The waters of the Pacific are famous around the world for its precious harvest of South Sea pearls.

Tahiti is the Pacific's biggest exporter, specialising in black pearls.

Now Fiji is producing pearls - and taking on Tahiti,if not in numbers, in size, producing bigger pearls in a kaleidoscope of colours.

Clement Paligaru: These are the gems adding sparkle to Fiji's growing reputation as a pearl producer. And they're not just glamming up Fiji fashion, they're also freshening up the image of South Pacific pearls.

Leanne Hunter, J.Hunter Pearls: We believe that we have something that is truly unique, in terms of the colours of the pearls that we produce, the varieties of colours that we produce. And also the larger sizes. They're quite a rarity these days in the pearl world.

Clement Paligaru: Only a few years ago, international pearl buyers were resisting the charms of coloured pearls. Then they became fashionable.

Justin Hunter, J. Hunter Pearls: We get a lot of the goldie and goldie-green colours. Brown is a very hip colour. And right now the market has a lot of what are chocolate pearls, which are pearls that have been bought and bleached. And dyed to be brown.

But ours are completely natural. And they are the result of the unique environment that our pearl oysters live in. It's a different environment than the pearl oysters and pearl farms in the Northern Tahitian Islands and the Cook islands.

Clement Paligaru: The environment is Savusavu bay on Fiji's second largest island of Vanua Levu in in the country's north. Justin was born there but left as a teenager to study in the United States .

Justin Hunter: And just like any boy that leaves Fiji or any of the islands in the South Pacific, you're pretty excited to leave, but pretty quickly you are looking for a way to get back. And I was luck that at a young age I wanted to do something involving the sea which was marine biology. And this thing has fallen into place and I'm living a dream basically.

Clement Paligaru: The dream revolves around Savusavu and the bay where 50 thousand pearl oysters are farmed.

Justin Hunter: This is our hatchery facility here. What we do here is get the cleanest water we can because this is where we reproduce and grow up some of our oysters that we use on our pearl farm.
After 20 days they start looking for a bit of reef to attach to. What we do is we introduce them to these which are called spat collectors. And with any luck they will attach to these and start to grow.

Now we're in Savusavu Bay and this is where our farm proper is. And what we're going to look at now is the young oysters that have come from the hatchery last month. These that are 60 days old. They will be five years old before they produce their first pearl. This oyster of these grafted tissues if its done properly will produce pearls of this colour.

The reason we are able to get such incredible colours is because the oysters in Fiji have some increadible pearl colours. This here we call our Fiji gold. That tissue if it's done correctly should produce pearls of that colour.

Clement Paligaru: Tahiti has been the biggest name in South Pacific Pearls, exporting over 120 million dollars worth of pearls in recent years. Fiji only earns a million dollars a year from pearl exports. Justin says he prefers to focus on producing on smaller numbers of quality high premium pearls.

Justin Hunter: This is about beautiful, beautiful pieces that are coming out unique. They are not coming off of a conveyor belt.

Clement Paligaru: And he's confident that Fiji will avoid the experience of Tahiti and Cook Islands where black pearls were mass produced and no longer attract premium prices.

Justin Hunter: Here it is more complicated. We do have fishing rights which will make sure that there will always be benefits flowing into the indigenous fishing rights community. And I think because of that, it's going to keep out a lot of people who are coming in to make a quick dollar.

Clement Paligaru: The company makes a point of investing in the local community, giving local villagers jobs and scholarships. In turn, it's allowed access to the region's precious natural resources.

Taniela Vueta, Provincial Administrator: He's done a lot. He's given us employment, even now. Not only employing women, cleaning nets and cleaning whatever. It's a weekly basis of employment for the landowners.

We use traditional skills, in tying of the ropes and in all of the work that we do for the pearl. This work is really important to us.

Clement Paligaru: Earnings from the pearl farm have been used to build a community hall in Yaroi village as well as financing a reservoir and home improvements.

Vakamau Bilovucu, community leader: We have put some money aside to help our children, especially the parents, in financing our children's education. It will help our parents, to help pay for our children's tuition fees.

Clement Paligaru: Despite the riches Fiji pearls have brought to Savusavu, Justin Hunter is cautious about the future.

Justin Hunter: We are very involved with making sure that developments that do happen in and around Savusavu and for all of Fiji we would hope that people realise that this industry is based on the marine environment, that that water quality and the marine environment is special here. And we grow a special product and we have to keep it clean and beautiful - pristine.