It’s a unique social experiment and one that could revolutionise tourism. This weekend a global call is being put out on the internet for 5,000 people to join together, form a tribe and establish their own “eco-democracy” on a South Seas island.

Click on www.tribewanted.com and you will be transported to the island of Vorovoro, which sits 25 minutes by boat from the Fijian mainland in the south Pacific. An idyll of blue lagoons, coconut groves, crested parakeets and crashing surf, it’s the stuff of utopian dreams.

But you need dream no longer. Two British entrepreneurs, Ben Keene and Mark James, both 26, have rented this small piece of paradise from a local chief and plan to recruit their own tribe to inhabit and develop it over the next three years.

For a fee of between £120 and £360 you can become a member of the tribe. In return you will be given visiting rights and an ongoing say in the way the island is run.

Drawn from all over the world, the first of the 5,000 participants will arrive this summer, limited to 100 at any one time.

“People will be making history on a tiny ripple of rock, jungle and sand in the south Pacific,” said Keene last week. “It’s not just a holiday but the chance to join a unique tribe and help build a new community, both physically and online.”

The project aims to fuse the hedonism and adventure long offered by backpack travel with the more recent trends towards “ethical” living and sustainable development. A strictly democratic society, it will be one tribesman, one vote.

Each member will be able to spend up to three weeks a year in Fiji but will remain linked to the tribe from their homes and offices for the rest of the time via the internet.

The odd architect or doctor would be useful, but fishermen, woodcarvers, roofers and surf instructors are particularly welcome. Whatever your tropical island qualifications, applicants will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis. You must be at least 18 years old, but there is no upper age limit.

“We’re appealing to the same kind of people who go to Glastonbury,” says Keene. “You go there for a wonderful few days, but we will give you a week or more and a long-term say and interest in how things are run.”

Keene, who will go by the name Chief Bengazi in Fiji, acknowledges that on one level he is just a tour operator selling dreams — “Lunn Poly meets Lord of the Flies”, jokes a friend.

And, for the moment, a dream is pretty much all it is. Only four people currently live on Vorovoro: its chief, Tui Mali, and his immediate family. There is no running water or electricity on its 200 acres and there are no shops.

Each night Mali and his wife, members of the Yavusa tribe, sit down to a supper of white shark or red snapper. Tuna is a treat.

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