Sigatoka Sand Dunes

Sigatoka Sand Dunes National Park was established in 1989 on the south-western coast of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji, at the mouth of the Sigatoka River, and protects some 6.5 km². It was the country's first national park.

Its central feature is a system of coastal dunes reaching up to some sixty metres high, formed by the sand the river carries down from the interior and that the south-easterly wind redistributes inland. They are active dunes, with mobile sectors advancing over the vegetation.

Its greatest value is archaeological and has been revealed by the erosion itself: the movement of the sand has gradually exposed one of the most important prehistoric burial grounds in the Pacific, with human remains and Lapita pottery, the ceramic tradition associated with the Austronesian settlement of Remote Oceania some three thousand years ago. Excavations have documented burials from different periods and have produced decisive information about the peopling of the archipelago. The dune vegetation includes species adapted to the mobile substrate and to salinity, and the park faces pressure from tourism and sand extraction.