His Majesty was bestowed an honour by Chief of Moata’a Village Tofaeono Iupati Fuatai, who declared his admiration for the King and his efforts to highlight climate change
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Royal Samoa visit: King Charles is made high chief
The King has been presented with a high chief title as part of an emotional welcome to Samoa.
Charles was bestowed the honour by Chief of Moata’a Village Tofaeono Iupati Fuatai who urged the monarch to “take a small part of Samoa away” with him. The chief told of his admiration for the King and his efforts to highlight climate change throughout his life. The small Pacific island of Samoa is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change including tropical cyclones and storm surge, flooding, more severe and longer-lasting droughts.
Chief Fuatai said the decision to welcome Charles was in respect of the traditions of the village’s forefathers, adding: “When you are given a title like this, it is a big honour. We hope that the King takes a small part of Samoa away with him. Once he has the title of Tui-Taumeasina we also become part of him and he will be connected to our people and our lands forever.
“In the old days we believed in the conferring of a title as a mark of respect to one another and that is what we are doing today. When you confer such a title from the heart, we become bonded as one.”
Looking relaxed in a bush jacket with trim handmade by Samoan school of fine art, Charles and the Queen were presented with a traditional garland – a floral lei – before taking seats at the top of the village hall.
As Charles was presented with a cup as part of the welcome, he poured a portion out on the floor as a mark of respect before taking it in both hands and announcing: “May God bless this ‘ava”.
Chief Fuatai said the local community had come together to prepare for the big day, with elders joining with young people from the adjoining school to prepare the village hall.
He said: “The whole community have very much been looking forward to the royal visit. It is the opportunity of a lifetime and in the old days when we talked about the Queen and now a British King, it seemed a land so far away and now he is here. We are very lucky and fortunate because a lot of people even in your country would not get to see the King up close and now he has been welcomed into our community, it is very special to have him as a guest to our village.”
Local MP Lenata’i Victor Tamapua led part of the ceremony to thank the royals for travelling to Samoa. He announced the presentation of a finely woven straw mat to the King made a symbol of authority
The Queen smiled as she was presented with a brightly coloured hand woven mat, matched to the colours of the Union Jack and the Samoan national flag.
The words Talofa, meaning hello, placed above the message ‘Welcome to Moataa, Your Majesty Queen Camilla’. Chief Tamapua said: “Being in your presence makes us feel as royals as well. Thank you very much.”
The issues of climate change is a huge issue for communities around Samoa. Moata’a village was chosen to welcome the royals after the area was badly affected by flooding in 2018.
The resulting damage highlighted the vulnerability of coastal communities, especially in Small Island Developing States, to more extreme and frequent weather hazards we are seeing around the Commonwealth because of climate change.
The village council subsequently drew up a Community Integrated Management Plan and decided to establish a mangrove conservation area.
The chief said: “The King is the perfect advocate for us as a nation. Climate change is real, it is now and we must urge the world to acknowledge how perilous it is for nations such as ours. King Charles has the clout, he has the power to work wonders especially for small countries like Samoa.
“We hope that this visit will result in organisations helping out our efforts to try and sustain our environment and not be inundated by the waves and the winds and those agents that are affecting us in terms of climate change.”
Highlighting the important role young people have to play in the fight to save the planet, the chief said: “We are very grateful that our young people are very conscious of this problem. They are all doing their part, collecting the rubbish, auditing changes in the environment, it is all vital to our survival.
“But the generation that we are, we owe our children and so we need to do our part as well. We are grateful for the King to come to our community and help us spread the message in this way.”
