Lagoon dweller appealing eviction

Tetiaroa – An appeals court in French Polynesia is to decide the future of a man who has been living in a boat outside a large resort near Tahiti.

Teiki Pambrun lives in the lagoon of Tetiaroa atoll, which was purchased by the American actor Marlon Brando in 1967, who developed a small village and airstrip.

Since Brando’s death in 2004, the village has developed into an exclusive eco-resort with private beaches and 35 bungalows that go for 2000 euros a night.

But the resort has found itself in a bitter feud with Pambrun, who has set up his double-hulled canoe with a hut on top just off the beach outside the resort, claiming it’s a public space.

Alex du Prel of Tahiti Pacifique magazine told radio New Zealand’s Dateline Pacific the resort’s owners took Pambrun to court, which ruled that he was trespassing and forbade him from going within 10 kilometres of the resort.

But Pambrun is appealing that ruling.

“The story behind it is that after Marlon Brando died someone set up a corporation and leased the island for 99 years.

“During Marlon’s time it was a little hotel with 10 huts and you were back to nature, people loved that way. The new corporation with government hel put up a huge 24 bungalow hotel, extra high-class deluxe.

“And here we have Teiki Pambrun, he has a little double-hull canoe with a little Tahitian hut on it, he was declared a big enemy to the hotel which was bulldozing reefs and pumping sand and everything.

“So about eight or nine months ago he was told that he had to leave or pay $1000 per day if he would stay in the lagoon. He appealed has against it and we should have in the next few weeks the decision by the Court of Appeal.”

“I think what bothers them (the resort owners) the most is that while they’ve been promoting the big story is ‘we are the new number one eco-resort in the world” – the problem is Teiki Pambrun there, alone on his boat with his wife and kid.

“He’s taking pictures of the great ecological cranes and backhoes and everything that keeps crossing the lagoon and pumping sand and breaking reefs and so on.

“In the first judgement, he wasn’t allowed to approach ten kilometres from the atoll. The problem is that when Marlon Brando bought the atoll in 1967, the lagoon was part of the atoll and the person who registered all the motus of Tetiaroa by himself added in ‘this sale does not include the lagoon’.

“ So if it’s not included it belongs to French Polynesia. So it’s public water.”

- Dateline Pacific