I took this shot of some Yakel village elders sitting under a Banyan tree in a Nambas village on Tanna island, Vanuatu. The Yakel people live a traditional life that in many ways has remained unchanged over the millennia. The people of Vanuatu often rank as some of the happiest on the planet (4th happiest globally in the 2016 Happy Planet Index) . Ranked with a higher wellbeing than those living in Japan, they achieve this with an Ecological Footprint per capita a quarter of the size of Japan’s, and a GDP per capita that’s more than twenty times smaller than neighboring Australia. Some food for thought for those of us living in highly developed societies.
All images in this post were taken by and remain the Copyright of Robert Downie - http://www.robertdowniephotography.com
Fantastic entry Robert! First time I've heard of the Yakel people. I would love to meet them by myself one day!