“Before there were rankings, rivalries and World Titles… there was the ocean,” Fiji Surfing Association President and Fijian pro surfing pioneer Hannah Bennett said in her speech as she opened stop number eight of the 2026 Championship Tour. “And before there was a Fiji Pro… there were people who knew these waters,” she continued. “People who understood the ocean not simply as a resource, but as a relative, as an ancestor — something we belong to.”
This year’s event holds extra significance for Bennett and the wider Fijian surf community. For the first time, a women’s local trials winner, Ulukilupetea Kurop, is in the draw. This moment has been a long time coming for Bennett, who was the first Fijian surfer to chase the WSL Qualifying Series back in 2015. She was born in the capital of Suva, but spent her early years on her mother’s home island of Rotuma, where she was inspired by her two older sisters to start surfing. She then later moved to Hawaii to finish high school and pursue surfing competitively.
“They were my segue into it,” Hannah reflects on the role her sisters played. “My middle sister Kim was really competitive, and she got into competition and she represented Fiji on a few occasions internationally. So, I really looked up to her in that way.”
Back then, there were no women’s trials for the Fiji CT at Cloudbreak, so Hannah and Kim used to surf in the men’s trials – always dreaming of becoming the first female Fijian surfer to appear in a Championship Tour event. The women’s professional competitive history at Cloudbreak is relatively short, with the first event held in 2014, running until 2017 when it was dropped and only returned in 2024. The first men’s CT was held in 1999.
“I grew up competing in the men’s wildcard trials because there wasn’t a women’s one, and I wanted it so bad,” Hannah says. “My sister and I, that was our dream together – one day we’re gonna be in the Fiji Pro as a female wild card. And it might not have happened for us personally, but at the end of the day, it’s happening. And it’s so much sicker than we could have imagined. It’s not even about who it is. It’s just getting that opportunity and getting that acknowledgement – honoring locals, honoring women.”
The competitive journey wasn’t easy for Hannah – the hyper-individualism needed to make heats at that level was counterintuitive, going against the community-oriented culture she was raised in.
“I think being the first one to do it, there was a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility,” Hannah recalls. “I think coming from the Pacific, we just have such a different perspective on a lot of things and competitive surfing for me started to feel very self-centered. It was a lot of pressure, but it was also very self-centered and it wasn’t for me, and I found comfort and more passion and drive doing more community stuff.”
After hanging up the WSL rashvest and returning to Suva, Fiji’s capital, Bennett got involved with the Fiji Surfing Association (FSA). As well as being the governing body of competitive surfing in Fiji, the FSA is tasked with developing surfing across the chain of more than 300 islands. Despite a deep historical relationship with the ocean, accessing surfing as a sport for Fijians has been challenging. With offshore reefbreaks, a boat is required to surf, meaning a level of resources is needed to make it out to the breaks each day. In promoting community surfing access through the FSA, Hannah found something far more rewarding than her own competitive career:
“I came back home and started volunteering for the Fiji Surfing Association. And I’ve been doing that for the last 10 years. To me, that was my jam. I was like, ‘This is what I want to do. This is how I want to be involved in surfing.’ It’s just so much more fulfilling for me to do the community engagement, grassroots development. We’re still involved with competition and all of that, but it was nice to kind of be in a more communal setting,” Hannah says.
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Four years ago, Hannah became the President of the federation. “Toughest job I’ve ever had. Underrated, selfless, time-consuming, very personal, and all worth it,” she says. Now, a decade after Hannah and her sister were dreaming of winning a place in the Fiji Pro, the dream has finally been realised by a member of the next generation. How does the saying go? Planting the seeds of trees for others to enjoy the shade.
But Hannah isn’t just growing surfing through the FSA. She recently launched her own project, Hanua, which means home in Hannah’s Rotuman language. Hanua is described as
“Harnessing the pursuit of surfing to build connection and community while fostering traditional stewardship practices that safeguard our Hanua—our home.” The project is the result of Hannah being in the position of FSA President and noticing gaps that she had the passion and experience to fill. A key one being storytelling:
“No one is documenting the evolution of surfing in Fiji from within,” Hannah explains. “I believe our journey as a community holds a lot of lessons and inspiration. Storytelling is also a powerful Pacific ritual and tool for sharing knowledge and preserving culture. I want to help revive that.”
Hannah’s aim with Hanua is to make the connection between ocean stewardship, surfing and storytelling that centres Pacific peoples, their voices and their stories.
“We have a lot of NGOs that come into the region to help and make an impact, which they do, but we don’t have a lot of groups that are representing from within,” Hannah says. “And that’s something that is really close to my heart, that we have a place and a platform that’s coming from the people. I’m hoping that with Hanua, we’re building it to take a totally different approach on the NGO system, on conservation and cultural preservation,” Hannah adds.
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