still kick myself for what I realised too late: eight of the 12 ariri I’d collected were females. Why did I not realise why most of the nice-sized ariri were clustered together, some even touching. Were they mating? A possible sign I’d missed.

Later, when I had internet access, I emailed Gerald McCormack to ask if there’s a way to tell male and female ariri apart while they’re alive. There is and I did attempt to coax the snail out so as to look behind its head, but it’s just too tricky. So since then, we haven’t touched an ariri. Same goes for kōura. We’ve got plenty else to eat at home, and for us that’s the right choice.

However, I see others on the reef, hammer in hand, cracking shells to extract raw ariri. So here’s the Niue way (though we haven’t tried it) – put your ariri in the freezer overnight. In the morning, plonk them straight into water, and the animal will pop out easily. Then most importantly, return the shells to the beach for recycling. Creation Care is its own reward.