On 1 hand we have the Miltary Govt on the other hand we have the people of Fiji – who from reading above seem very happy at the changes the govt. is making for the better of the country.

Why pick on Fiji Water – what about Evian and all the others

You people critizing Fiji Water need to get a life and realise the facts, this stupid reporter didnt even do her job properly yet reported on fiction not fact. The pay rates for Fijians are good as living standards are much lower than elsewhere.

Go Fiji!

Secondly, for those of you who were harping on about the water being shipped off…if this water was not being sold, it would probably be running into the sea, as it has since God created the planet Earth.

Thirdly, if you hate FIJI Water so much, don’t buy it. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to part with your money for the product, so please, allow those who want to buy it to do so in peace.

Fourthly, the reporter who wrote the piece in Mother Jones, should be fired by her employers. She obviously did not even travel to the factory. There are no gravel roads anywhere in the vicinity of the Fiji Water Bottling plant. In fact I’d even go as far out on a limb as to say I think she lied in the story.

Fifthly, why should the fact that earning 2.00/hr be such a cause for furor? The ability to live on 2.00/hr should tell you one thing about the resilience of Fiji. Can you live on 2.00/hr in the US? Probably not…so who’s caught up in the rat-race now?

Lastly (for this rant), I agree that Fiji Water could increase it’s assistance to the communities neighbouring it’s bottling plant in Yaqara, but then again, it’s their money. They were under no obligation to part with any of their profits and the FACT that they choose to do so, deserves praise and not criticism.

If you want to criticise what goes on in other parts of the planet…please ensure that you really have a good, factual understanding of what is actually taking place on the ground there, before shooting off your mouth and revealing yourself for the ignorant bigot that you come across looking like.

Its heartening to see the mood on this blog has changed from blind confrontation and banter to constructive analysis and debate. Debate is always healthy.

Someone took a dig at my earlier comment about Fiji Water seeming to make a difference…its too late to reply…

Three days ago, the Fiji Water Foundation with other corporate donors commissioned a water project in a village settlement. $20,000 meant piped water to over 600 families. No government could do this for the past forty years since independence.

Fiji Water makes a difference at the ground level…at the grass roots where it matters. One community at a time, they are reaching out to areas most in need.

If in case I forgot to mention, it also runs about 7 kindergartens in villages surrounding the factory and provides scholarships for students who show potential.

Another point – the 99 year lease was not introduced for Fiji Water, it existed long before.

Canadian businessman, David Gilmour was personally approached by the then Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara to establish a new industry. Gilmour was the first man to discover the acquifer and planned to bottle it some 20 or 30 years ago (if memory serves).

So Americans…imagine you start up a company, be it at home or anywhere in the world, pour your money into it and start to make a profit only to have the government step in and say…’This is ours…we are taking over and you have to leave’.

A bit unfair don’t you think…and NOT a good message to investors, no way jose’.

Had there been a local with the same vision and hefty bank balance to start up the project, maybe we might still be supplying to the South Pacific. The initiative needed someone with contacts in the outside world…Gilmour had it. That is why Fiji Water is what it is today.

If it had been any other man, I doubt whether the product would be so successful.

Big John – Stop being ignorant…if you have read all the posts carefully, it goes far beyond just ‘bottled water’.

I leave you all with this final message: USA 7’s this weekend…GO FIJI GO!!!

It’s an intellectually vapid rag preaching to the uber-leftist choir. Get real.

Fiji Water is a product, if you don’t like it, then don’t buy and shut up. The product they produced is top notch. The people comparing them to “Blood diamonds” and other crap are foolish at best. Go get a job.

To Fiji,
Thank you for everything you do for the community. You are a business, not a political party, and I commend your allowing comments on this page. Your product is absolutely top notch… I just started drinking it, and I love it. Ignore the idiots who produce nothing with their life but want action from everyone but themselves. I don’t see Mother Jones putting any money into wells.

As far as “transparency”… which one of you Mother Jones geniuses can tell me anything about the US Health care bill? How it was hammered out? You don’t cover or bother to go after the lack of transparency in an administration who PROMISED it, and about an issue so large it consumes 1/7th of the US economy. No. We’ll go after Fiji Water… they have something people actually WANT to pay for. You people and your towering hypocrisy make me sick.

And how many West and East coast microbrews are offsetting their carbon footprint? Does Stonyfield have milk farms in every region of the US?

If Fiji Water wants to win back the Mother Jones readership, they should SAIL their water over here, as they imply on their label.

It would be expensive to buy massive sailboats up front, but probably cheaper than a decade of big TV ad campaigns.

And then nobody could complain about their footprint… except for the overland portion… which is a problem for most brands, not just Fiji Water. And even then, Fiji could deliver it to the appropriate coast.

And as for standing up to regimes, how many “green” brands stood up to confront the Patriotic Act, which stripped the US constitution to Fiji-like standards?

And by “stand up” I mean call for the resignation of every single person who voted for it… to pay for lobbyists to make this happen. To pay for full-page ads in important newspapers?

In terms of risk, that’s what you’re asking Fiji Water to do.

But of course standing up to regimes is only for the other guys. We’re too comfortable in the good old USA to risk our companies and lives.

Let’s face it … to stand up to regimes requires risking the life of your company… and sometimes your own life. And without the protections of the constitution, now even the USA is not immune to these thugs.

Which of course is why the Mother Jones reporter cut her trip short before even visiting the Fiji plant.

And yet Mother Jones still ran with the idea that Fiji Water should be confronting the regime.

Come on Mother Jones, either FINISH THE STORY… or kill it. If the New York Times sent a reporter who couldn’t finish the story, they’d eat the expense until they could complete it.

And they’d hire a security team to get it finished, if necessary.

They didn’t even complete the assignment.

Where was the security detail for this reporter?

Didn’t she even have a rugged assistant along with her, as a witness should she go missing?

They send this poor girl in alone to a hostile country, as if Mother Jones is some little newsletter written in their grandma’s basement?

Please. Tell us, Mother Jones, why you won’t spend $5,000 to protect your reporters on a dangerous assignment, yet Fiji Water is supposed to put up $5,000,000 to purchase a private security team to protect their executives once they confront a military dicatorship.

If Monther Jones had even completed the story properly, I MIGHT expect Fiji to speak up. But the girl went home with her tail between her legs.

Mother Jones’ failure only exposes that the situation is far more dangerous than a private citizen or corporation can reasonably be expected confront.

Quit throwing stones Mother Jones. In some ways you’re BIGGER than Fiji water, and more powerful. You’ve certainly been around far, far longer.

The fact that a national magazine can’t even afford to protect its own reporter just goes to show you that it’s way too easy TELL OTHERS to confront a dictator, than to do it yourself.