Makatea Tourism

Macatea (Tuamotu and Gambier Islands, French Polynesia)

Makatea is an associated community (61 people; 24 square kilometres), which is administered by the community of Rangiroa, 50 kilometres from Makatea. According to indigenous traditions, the archipelago was explored by the great soldier Tu, an ambassador of the King of Tahiti Pomare. As he was on his way to Tikehau, Tu saw the cliffy little isle he called Ma'a Tee, "the clear dust".

Many years later, his Tuanaroa boy returned to formally integrate the Isle into the Kingdom of Tahiti and called it Daddy-Tee. Macatea could be the Sagittaria Islands, discovered by Quiros on 13 February 1606. Roggeven called it Distraction Iceland in 1721. Makatea was used as a prison camp in 1812.

In 1832 he landed on the isle looking for timber and told us that the size of the tree was too big to be put back on board. In 1930 Emperor Edmory, who visited the Isle, described the Raiaupu Marinae (place of cult delimited by stationary stones), which was still in good condition, while the oldest could still recall older, missing mules.

The production of phosphates in Makatea was once the major revenue stream for Polynesia in France. Makatea, like Nauru and Christmas Isle, is a phosphor boulder isle. It is said that Captain Bonnet found phosphates on the isle around 1860; in 1898 a first mining experiment was unsuccessful due to technological and economic bottlenecks.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, phosphates emerged as a strategically important commodity used for the production of fertilisers needed in Japan, Australia and New Zealand on low-mineral soil and for the production of explosive materials. On 2 October 1908, Papeete-based engineering firm Étienne Touzé founded Compagnie Française des Phosphates de l'Océanie (CFPO), which received a monopoly licence to extract phosphates in Makatea in 1917 (after more than 100 legal proceedings against English, Hitler and Tahiti competitors).

It was founded on the model of the Pacific phosphates factory, which exploits phosphates in Nauru. Industrialisation has drastically altered the Makatea environment. It was not possible to mechanize the production of phosphates, but an expert coal-mine worker could dig up to 5 tons of phosphates per hour. Between 1908 and 1966, 11,279,436 tons of phosphates were mined.

Originally, the mine had 25 inhabitants, i.e. the largest part of the working community, while about 300 people were needed. In 1962 the number of inhabitants of the isle increased to 3,000. In those days, Makatea operations accounted for almost 30% of wages in the privat sectors in Polynesia; the tax payments made by the CFPO accounted for up to 25% of the area's revenue.

More than 15 years long, phosphorus was the major exporter to Polynesia, accounting for more than 75% of FX revenues. 1966 the production of phosphates was discontinued and CFPO retired from the islands within a fewweek. In Makatea, the few inhabitants of the islands returned to the small Moumu Plains and to Birgus Latine (locally known as Kaveu) crayfish.

Up until recently, there was no telephone line and no electricity source on the islands, which is only supplied twice a months via the seas. Mayor Julien Maï appointed French Polynesia University geographer Julien Maï in November 2003 to investigate the tourist potentials of Makatea, while the Urbanism Department in French Polynesia designed a general development programme for the Isle.

In fact, Makatea has several indigenous sources, such as rocks and caverns. Today the deserted city is a large brownfield which is of great interest for industry and cultural tourism. Makatea's icon is the 1m high phosphor rock known as the Makateaite. Makatea, abbreviated to the French Polynesian Tuamotu atoll: from the French Polynesia to the French Overseas Territories, Les Cahiers d'Outre-Mer, 230, 189-214.

Social significance of Makatea in French Polynesia. The mayor Julien Maï of Makatea and Colin Randall (designer of the ACIO 2010 flag) describe the symbols of their tribands (photo) as follows: The upper strip is pale blue[bleu ciel] and represent the skies; -- The central strip of red represent the rock (Papa Tahiti tea); -- The lower strip is the lowest blue[bleu roi] symbolise the ocean that encircles the isle; [bleu ciel] symbolises the ocean;

With its 16 stars, the scarlet stellar colour highlights Makatea within the Tuamotu archipelago and is a "rocky" hint at the symbols of the central strip, which unites heaven and ocean and creates a red-white-blue relationship to the Cuban coat of arms. On 2 October 1908, Papeete-based engineering firm Étienne Touzé founded Compagnie Française des Phosphates de l'Océanie (CFPO), which received a monopoly licence to extract phosphates in Makatea in 1917 (after more than 100 legal proceedings against English, Hitler and Tahiti competitors).

It was founded on the model of the Pacific phosphates factory, which exploits phosphates in Nauru. CFPO ran vessels between Makatea Iceland, where the firm produced phosphates, and Papeete. Once a month, the vessel went to Papeete to carry the company's managers and above all to carry all the materials needed for the industry (iron, concrete, timber, motors) and groceries (as no eatable plants could ever be cultivated on the island).

Alain Gerbaud, who remained in Makatea for a while, has traditionally been the designer of the boat. The Ville de Papeete was stranded on the Isla del Garaiki on 8 July 1934 and the firm ordered a new three-master from the Dubigeon Yard in Nantes. Built on 17 June 1935 in Chantenay, the last three-master in France, the vessel was called L'Oiseau des Îles (Bird of the Island), a homage to her patroness, the daugther of É.

On the way, L'Oiseau des Îles set a new course pace recorder - 14 kts for 8 hrs off Cape Finisterre. It was also used to enroll labourers on the other Polynesian and Cook Isles, Raratonga, Samoa and Fiji Isles (and to take the labourers back home at the end of their contract).

It was confiscated, armoured and recorded as P 780 by the Free France Maritime Forces on 15 October 1941, which built up a small navy in Polynesia. A number of springs say that the "Free french armored auxiliary beautifully " sunken a japonese sub, which is of course a beauty. André Praud ordered the boat to be lowered at the port of Papeete on 23 January 1942 to avoid the assault of a Nazi cruise liner, refusing to follow the orders of the local government and conducting a fact-finding missions to the neighboring isles, where a Nazi boat had never been seen before.

In 1943-1944, L'Oiseau des Îles made three journeys to Fiji to return sugars to Tahiti, after the French navy was back in public office but still in use. L'Oiseau des Îles was finally returned to the CRP in 1947 and resumed its normal work. L'Oiseau des Îles was superseded by a contemporary tractor of the same name in 1957 and finally shipped to Mexico.

L'Oiseau des Îles was finally scraped in 2009.