KIO-KIO ECONOMY
Can Bonefishing Help Anaa Atoll?
"Bienvenue à Polynésie Française." Some of the islanders welcome us in French. Others welcome us in the Paumotu dialect. And even though we don’t understand either, it’s enough to signal that the day-and-a-half journey to the Anaa atoll, a 15-square-mile dot in the Pacific some 220 miles east of Tahiti, is finally over.
Cool salt air from the lagoon filters in through swaths of coconut palms, removing the delights of economy class from our noses. Flowered leis are draped around our necks, but these aren’t the chintzy adornments of a package-tour island—half-a-dozen varieties of local flora are plaited together in a level of craftsmanship that serves as our first clue to how the Paumotu locals do things...
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