A semi-submerged graveyard on Togoru, Fiji. The island states in the South Pacific are most vulnerable to sea level rise and extreme weather. Credit: Pascal Laureyn/IPS

By Pascal Laureyn
TOGORU, Fiji, Jan 2 2018 (IPS)

The water is nibbling away the beaches of Fiji. Not even the dead are allowed peace of mind. The graveyard of Togoru – a village on the largest island of Fiji – has been submerged. The waves are sloshing softly against the tilted tombstones covered with barnacles. The names have become illegible, erased by the sea.

“Bula!” The Fijian greeting comes with surprise – no visitor ever comes this way. The village headman of Togoru was easy to find since only three houses are left of the village. On the beach, James Dunn (72) points to the drowned dead. “The village was even further behind the graveyard. In 20 years’ time, the sea has moved in a few hundred meters. The house where I was born is gone.” The patriarch remembers the graveyard being covered by the shade of the palm trees."Togoru will disappear soon. And our history with it." --James Dunn

Today, the trees are rotting in the surf. The soil around the roots is being washed away, until they fall over. Tree by tree, the sea moves deeper inland. The fields have become unusable for agriculture due to salination. The remaining village often gets flooded at high tide. “The waves knock on my door,” Dunn says.

The ancestors of James Dunn are buried here, but he can’t visit their graves anymore. His great-great-grandfather came all the way from Ireland to build this village. That explains his extraordinary name for a Fijian. Five generations later, James is probably the last headman of a village on the frontline against climate change.

Move or drown

Fiji and other South Pacific states are extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels. Most islands are low and remote, poor and insignificant. In the West, almost nobody cares. But the water has risen 25 centimeters on average since 1880, enough to wipe Togoru off the map. The village has already disappeared from Google Maps.

“The sea is stealing our land,” says Dunn. “The beaches where I used to play as a child are in the water. We had horse races. That’s impossible now.” Togoru has built five sea walls in the past 25 years. None could cope the force of the advancing waters.

If global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees, the sea level will still be another 50 centimeters higher. But even this most optimistic prediction spells doom for thousands of communities in vulnerable coastal areas.

From the beach of Togoru, the Fijian capital Suva is visible. “The prime minister came here to visit. He said we have to say farewell to our village. Luckily, he isn’t abandoning us,” Dunn says.

The government of Fiji recently published a list of 60 villages that need relocation. For a country with barely a million inhabitants, that’s a lot.

Anne Dunn, James’s niece, has also lost her roots in Togoru. “Climate change to me means that we couldn’t bury my father and my uncle at our traditional burial grounds,” she says emotionally. The young woman was crowned Miss Fiji and Miss Pacific Islands in 2016. Now she uses her voice in the battle against climate change. “It affects our identity. We are islanders, our unique way of living is being threatened.”

The activist from Togoru was a guest speaker at the climate summit COP23 in Bonn (Germany), presided by Fiji. The small island state has taken up an outsized role at the conferences on climate change of the United Nations. It speaks with a loud voice to get attention. The micro-state on the isolated archipelago doesn’t have the means to battle the advancing sea. Any help from outside is welcome. ‘Vinaka’, thank you.

Monthly, more than 80,000 tourists come to the white beaches and colorful coral reefs. But the resorts regularly have to level up their beaches. Sugar is the second pillar of the Fijian economy under threat. A growing number of sugar cane fields are being destroyed by salination.

Extreme weather

Fiji is responsible for only 0.01 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. But it is being beaten relentlessly by the climate storm. “When it was all over, everything was flat. I could see for miles.” Malela Dakui (53), the village headman of Rakiraki, who witnessed another phenomenon of climate change: extreme weather.

On Feb. 20, 2016, Dakui hid under his table while wind gusts as strong as 325 kilometers an hour howled outside. Cyclone Winston blew away his roof, and his walls a few minutes later. The eye of the storm passed right over Rakiraki. The coastal village had experienced cyclones before, but never one with the force of Winston. Miraculously, nobody got hurt in Rakiraki, but elsewhere 44 people lost their lives.

Winston was the most powerful cyclone ever to be observed in the southern hemisphere. It was also the most costly, at 1.4 billion dollars, a third of Fijian GDP. Two years later, Rakiraki has not been completely rebuilt yet. The village looks like an outdoor construction fair. Between the destroyed houses there are many construction sites. Building materials and tools are everywhere. Since Winston, nobody wants to live in ramshackle huts anymore. But solid houses are expensive.

“Bula!” Everywhere he goes, the playful village headman is greeted heartily. He knows Rakiraki inside out. “Long before Winston, we sensed that the weather was changing,” Dakui explains. Climate change applies to his plate. “We have less fish because the coral reefs are dying. It has become too hot for taro, a popular vegetable. The farmers switched to cassava and sweet potatoes, but it doesn’t pay as well.”

The consequences of climate change on the weather are undeniable, the village headman thinks. “The weather patterns are changing rapidly. The rainy season used to start every year on the same day. Now the seasons are broken.” Since his house was blown away, Dakui knows more extreme weather is coming. Nevertheless, he is lucky. Rakiraki is slowly being rebuilt. Other villages are lost forever.

A lost history

Climate refugees are not a new phenomenon in Fiji and Tukuraki is the unwanted champion of relocation. This village in the volcanic mountains of the Fijian interior had to move three times in five years. In 2012, Tukuraki got hit by a landslide after extremely long rains. Ten months later the temporary shelters were destroyed by cyclone Evan. The third village was wiped away by Winston. The unfortunate homeless villagers moved to a cave for a while.

“For Fijians, land is the most important thing. It binds us. When we lost our land, we felt vulnerable and helpless,” says Livai Kidiromo, one of the village elders. The fourth Tukuraki is now his final home. The new and disaster resistant village was built with the financial support of the European Union. The modern dwellings can resist a category 5 cyclone, but offer no protection for the loss of their traditional way of living.

“Bula!” Apparently no other foreigner ever defied the difficult road to remote Tukuraki. That adventure is rewarded with a traditional welcoming ceremony and lots of kava. Men chew the root of the kava plant and spit the mush in a bowl with water. The brownish drink is lightly intoxicating. The chewers explain that the price of kava has doubled since Winston destroyed the fields. The production hasn’t recovered yet.

The new village is located on a plateau in the midst of an enchanting landscape. On the mountainside, the remains of the original village are visible from the new site. The jungle has retaken most of it. Only the church is intact.

“This village is much more comfortable than the old one. But we had to leave our past. That’s painful,” says Josivini Vesidrau, the young wife of the village headman, Simione Deru. He misses his birthplace. “I never go there anymore. I have to cry when I think of it.”

Climate refugees are a reality not just for Fiji. Samoa, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and many other neighboring islands are under threat. Kiribati is trying to prepare for its own demise, predicted for 2050. The government has bought 2,500 hectares of land in Fiji to relocate some of the 105,000 inhabitants when the last bits of dirt will be covered by water.

While the temperature rises and the storms strengthen, coastal residents have to choose: leave or fight. James, the Irish-Fijian headman of Togo, has another look at the turquoise water and the remains of his family graves. His cousin is cleaning up the garden for the Christmas party, maybe the last one. “Togoru will disappear soon. And our history with it,” says James. He doesn’t know yet where to go. “Fleeing is not an option. Fiji is not big, you can’t keep on moving.”

Excerpt:

Kumi Naidoo

By Pascal Laureyn
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 20 2017 (IPS)

“Today’s youth should think of new solutions for old problems like climate change and social injustice.”

That’s the strong message of the South African activist Kumi Naidoo. The former executive director of Greenpeace says young people need to be more innovative and visionary, “because the solutions of my generation have failed.”

After battling apartheid in South Africa, Kumi Naidoo led numerous global campaigns to protect
human rights.

Among other organizations, he headed CIVICUS, an alliance for citizen participation. It was at the International Civil Society Week (ICSW), organized by CIVICUS in Fiji in December, that Naidoo spoke out on youth and innovation.

“My advise for young people is: don’t put any faith in the current leaders. They are the biggest bunch of losers you are going to find. Because they are unwilling to accept that they have got us into this mess,” says Naidoo.

“Basically, we are using old solutions that have never worked in the past anyway,” Naidoo contin-ues.

Albert Einstein said: ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get different results.’ If humanity continues to do what we always did, we will get what always got: inequality, unsustainability and environmental destruction.”

How can young people steer the planet away from insanity?

“The most valuable role that they can play, is bringing fresh lenses to old problems. And not to be scared to be called romantic, unrealistic or idealistic. The so called realistic solutions to today’s
problems are ineffective.”

“In terms of innovation, I really think that the best solutions in the world – even on a small scale – are coming from young people. For example: Four years ago, a group of young schoolgirls in Zambia designed a generator that could run for five hours on one liter of human urine.”

Can local innovation change the whole world?

“We are obsessed with big infrastructure. We have to break out of that. In Africa, the rural popula-tion is short of energy. Big power plants are not going to help those people. Politics get in the way. And lots of energy gets lost in the transmission process. The solution is simple: small grids. All we need is 20 solar panels and connect them to 50 homes. It can be done quickly, it’s not rocket sci-ence.”

You have been a vocal critic of global bodies like the World Economic Forum. You proposed a system re-design. What do you mean by that?

“We are heading towards irreversible and catastrophical climate change. It’s one of the worst cases of cognitive dissonance. All the facts are telling us we have to change. Over the last 10 years, there has been an increase of 100 percent of extreme weather. But nothing is done. Therefore, I believe that innovation will not come from people who are trained in an old system.”

“I’m inspired by my daughter. She was in her early teens when she said that my generation is con-taminated by decades of bad experiences. She was right. The current generation has run out of fresh ideas. Young people will learn more easily, they are essential to innovation. Like the founders of Google, how old where they?”

What’s your dream for the future?

“That young people could recalibrate our values and convince the world that excessive consump-tion does not lead to happiness. I hope that they take us back to basics: a sense of community, sharing and equity. I hope that young people will be able to take us from an polluting economy to one that is based on green and renewable energy. And that extreme poverty will be completely eradicated.”

“My final message to our youth is: you have to resist the old wisdom that young people are the leaders of tomorrow. If you wait until tomorrow, there might not be a tomorrow to exercise it.”

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the ef-fects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world met in Suva, Fiji, 4 December through 8 December 2017 for International Civil Society Week.

Victor Ugo dedicates the award he won to all Nigerians coping with mental illness. Credit: Pascal Laureyn/IPS

By Pascal Laureyn
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 15 2017 (IPS)

They are young, smart and willing to take the rough road. Victor, Jubilanté and Khaled are independent fighters who speak out with a force that could possibly change the appearances of their countries, and beyond.

These ‘sparks of hope’ were awarded with the Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Innovation Awards for their contributions to civil society. Nigeria, Guyana and Egypt already heard about them, the award will make their endeavors known internationally—and it’s high time to hear these inspiring voices.

Creating awareness for mental health in Nigeria. Motivating young creatives in Guyana to speak out using digital media. Defending human rights and freedom of speech in Egypt. These are some of the missions they have dedicated their lives to. Victor Ugo, Jubilanté Cutting and Khaled al-Balshy received the yearly award in Fiji last week.

The Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Innovation Awards seeks to promote individuals and organizations for their excellence and bravery in creating social change. “They inspire compassion and empathy at a time of growing fear, xenophobia, and hate speech,” says Graça Machel, the former First Lady of South Africa.

During the International Civil Society Week (ICSW)— highlighting a conference organized by CIVICUS in Fiji’s capital Suva – the winners had the opportunity to capture a large audience eager to learn about their projects. The interest was overwhelming and often left them exhausted after the daily rounds of interviews and panel discussions. The fourth winner of the prestigious prize – the philanthropic Guerrila Foundation of Germany – was not present in Fiji.

Every year, CIVICUS – a civil society organizations alliance – brings the ICSW to another location to “promote and defend a more just and sustainable future.” Fiji hosted the 2017 event, highlighting the potential and problems of the Pacific.

Victor Ugo (Nigeria) – Best organization of civil society

Victor has the confident stride of a young man with proven achievements while walking from venue to venue at the conference in Suva. He shows no trace of the depression he once suffered from. He was diagnosed with the condition almost 4 years ago. And he was lucky, he got treatment. Most Nigerians who have psychiatric ailments never get help.

Victor Ugo patiently answers questions of interested journalists: “The award makes us more desirable.” Credit: Pascal Laureyn/IPS

“Mental healthcare is none existent in Nigeria,” explains Victor. “There is no knowledge. Not just illiterate people, but also university professors think that mental illnesses are caused by evil ghosts. Patients get punished for their disease.”

As a consequence of the stigma, mental health facilities are really poor. “There are only 200 psychiatrists in Nigeria, a country of 186 million people,” an exasperated Victor says. “And many of them go into banking because they can’t find a job.”

After his depression the young doctor founded the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI). Two years later, it has become Nigeria’s largest mental health organization. MANI combats the stigma, creates awareness and promotes services for mental health. “Most people don’t know the symptoms and that it can be treated.”

Therefor MANI encourages conversation on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are platforms used for online campaigns on depression, bipolar disorders or bullying. “We explain how a depression feels like. We make people talk about it,” says Victor. Patients share their experience, family and friends can ask for help. “We try to find people who want to talk about it. We call them our ‘champions of mental health’.”

Media sometimes spread misconceptions about mental health or ignore it completely. “We correct the media so that it is understood that it’s about diseases,” the young man explains. “Suicide, for example. We teach the press how to report on suicides without encouraging it.”

MANI is also creating an online platform to link doctors to patients, like Uber does with drivers and passengers. When a patient asks for help, a therapist in the area is alerted. They can make an appointment after they agree on the price. The platform will be launched next year.

“Today, in villages, patients are still being flogged and chained because of traditional beliefs,” Victor sighs. The taboo needs to be broken. “The less stigma, the more people will ask for help. That will create a market that can encourage more students to become a psychiatrist,” says the hopeful award winner. He dedicates the award to all Nigerians coping with mental illness. “The award makes us more desirable. Everybody wants to join.”

Jubilanté Cutting (Guyana) – Youth Activist Award

At just 19, Jubilanté Cutting founded the Guyana Animation Network (GAN) to help empower young people with skills in digital media and animation. During the conference in Fiji, she was not only promoting the business model of GAN but also trying to inspire. When the stylishly dressed young woman engages in discussions on civil society, she easily impresses people with her enthusiasm and motivational calls to action.

Jubilanté Cutting: “We help children to think out of the box, to learn something about themselves and express themselves.” Credit: Credit: Pascal Laureyn/IPS

“I got the spark when I was 17, at a workshop on art, technology and animation in Trinidad and Tobago. There I met many talented people who were pushing out Caribbean style media products. It was an explosion of talent, it made my creative juices flowing. Although I noticed quickly that I’m not very talented as an animator. But I do have a talent for networking, I decided to focus on that and help to develop Guyana’s digital and creative industries,” Jubilanté concludes.

Two years later, the young law student created GAN. In its first year GAN has reached than 3,500 people through summer camps, events, talks in schools and social media. The main purpose is to change a way of thinking. “Art is still seen as a hobby, not as a professional career,” says Jubilanté who taps her fingernails on the table out of frustration.

“But digital creatives can have a profitable career. If we could attach a price on creativity, many people would already be millionaires. We have to embrace creativity as more than just fun and teach people how to monetize it.”

And no better way to learn new skills and creative mind sets than to start at a young age. “Children are an important target for us,” Jubilanté points out. “Our society is ignoring the young ones. I use every forum I get to emphasize this. Children are born in the digital age. We have to learn them to use that technology in a responsible way. That’s why our organization opens its doors to children, because we acknowledge how transformational they are,” says the young woman.

Jubilanté tells enthusiastically what happened at one of her workshops. When teaching software to create digital graphics, the children aged 6 and 7 were quicker than the older ones to grasp the complicated tool. “Children are unafraid to learn, that’s critical for creative development. But books only teach them things in a structured way. We help children to think out of the box, to motivate them to learn something about themselves and express themselves.”

It took Jubilanté and her team of co-workers and volunteers a year to get the attention of the government. “We need more infrastructure, training and equipment to break the barriers for development. The Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Award won us the recognition of the government and it draws attention to Guyana and the whole Caribbean. Now people know that something is happening there with digital media.

At her 21, Jubilanté is already a force that drives things forward on sheer will power. GAN is only one year old, but she is thinking big. “I want to spread the Caribbean culture. Everyone already loves Bob Marley and Rhianna. I will make them love Caribbean animation and promote our own artists.”

Khaled al-Balshy (Egypt) – Individual Activist Award

Khaled al-Balshy is a prominent human rights defender and journalist fighting to protect free speech. In Egypt, that is no easy job. The government has increasingly cracked down on the press and has become one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists. In a nation where media are under constant attack, Khaled is struggling to defend freedom of the press.

The journalist is gifted with the calmness necessary to face hardship. Khaled knows all too well how an Egyptian cell looks like. He has a suspended 1 year sentence for harboring journalists wanted for expressing critical views. His news website al-Bedaiah is blocked. He was accused for “insulting the police” on social media. The courts have 10 pending cases against him. These are just a few of the harassments he has grown accustomed to.

“The situation in Egypt is one of the worst in the world. More than 12 journalists have been murdered in the last three years. More than 20 are in prison, some without clear accusations. Many others are being stopped from writing and publishing,” Khaled explains for the umpteenth time. He gives many interviews at the conference in Fiji, always with the same energy and indignation.

Known to be an ardent defender of press freedom, Khaled leads numerous initiatives for the detained and disappeared journalists. “I write about their cases. I visit their families. We organize meetings and we create groups that helps lawyers with the legal process.” Sometimes that leads to success. “When a journalist is released, we are happy. But only for a few minutes. Sometimes they have spent years in prison without a clear accusation.”

“This absurd dictatorship is feels threatened, why else would they imprison us?” Khaled continues. “They are afraid of us. When we write, we make a change. If we just tell the truth all the time, that change will come. We did this with Mubarak, we can do it again with al-Sisi,” says Khaled. “The only way to protect freedom of expression is to exercise it and to denounce the violations against it.”

“When I knew I won the Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Award, I was sad for 3 days. I’m getting an award, while people are spending years in prison. My son convinced me that this award is for everyone, for the people I’m fighting for. It’s a message to the imprisoned journalists that their voices can break through prison walls.” The Tunisian translator wipes tears off her face when she repeats his words in English. Her country had a successful uprising, the one in Egypt has failed.

But Khaled has hope. He will continue to fight. “I want to make that change for my son, he is making me do this.”

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world met in Suva, Fiji, December 4 through December 8 for International Civil Society Week..

By Pascal Laureyn
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 13 2017 (IPS)

More than 700 activists gathered in Suva, Fiji’s capital, to explore the latest trends – from climate change to human rights, from innovation to social justice. Anything that can help empower and mobilise citizens. The lively debates in panel discussions, workshops and lectures made the event look like a carnival of creative new ideas and tested knowledge.

The Innovation Lab brought together human rights defenders to share their tools, tactics and strategies. Oxfam addressed the long term problems that the 300 nuclear tests in the Pacific had caused. And the Public Interest Registry taught participants how to inspire donors to give and supporters to take action.

A lot of attention went to activist stars like Kumi Naidoo (Greenpeace, CIVICUS, …), Helen Clark (former prime minister of New Zealand) and José Ramos-Horta (former president of Timor-Leste). The youthful and charming winners of the ‘Nelson Mandela – Graca Machel Innovation Awards’ won many hearts when the annual prize was handed out.

Special focus on the Pacific

For the first time this global event was hosted in the Pacific. The conference focussed on the plight of small islands affected by rising sea levels and more frequent and extreme weather.

“The peoples of the Pacific, like those in other small island states, have to tackle the devastating impacts of climate change alongside other development challenges,” says Danny Sriskandarajah, secretary general of CIVICUS.

CIVICUS, an alliance for citizen participation, organized the conference in cooperation with PIANGO, the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organisation.

Fiji has taken a leading role in the Pacific to address climate change. The republic has already presided over the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 23) in Bonn and co-hosted the UN Oceans Conference in New York earlier this year. It collaborates closely with other Pacific states and territories.

Brianna Fruean, a 19 year old student from Samoa, is one of the Pacific Climate Warriors, a cooperation between 12 island nations. “My grandfather liked to take me to the markets to look at the rich variety of fish. But the corals are devastated due to climate change. If you go to the fish markets now it’s not so plentiful anymore. That’s how my passion for climate change began.”

“It is critical that every person on this planet recognizes the importance of what is going on in the Pacific,” says Danny Sriskandarajah. “Everybody must act. Whether it is change in their consumption behavior or putting pressure on their local and national authorities.”

Many inspirational voices

Speaking at the closing event, Joanna Kerr – the Canadian head of Greenpeace – said that the problem of climate change will require enormous civil society mobilisation to address. “The problem is so huge it can be hard to stay optimistic. But the hope and resilience of the Pacific gives us hope.” She applauded the ordinary Pacific peoples’ appreciation for climate change.

Another inspirational voice of hope was that of Victor Ugo, a Nigerian doctor. He came to ICSW to collect his ‘Nelson Mandela – Graca Machel Innovation Award’ for his work on developing awareness on mental health in Nigeria. He experienced several eye-openers at the conference.

“I’m eager to go home and try out all the things that I’ve learned here in Fiji. I want to help people with mental illnesses to speak out so they can achieve something in their communities. There is still an awful lot of work to do in Nigeria on mental health. But challenges are not restrictions,” Ugo said.

If conferences are about motivating people to keep on going forward, then ICSW has done its job.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific and small island states who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world met in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Excerpt:

The riverfront in Suva, Fiji. Credit: Flickr/Michael Coghlan

By Megan Darby
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 12 2017 (IPS)

Civil society leaders from more than 100 countries called for action on climate-induced displacement at a summit in Suva, Fiji last week.

Their declaration urges the international community to uphold the human rights of people compelled to move as a result of global warming impacts.

Climate change should be recognised as a driver of migration in the global compact due to be negotiated by countries in 2018, say the campaign groups, which include Oxfam Pacific, 350.org and Act Alliance.

Danny Sriskandarajah, head of Civicus, the network convening the meeting, talked to Climate Home News by Skype from Suva. Climate-related displacement is “marginal both to the climate change negotiations and to the human rights negotiations,” he said.

“We think there is a real gap here. We know already there are people being displaced as a result of climate change and it is only going to get worse.”

The declaration follows the Trump administration’s decision to pull the US out of the developing global compact on migration. Sriskandarajah described that as a “hugely disappointing” development, adding that he hoped it would not discourage other countries.

In the Pacific, sea level rise is already making some island communities unviable. In 2014, Vunidogoloa in Fiji moved 2 kilometres inland, the first of 30 villages earmarked for relocation. Around 1,000 residents of Taro, in the Solomon Islands, are preparing to move.

Brianna Fruean, climate campaigner from Samoa, told Climate Home News even moving short distances was a wrench for islanders. “In the western world, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing – you are moving from one neighbourhood to another – but in a Pacific context it can be heartbreaking, because we are very tied to our land, to where our ancestors are buried,” she said.

That is partly why island campaigners have pushed strongly for a global warming limit of 1.5C: beyond that, low-lying coral atolls are set to be swallowed by rising seas.

Despite the adoption of 1.5C as an aspirational target in the Paris climate agreement, islanders are reluctantly preparing for the possibility of leaving their countries altogether.

“Climate change has been working faster than our talking,” said Fruean. “It is the sad reality.”

In other parts of the world, desertification, flooding and intensifying tropical storms can be triggers for people to leave their homes either temporarily or permanently. On the whole, they do not identify as “climate refugees” or “climate migrants” and may have multiple reasons for moving.

While international law has established rules about giving asylum to victims of political persecution, there is no special status for people displaced by climate change.

New Zealand, which has longstanding relationships with a number of Pacific island states, is planning to create the world’s first humanitarian visas geared towards climate-displaced people.

Sriskandarajah welcomed the initiative, but added: “We cannot rely on ad hoc responses by certain governments; we need multilateral action that is based on rights and responsibilities.”

The “global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration” was conceived in September 2016 in a New York declaration that mentions climate change five times. The end result is expected to establish voluntary guidelines for a more humane treatment of migrants.

Dina Ionesco heads a team at the International Organization for Migration focused on the links between environmental change and migration.

While she is optimistic the global pact will acknowledge the issue, Ionesco does not see much appetite among nations to create a system for designating people as “climate migrants”. “This is extremely sensitive,” she told Climate Home News.

As in the climate negotiations, some vulnerable countries are keen to discuss the subject but most have other priorities – in this context, border management, labour and human rights.

“We are focusing on supporting states so that they can have the necessary evidence and arguments to advocate for the recognition of climatic and environmental factors as drivers of migration,” said Ionesco.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific and small island states who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world met in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Excerpt:

Women activists demanding a fair share of power. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 9 2017 (IPS)

The space for civil society organizations is shrinking around the world, with particular impacts on women activists and human rights defenders who face additional barriers due to their gender or sexual orientation.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) and activists from around the world convened in Fiji over the last week to tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges.Two years before she was murdered, indigenous and environmental rights activist Berta Caceres said that it was her gender as much as her work that threatened her life.

Participants attended workshops and donned shirts saying “activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet” and “we will never give up on our beautiful planet.”

Among the challenges discussed is the rise in populism which has lead to restrictions in rights to expression and public assembly and thus actions taken by CSOs.

According to civil society alliance CIVICUS, only 2 of every 100 people live in a country with decent protections for civil society.

From Venezuela to Russia, state actors have put significant pressure on CSOs, preventing them from accessing foreign funding and registrations due to their role in defending human rights.

“When there is little or no support from government, the activist is in danger of discrimination and abuse by police and other authorities,” Pacific Women Advisory Board member Savina Nongebatu told IPS.

Human rights defenders (HRDs) have been increasingly subject to intimidation, harassment, and are at times killed for the work they do around the world.

Last year was the deadliest year ever recorded for HRDs with almost 300 killed across 25 countries, 49 percent of whom were defending land, indigenous, and environmental rights.

In addition to threats they face for their work, women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are frequently targeted because of their gender or sexual orientation, experiencing attacks that are traditionally perpetrated against women including rape, defamation campaigns, and acid attacks.

In August 2016, Turkish activist Hande Kader was brutally raped and murdered for her outspoken work in lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender (LBGT) rights.

Human rights later Bertha de Leon was subject to a sexualized smear campaign as photos circulated suggesting she had a sexual relationship with a judge who ruled favorably in a case in which she was involved in El Salvador.

Indian tribal rights activist Soni Sori who has been an outspoken critic of police violence towards her community was attacked with a chemical substance in February 2016.

Two years before she was murdered, indigenous and environmental rights activist Berta Caceres said that it was her gender as much as her work that threatened her life.

“We are women who are reclaiming our right to the sovereignty of our bodies and thoughts and political beliefs, to our cultural and spiritual rights—of course the aggression is much greater,” she said.

Analysts have found that the trend of closing civic space and restrictons to civil society often go hand in hand with the intensification of a fundamentalist discouse on national identity and traditional patricarchal values.

Such threats and actions work to silence WHRDs, limiting their resources and capacity to do work in already restricted civic spaces.

“When we have defenders with limited resources and capacity, the possibility of not being heard or consulted is high,” Nongebatu said.

“The ability to work and build partnerships rests squarely on the few women activists who may have learnt to work smarter from lessons learnt in their journey,” she added.

Such threats and restrictions do not stay isolated within borders, but are often brought over to international fora like the UN.

During International Civil Society Week (ICSW) in Fiji, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former UN Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark noted UN’s continuous struggle to include civil society voices, reminding participants that the UN Charter begins with the words “We the peoples.”

“It doesn’t say we the countries or we the member states,” she said, adding that barriers to civil society participation often comes from member states.

“Not all member states like civil society very much…you just have to keep banging on the door and force it to respond,” Clark said.

LGBT rights have been particularly long contested at the UN. In 2016, Russia with the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) banned 11 LGBT organizations from attending a UN High-Level meeting on Ending AIDS.

And it was only recently that women were formally recognized for their role in climate action during the UN Climate Change Conference in Germany, kickstarting a process to integrate gender equality and human rights into climate action.

Nongebatu also told IPS of the “North and South divide” where larger civil society organizations take up more resources and space and urged for them to ensure that all women who work in human rights are consulted.

She also called on the UN to be inclusive of those in the Pacific Islands who often are unable to make the long journey to New York.

Despite the numerous challenges, Nongebatu remained motivated and asked women activists to stay determined.

“Intersection of all issues is inevitable!…The work we do is never done! Don’t give up! We need to keep fighting!”

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific and small island states who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world met in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

The Maldives. Credit: UNDP

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 2017 (IPS)

The 44-member Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) represents some of the world’s most vulnerable island nations fighting a virtually losing battle against rising sea levels triggered by global warming and climate change.

A negotiating voice of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), AOSIS has membership
drawn from all oceans and regions of the world, including Africa, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Pacific and South China Sea.

According to the US National Ocean Service (NOS), the two major causes of global sea level rise are thermal expansion caused by warming of the ocean (since water expands as it warms) and increased melting of land-based ice, such as glaciers and ice sheets.

The oceans are absorbing more than 90 percent of the increased atmospheric heat associated with emissions from human activity, says NOS.

Ahmed Sareer, Foreign Secretary of the Maldives and a former AOSIS chair (2015-2017), told IPS that “warming seas have already shifted the fish stocks that we rely on; back-to-back coral bleaching episodes have undermining essential marine habitats as well as critical ecotourism industries.”

Rising seas, worsening coastal erosion, and increasingly powerful storms have forced SIDS to climate-proof their infrastructure projects both in the Caribbean and the Pacific and even threaten the territorial integrity of low-lying SIDS, he said.

“The devastation caused by the recent storms in the Caribbean are a reminder of how vulnerable small island states are, and how years of development and economic gains can be wiped out overnight, leaving these countries to start from scratch”, said Sareer, whose island nation has been threatened by sea level rise triggered by climate change.

Described as “one of the world’s most geographically dispersed countries” and comprising more than a thousand coral islands scattered across the Indian Ocean, the Maldives has a population of nearly 440,000 people compared to India, one of its neighbours, with a hefty population of over 1.2 billion.

The Maldives was devastated by the December 2004 tsunami, and according to one report, 57 islands faced serious damage to critical infrastructure, 14 had to be totally evacuated, and six islands were destroyed. A further twenty-one resort islands were forced to close because of tsunami damage estimated at over $400 million.

As part of its defences, the Maldives has been erecting a wall around the capital of Malé to thwart a rising sea and a future tsumani.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on December 5, Ambassador Robert Sisilo of Solomon Islands, told delegates his country sat on the largest aquatic continent in the world, and had a huge maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that was much larger than its land territory.

“The ocean had always been the Solomon Islands’ source of livelihood, but it was also its culture, gastronomy and leisure”.

“The ocean defines who we are,” he said, warning that failing to protect the ocean from climate change, acidification, plastic pollution and oil spills was “failing to protect ourselves”.

The (June 2017) Ocean Conference had represented a ray of hope, and the international community must accelerate that positive momentum, said Sisilo, calling on the Security Council to address the issue of climate change.

Sareer told IPS the SAMOA Pathway, the SIDS blueprint for sustainable development, calls attention to the crosscutting nature of climate change and sustainable development in areas as diverse as infrastructure development, agriculture, marine conservation, and climate adaptation.

The follow-up and review of the SAMOA pathway is scheduled to happen over the next 2 years. “We need broad and comprehensive engagement from all actors including civil society in the regional and interregional consultations which will be taking place.”

He pointed out that the reduction of harmful emissions, transitioning to renewable sources of energy, and investing in mitigation and adaptation are crucial for achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

“As small island states, we are advocating for the more ambitious 1.5 degree goal, recognising that the impacts of climate change at 2 degrees are significantly worse. Therefore these investments, particularly in the context of transitioning to renewable energy need to be scaled up to a great extent, and also be sustainable and durable,” he declared.

“As SIDS, we also believe that equal focus needs to be placed on adaptation as well as mitigation. We are already experiencing the impacts of climate change on our islands, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) needs to adequately cater to these needs instead of having a focus on emissions reductions.”

Therefore, AOSIS works towards accelerating adaptation and mitigation efforts to set SIDS development pathways to a low greenhouse gas and climate-resilient development, he added.

The Maldives, as the Chair of AOSIS, and in collaboration with IRENA, launched the Initiative for Renewable Island Energy (IRIE) in October, which will facilitates support for Small Island States in their transition to renewable energy, and in achieving energy efficiency.

Meeting the financing goal of $100 billion annually by 2020 is essential, and new partnerships with the private sector, non-governmental organisations, and other institutions can help to mobilise the resources, Sareer said.

SIDS say required funding should be predictable, sustainable, adequate and easy to access. In this regard, AOSIS has been advocating for simplified access procedures for the Green Climate Fund (GCF), and also greater transparency on how the funds are allocated and dispersed, with a clear understanding of what constitutes as climate financing.

The Adaption Fund (AF) is important to SIDS because the fund recognizes the particular challenges that many of SIDS face in addressing climate change. In addition, the AF is active in working to ensure its resources are always accessible by SIDS.

In the Fund’s governance, seats on the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) are reserved for special representatives of SIDS.

So far, 14 countries from SIDS have seen their projects or programmes approved by the AF for a total grant amount of $96,951,733, including readiness grants. Projects in SIDS account for around 22% of the total commitments of the fund.

Even though the total amount approved by the AF is lower than that of the GCF, the AF has approved more projects than the GCF, with less bureaucratic modalities, facilitating direct access through NIEs for small-scale projects adapted to SIDS particular circumstances.

Given the small size of SIDS, Sareer said, projects are more likely to be small-scale projects. It is therefore essential that this characteristic is well understood and taken into account by the different funds under the Convention while reviewing proposals from SIDS.

As AF is tied to the Kyoto Protocol (KP), it may need to undergo changes in its legal status and basic governance structure in order to serve the Paris Agreement

On Oceans, Sareer said marine debris, plastics and micro-plastics, are a global problem, as are the more permanent impacts of deoxygenation and ocean acidification resulting from climate change.

“This presents an existential threat to SIDS, since it has a direct bearing on our economies, marine biodiversity, food security and human health.”

Meanwhile, Tourism and Fisheries, in island states, constitutes a huge portion of government revenue and the health of the oceans are directly linked to these industries.

“Therefore AOSIS wishes to ensure that that these issues are comprehensively addressed, not only in the UNFCCC from the climate change perspective, by also in the context of the implementation of SDG 14 of the 2030 Agenda.”

AOSIS was actively engaged in shaping the outcomes of the first ever oceans conference, and we are advocating strongly for the follow-up of the outcomes from this conference, as well as another conference in 2020, Sareer declared.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Climate change has serious implications for agriculture and food security. Credit: FAO/L. Dematteis

By Brooke Takala
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 8 2017 (IPS)

A recent meeting in Rome between our Pacific leaders and UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) highlighted the urgency of food security in our region given the reality of climate change affecting our agriculture and aquaculture.

As a mandate of FAO to “promote the uptake of healthy fresh food,” they are missing their mark by discussing climate change as the main challenge to hunger elimination and nutrition in the Pacific.

While food security – simply, access to food sources – is an imperative to eradicate hunger, what we really need to be discussing is food sovereignty.

The Declaration of Atitlan, established at the first Indigenous Peoples’ Global Consultation on the Right to Food and Food Sovereignty in 2002, defines food sovereignty as “the right of Peoples to define their own policies and strategies for sustainable production, distribution, and consumption of food, with respect for their own cultures and their own systems of managing natural resources and rural areas.”

As such, food sovereignty must be recognized as a prerequisite for food security.

Enewetak Case Study

In the Pacific, life is dramatically different between urban and rural areas. In larger cities or townships, life is expensive and land and water resources for agriculture is limited and often polluted. In rural areas and outer islands life is mostly subsistence living, relying on what the land, waterways and sky provide.

Yet on some outer islands in places like the Republic of the Marshall Islands, food sovereignty does not exist. Nearly 600 miles from the capital of Majuro, the people of Enewetak lived sustainably for thousands of years before colonization disrupted lifeways.

Now contamination of Enewetak from the United States’ 43 nuclear and thermonuclear weapons along with the dumping of radioactive waste in open bomb craters, direct sea dumping, and more (in)famously the Cactus Dome on Runit Island, have left the people who call Enewetak home no choice but to subsist on contaminated food supplies and imported processed foods.

The United States may say that the Supplemental Food Program under the amended Compact of Free Association addresses food security for the people of Enewetak, but what happens when the small amounts of processed foods are depleted and the supply ship is delayed?

What happens when there is an event such as a birthday, funeral, or festival where local foods are essential to cultural practices? In those cases the community has no choice but to gather local foods from radioactive islands.

I only fully understood this a few years ago when we moved back to Enewetak with our young children. We had run out of nearly all food stocks and the boat was still weeks away from delivering its next shipment. Like many other families, we were boiling pandanus keys for the kids to eat in the morning and afternoon, then making one small meal in the evening.

We enjoyed the sweet and filling fruit but it was difficult not to think about the amount of Cesium and other radionuclides my children were consuming. The only choice was to eat the fruit or go hungry.

Not Just Climate Change

Other mothers in the Pacific face similar decisions when it comes to feeding their children. More than 300 nuclear and thermonuclear weapons were tested in the Pacific by the US, UK, and France.

Increasing military build-up in this vast blue continent includes the detonation of depleted uranium missiles, trans-shipment of nuclear and other hazardous waste, and nuclear submarines navigating the region.

Moreover, the extractives industry compromises land and water resources and fuels genocide of Pacific peoples in places like West Papua. Now, we have the increasing threat of seabed mining, which will undoubtedly affect our greatest food source in the Pacific: the Ocean.

Food security in the Pacific can only be achieved by enabling self-determination movements in the region, thereby recognizing the driving elements that impede food sovereignty and food security. Effects of climate change – rising seas, extreme drought, and typhoons – are extensions of the over-arching geo-political factors that only exacerbate the issues that people of Large Ocean States have been living with for generations.

Commitment is Needed

In 2006, Indigenous communities coordinated with FAO to develop indicators around food security and food sovereignty. While these indicators recognize the obstacle of environmental contamination, no formal processes for remediation of contaminants have been institutionalized.

If FAO is truly committed to food security, their coordinated efforts with the Pacific must be underpinned by the acknowledgement of historical factors that have disrupted the self-determination of Pacific families.

Not only should a full and comprehensive survey of food sources be conducted in cooperation with Pacific communities and neutral states (i.e. non-nuclear states), but also a remediation policy must be required for food security initiatives, along with recognition of the negative effects of militarization and the extractives industry on Pacific lifeways and worldviews.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Excerpt:

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) pride march. Credit: OHCHR/Joseph Smida

By Gillian Kane
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 7 2017 (IPS)

Cancun, Mexico, of white sand beaches and spring break-style nightlife, was, this past June, the unusual backdrop for a regional gathering on human rights and democracy.

Tour buses accustomed to ferrying sandal-shod tourists to Mayan ruins, instead, transported well-heeled activists and government representatives from their hotels to the Centro de Convenciones.

Parked a few kilometers away, one bus, neon orange and passenger-less, stood out. The so-called “Freedom Bus” was emblazoned with massive letters; “Leave our children alone!” #dontmesswithourchildren.

It was, according to its organizers, designed to get the attention of delegates attending the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS). They wanted attendees to know they were putting themselves on the line to resist all attempts by permissive governments to indoctrinate their children in the immoral principles of “gender ideology.” They were, they insisted, defending their religious and freedom of speech rights.

Never mind that there is no “gender ideology,” much less governments that are forcing children to learn inappropriate material. This bus is just one of many recent direct-action attempts by right-wing organizations to pedal a falsehood that governments, aided by well-endowed liberal foundations, are out to get your children.

The bus provides the arresting visual, but it’s what takes place inside the conference center that should raise our hackles. The concern for the wellbeing of children is a cover; what these organizations want to do is disable efforts to advance protections and rights for girls, women and LGBTI people.

The movement, which defines itself as in opposition to “gender ideology,” is a response to progress made in the last decade advancing human rights for vulnerable populations.

Meanwhile, the decade has also seen an increase in the organizing power and political influence of conservative evangelical churches, especially in Central America, Mexico, and Brazil.

Latin America is the locus for much of the progress on LGBTI and abortion rights, both at the country and regional level. Same-sex marriages are legal in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay.

And significant advances have been made to increase access to legal abortion in Argentina, Chile, Mexico City, Colombia, Bolivia and Uruguay. At the regional level, the OAS has been a champion for LGBTI rights as early as 2008, when it adopted its first resolution condemning violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

By 2011, the OAS had created a dedicated LGBTI Unit at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The progress did not go unchallenged.

Opponents of sexual and reproductive rights and LGBTI rights in Latin America responded to victories directly, through both legislation and litigation. They also responded in more insidious ways.

Last year, in Brazil, ministries promoting equal rights for women and black communities were downgraded when they were folded into the Ministry of Justice, effectively neutralizing the ability of its leadership to negotiate or move forward any progressive policies.

The deliberate dismantling of government infrastructures that protect human rights is not endemic to Brazil. Indeed, it is a dedicated strategy of anti-rights organizations who are working to both coopt and fragment these spaces.

The OAS experienced this most fiercely at its 2013 General Assembly in Guatemala. For the first time this forum, which is historically a leader in advancing human rights, witnessed a coordinated movement forcefully agitating against reproductive and LGBTI rights.

Not coincidentally, it was also the year the OAS approved a convention against all forms of intolerance, racism and racial discrimination, which included protections for LGBTI people.

The following year, at the 2014 General Assembly in Paraguay, these same groups weren’t just oppositional to proposed human rights resolutions. They attempted to create new policies they claimed were rights-based, but were in fact camouflage to take away rights.

A proposed “family policy” included protection of life from conception, a well-used strategy to prevent access to abortion. Each subsequent assembly has been marked not just by the higher profile and activism of anti-rights groups, but also by a decrease in civility.

By the time of the 2016 General Assembly in the Dominican Republic, their ire was directed at transwomen. They felt sufficiently empowered to harass and intimidate transwomen who attended the Assembly as they entered women’s restrooms. Still, it’s clearly not sufficient to menace people inside the halls of diplomacy, but one must take the show on the road.

Cancun was not the first stop for the “Freedom Bus,” which had already made the rounds in Latin America, the United States, and Europe. The organized opposition to human rights plays out differently in each country context, but shared patterns of work are evident.

After identifying an opportunity to dismantle human rights mechanisms they see as favorable to women and LGBTI communities (women’s ministries, the OAS, etc.) they abandon facts and misrepresent the truth to advance an agenda that creates moral panic, and ultimately, that will motivate civil society and policy makers to support their regressive agenda.

These strong-arm tactics are shrinking the shared space for public discourse, and this is cause for alarm. They may have succeeded in raising their profile at the OAS, and enlisting conservative governments to support their agenda.

But they have not yet succeeded in shutting down the voices of progressives committed to human rights. The OAS continues to provide human rights activists and progressive governments the infrastructure to advance, and this must be preserved at all costs.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Excerpt:

An atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the United States at Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands, on 1 November 1952. Credit: US Government

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 7 2017 (IPS)

The Pacific islands have long remained victims of nuclear crimes – but the perpetrators, three of the world’s major powers with permanent seats in the UN Security Council, never paid for their deadly sins.

The testing grounds in the Pacific, included the Marshall Islands (Bikini and Enewetak), and also Johnston Atoll and Christmas Islands in Kiribati.

The so-called “Pacific Proving Grounds”, which included the Marshall Islands and a few others on the Pacific Ocean, was the site of US nuclear testing between 1946 and 1962.

France tested its weapons on Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, with French naval vessels clashing with Greenpeace anti-nuclear campaigners.

The United Kingdom, along with the US, conducted several nuclear tests in and around Kiribati in the late 1950s. But the islanders were not evacuated exposing them to radiation from the blasts.

All of these tests, which left behind environmental hazards and radioactive waste, came to an inglorious end – or so it seems. But the nuclear nightmares over the Pacific continue to linger on.

According to the London Guardian, the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal awarded more than $2.0 billion in personal injury and land damage claims arising from the nuclear tests, but stopped paying after a compensation fund was exhausted.

After 67 tests, US nuclear experiments in the Marshall Islands ended in 1958. But in a 2012 report, UN Special Rapporteur Calin Georgescu, said “near-irreversible environmental contamination” had led to the loss of livelihoods and many people continued to experience “indefinite displacement”.

And a projected sea-level rise, triggered by climate change, is threatening to unearth the radioactive waste and spill it into the high seas.

According to two researchers, Barbara Rose Johnston and Brooke Takala Abraham, U.S. medical scientists traveled to the Marshall Islands, for nearly four decades, in order to document degenerating health and conduct related experiments, “all without informed consent.”

All told, 1,156 men, women, and children were enrolled in studies exploring the acute and late effects of radiation.

Among the findings of this research: radiation exposure generated changes in red blood cell production and subsequent anemia; metabolic and related disorders; musculoskeletal degeneration; cataracts; cancers and leukemia; and significant impact on fertility as evidenced by miscarriages, congenital defects, and infertility.

“Their experiences also demonstrate how chronic and acute radiogenic exposure compromises immunity, creating population-wide vulnerability to infectious and non-communicable disease”, Johnston and Abraham wrote.

Bob Rigg, a former senior editor with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and ex-chair of the New Zealand National Consultative Committee on Disarmament, told IPS: “It is impossible to make sweeping generalisations about the entire Pacific region, which is both vast and diverse”.

But US attention, he pointed out, was focused in particular on Micronesia, which includes most of the islands bitterly fought over in the latter years of World War II.

“The US wields disproportionate influence over this sub-region, where most of its 1,054 nuclear tests were conducted,” he added.

The US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, said Rigg, can be defined as the first example of US nuclear testing, given that a principal motive for both attacks was to facilitate large-scale research into the effects of nuclear weapons on living human beings, a subject which was a closed book even to the world’s leading nuclear scientists at the time.

As soon as the war ended, he said, “the US hastened to establish political control over a number of strategically important islands forming an “island chain” in the Pacific – a chain of US military and political influence cementing US control of major trade routes, while also enables it to contain the growing power and influence of Communist China.”

Ironically enough, the US island chain has something in common with China’s South China Sea outposts which today draw the ire of the US, he added.

Robert Alvarez, an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. and an Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Strategic International Studies, told IPS that three major international conferences—in Oslo, Mexico City, and Vienna— focused on the humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons, and on establishing a new international legal instrument that would outlaw nuclear weapons.

The humanitarian initiative and the Marshall Islands lawsuits—including one in US federal courts and the other with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague — received a chilly, some might say hostile reception from the nuclear weapons states, for an understandable reason, he pointed out.

The nuclear weapons countries are engaged in costly modernization efforts that all but guarantee the continued existence of nuclear weapons for decades, and perhaps beyond. The Marshalls lawsuits and the humanitarian initiative both seek to make the nuclear states seriously negotiate toward nuclear disarmament, he noted.

In an article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists back in May 2015, Alvarez said the damage did not end with nuclear testing.

In the 1960s, islands of the Enewetak Atoll were stripped of topsoil and used for explosive crater experiments, to see how US missile silos would hold up to enemy missiles.

And in October 1968, the US Navy conducted a biological warfare experiment in which Staphylococcal enterotoxin B, a virulent bacterium, was released over the Enewetak Atoll from fighter aircraft.

“The pathogen proved to be harmful to experimental animals over a 1,500 square mile area. Since the late 1950s, the Kwajalein Atoll and lagoon have served as an anti-ballistic missile launch site for testing against possible missile attacks,” he noted.

Nearly every US intercontinental ballistic missile was test fired at Kwajalein. Now home to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, the $4 billion US Air Force complex on Kwajalein is considered a key strategic asset for anti-ballistic missile testing, military space projects, and intelligence gathering, wrote Alvarez, who was also a Senior Professional Staff member for the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, where he conducted an investigation into the conduct of the U.S. nuclear weapons program in the Marshall Islands.

Rigg told IPS Truman had no qualms about bombing Japan and seizing control of several Micronesian Islands where America’s many subsequent nuclear tests could be conducted. Indigenous populations were frequently marginalised, displaced, and impoverished.

Traditional ways of living, cultivating food and eating were frequently replaced within one generation with a barbarised version of US consumer culture. The key operational assumption was that Pacific Islanders represented an inferior culture which, in the patronising words of one US scientist, at least had more in common with civilised westerners than laboratory mice, he said.

“Like the Japanese, Pacific Islanders were viewed through the prism of mainstream US racism. The example of Rongelap Island, which was seriously affected by fallout from the huge Castle Bravo test, is perhaps most instructive.”

When the islanders repeatedly lobbied for permission to return to their home, said Rigg, the US Atomic Energy Commission declared it safe for re-habitation, with US scientists privately noting that “the habitation of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings.”

As a major environmental polluter, he argued, the US contributes to global warming which disproportionately affects many small Pacific Island states whose highest point is in some cases just a couple of metres above sea level.

“Such islands are also acutely vulnerable to the climate change-induced violent storms which increasingly inflict massive destruction on both vegetation and homes. As many of these islands are desperately poor there is all too often no money to rebuild infrastructure and homes, with more than 95% of damaged buildings being uninsured.”

Trump’s America First policy has already produced a 30% cut in State Department funding which will dramatically curtail expenditure on Pacific islands which are not part of the militarised US island chain. Australia abjectly proclaims that it is “joined at the hip” with the US, slavishly following in the wake of Uncle Sam in all things, Rigg said.

“Fortunately, there is one small ray of hope: New Zealand has just elected a new Labour Government which is signalling its willingness to adopt innovative approaches to political problem-solving, including in the region.”

The new Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, he pointed out, has already signalled her government’s willingness to view Pacific Islanders fleeing their submerged islands as refugees. At present Australia’s immigration policies exclude such “environmental refugees.”

This New Zealand initiative could eventually necessitate the re-negotiation of the UN Convention on Refugees, to accommodate a new category of environmental refugees, he added.

In the words of a recent report to a congressional committee, even before the election of Trump, the US had pursued a “policy of benign neglect towards the South Pacific nations.

“Too often have we relied on Australia and New Zealand to determine what US policy should be in the region.” If this was true before Trump, it will be doubly true now.”

Possibly with at least some support from New Zealand, Pacific Island states will have to continue to seek political support from outside their region, as recently, when Fiji and Germany jointly hosted the November meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) in Bonn.

The elevation of Fiji to this prominent role reveals that, in the complete absence of support from both Trump’s US and Malcolm Turnbull’s Australia, there is a heartening emerging international awareness of the extent to which the very existence of some Pacific Island states is already under threat from climate change, he noted.

“But words must be backed up by large quantities of hard cash, without which some small Pacific Island states will undoubtedly go under.”

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

A large scale energy renewal project in Samoa. Credit: UNDP Photo

By Will Higginbotham
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 7 2017 (IPS)

The four Pacific Island nations who are amongst the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) may be falling behind in meeting energy access targets because they are too busy devoting resources towards climate change.

The Pacific island nations that are classified as LDC’s are Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

“Most of the resources in these nations meant for development –including energy development – have to be diverted towards adaptation to and mitigation of climate change impacts,” said Gauri Pradhan, the Global Coordinator of the policy and campaigning organisation, LDC Watch

“Due to this, Pacific Islands have focused less on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 (energy access) and more on those such as SDG13 (climate action), SDG14 (oceans) and SDG15 (terrestrial ecosystem).”

LDC’s refer to a group of nations formally recognized by the UN as confronting severe structural impediments – they usually also face extensive economic and environmental vulnerability. Currently there are 47 nations classified as LDCs. Nations may graduate from the list if they meet certain criteria.

Pradhan’s comments follow the release of the United Nations Conference for Development and Trade (UNCTAD) ‘Least Developed Countries Report 2017.’

The report highlighted that LDC’s are falling alarmingly behind in their ability to meet Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) which pledges to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”. Indeed, according to the report, the majority of LDCs populations go without access to electricity.

The report stressed that energy is central to everything in development, stating that productive use of electricity is “critical to spur productivity and economic transformation” and ultimately lift nations out of the poverty trap.

Currently the energy situation in Pacific Island LDC’s is fairly bleak. For example, according to The World Bank, only 10 percent the population in the Solomon Islands enjoys access to electricity. The story is only marginally better in Vanuatu which has 30 per cent of its population connected.

In an interview with IPS, a spokesperson from the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) said that Pacific Island LDC’s face unique barriers to energy access compared to their landlocked counterparts.

“They face some unique challenges such as geographically dispersed populations spread across several small islands, lack of technical and human capacity as well as complex land tenures,” the spokesperson said.

Following a similar line of thought, Pradhan said that such barriers have kept Pacific Island LDC’s largely reliant on imported fossil fuels – exposing them to unpredictable and volatile prices fluctuations.

The sad irony here is that Pacific Island LDCs are blessed with an incredible abundance of water, wind and solar resources.

“Going forward, the only real, sustainable and long-term option is for these nations to invest in these renewable energy sources. But they’ve been limited to date by their geographical remoteness, their financial constraints, a lack of adequate energy infrastructure, technology, and weak institutional mechanisms,” Pradhan said.

Pradhan also highlighted that an overlooked reason for slow results in the renewable energy sector is because Pacific Island LDC’s resources are being spent trying to deal with climate change.

To illustrate his point, he provided this example:

“Pacific islands are experiencing unprecedented sea level rise… Saltwater intrusion into freshwater lenses can cause sever drinking water scarcity in the region. Kiribati has already expressed urgent need for funding for desalination plants to provide safe water for the 110,000 residents of country, where much of the water has become contaminated by seawater intrusion into groundwater,” he said.

“Most of the resources meant for development have to be diverted towards mitigating these types of climate change impacts.”

Despite this, Pradhan did make special mention of Vanuatu, stating that it’s the “only Pacific Island LDC that’s shown significant improvement in development of renewable energy.”

The Vanuatu Government’s ‘National Energy Road Map’ outlines a path for the nation to achieve universal energy access to energy by 2030. Already they have an immediate goal to have 65% of their energy come from renewable sources by 2020.

They have not only articulated their intentions but actively began to commit to them. The World Bank earlier this year approved a 4-million-dollar project to deliver solar and micro-grid electricity generators that will give 45,000 people across rural Vanuatu access to electricity for the first time.

It is projected that Vanuatu may be the next country to graduate from LDC status. The only countries to have previously done so are Botswana (1994), Cape Verde (2007), Maldives (2011), Samoa (2014).

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Hundreds of refugees and migrants aboard a fishing boat moments before being rescued by the Italian Navy as part of their Mare Nostrum operation in June 2014. Credit: The Italian Coastguard/Massimo Sestini

By Pascal Laureyn
SUVA Fiji, Dec 6 2017 (IPS)

Continuing his “America First” approach, President Donald Trump has pulled the U.S. out of a proposed United Nations global compact seeking an agreement to protect the safety and rights of migrants and refugees.

CIVICUS, the alliance for citizen participation, reacted strongly against the American disengagement, while proposing a Declaration of its own: Climate Induced Displacement. (CID)

The declaration was proposed at the International Civil Society Week (ICSW) in Suva, Fiji’s capital
at a global conference, with more than 700 participants from 109 countries, discussing topics ranging from human rights to global warming. The weeklong conference is scheduled to conclude December 8.

“Whole communities and countries are already being displaced because of changing weather patterns, rising sea levels and more frequent and catastrophic events. But the response at the moment is very ad hoc,” declared Danny Sriskandarajah, CEO of CIVICUS and organiser of the event in Suva.

“Our declaration is saying that we need a principle-based response to climate induced displacement. The key principle is that we have to treat with dignity and respect people who are being displaced through no fault of their own.”

The United Nations has an ambitious plan to create a more humane global strategy on migration. But the Trump administration has pulled out, saying involvement in the process interferes with American sovereignty and runs counter to US immigration policies. President Trump viewed the proposed pact as a threat to national security.

Trump’s decision was disclosed last Saturday by Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. “Our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone. We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country,” Haley said in a statement.

Sriskandarajah, who is baffled by Trump’s withdrawal, said: “The entire western world believes somehow that you can manage global mobility through short term restrictions. The fact that Donald Trump has pulled out the US of the global compact process is yet another sign that countries are looking for short term, regressive, insular measures on migration.”

“The fact that the US is pulling out is really worrying. Human mobility has happened throughout history. It is going to increase. So we need sensible collaborative ways of managing that mobility,” the CEO of CIVICUS said at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, where ICSW meetings are taking place.

“For those people that already have been displaced by climate change, they are going to be left to the mercy of other countries. That leads to more uncertainty.”

Under Trump, the U.S. has taken a hard line on immigration. The president wants to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, arrest illegal immigrants and slow down legal immigration. The U.S. has also withdrawn from many global commitments, including the Paris Climate Change agreement.

The ‘Global Compact on safe, orderly and regular migration’ is expected to go before the UN General Assembly for approval in September 2018. And ICSW wanted to highlight the importance of this issue. Instead, many activists at ICSW now express their concerns about its potential demise.

Meanwhile, conservative websites that support president Trump reported the news with triumphant headlines. “U.S. Withdraws From Obama-Negotiated U.N. Agreement on Mass Migration,” claimed Redstate.com boldly.

Asked about the US withdrawal, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters at a news briefing on December 4: “Obviously, it’s a decision that we regret, but I think there’s still plenty of time for US engagement on this issue. But the decision should not disrupt what we see as a clear, unanimous outcome of the New York Declaration for such a Global Compact, which, I should remind you, will be non legally binding and grounded in international cooperation and respectful of national interests”.

“From where we stand, the positive story of migration is clear. It needs to be better told,” Dujarric noted. Equally, he pointed out, the challenges it faces need to be tackled with more determination and greater international cooperation.

“We obviously look forward to the outcome of the discussions of… in Mexico and the start of the more formal discussions in February,” he added.

Asked whether the UN was forewarned, Dujarric said; “ I’m not aware that it’s one we had any warning about.”

Meanwhile, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, the Preparatory Meeting for the Global Compact on Migration got underway.

At the opening of the Conference, the Special Representative for International Migration, Louise Arbour, stressed that migration demands a global response.

“The movement of people across borders is, by definition, an international reality,” she said. “There is nothing in that to contradict a state’s sovereign right — subject to international and domestic law — to manage who enters and stays within its borders.”

She added that the success of the global compact will rest on maximum countries’ political and moral buy in and willingness to enhance cooperation at the regional and international levels.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

While former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighted that ‘civil society is an indispensable partner of the United Nations’, the current Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has reiterated this commitment, noting civil society’s critical role in the success of the Sustainable Development Goals. Credit: ISHR

By Ingrid Srinath
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 5 2017 (IPS)

A cursory glance at international funding of the social sector in India reveals that it has grown at over 25% annually over the past three years.

This might seem at odds with the headlines describing the wholesale withdrawal of licences to receive foreign funds from thousands of NGOs, the heightened scrutiny that major international donor organisations are being subjected to as part of the infamous FCRA watchlist, and the legal travails of Greenpeace and Ford Foundation among others.

While aggregate totals of funds for the social sector, international and domestic, are clearly growing robustly, it is equally clear that their composition and intent have changed significantly.

Resources from technocratically minded donors seeking tangible, measurable impact within a relatively short time horizon are no substitute for the support of those willing to partner unpopular and underserved causes, issues of human rights and social justice, and to invest in building the long-term sustainability of institutions or in strengthening the civil society ecosystem.

For activists on the frontlines of protecting these freedoms, the response from organised civil society, domestic philanthropy and the media has been way too little, way too late.

The ruthlessness and persistence of authorities who have been willing to subvert laws and institutions to exact retribution on anyone who dissents from the laudatory official line, the lack of solidarity especially from the middle class and the media, the silence and complicity of business leaders, and the timidity of most Indian philanthropists has facilitated the intimidation, harassment, even murder, of human rights defenders, activists across domains, journalists, rationalists and minorities. A judge too, if recent allegations are proven.

As in too many other countries, the confluence of majoritarian, nationalist populism with the unrelenting erosion of institutional protections, demonisation of minorities, activists and critical journalists, and systematic amplification of fears of terrorism, violent crime and cultural ‘erosion’ provide cover for a creeping destruction of democratic institutions and constitutional freedoms.

From universities to media houses, businesses to Bollywood, the word is out. Deviating from, or criticising the powers that be is increasingly hazardous to life, liberty, health and wealth in India.

As citizens scramble just to breathe, access basic public services or simply get to school or work and back home safely, the outrage factory churns out an unending flow of ‘controversies’ to occupy minds and ‘inform’ debate. In a version of the boiling frog syndrome, each step towards outright authoritarianism raises the temperature just enough to cause discomfort without inciting drastic action.

The fact that the big, new source of funding in India is the corporate philanthropy prescribed by the Companies Act exacerbates the chilling effect by dis-incentivising any criticism of business, whether general or particular. NGOs seeking CSR funding must constrain themselves to activities and issues that are at least uncontroversial, if not primarily geared toward corporate reputation management.

Giving by Indian foundations and high net worth individuals is also burgeoning. Most, though not all, this ‘new’ philanthropy is technocratically minded, reflecting the culture of the information technology, finance and other sectors in which the wealth that fuels it was garnered. It too, mainly seeks safe, apolitical, measurable impact areas, and prizes close collaboration with government to either supplement, substitute or innovate the delivery of public services.

Little support has been forthcoming from mainstream Indian media which has, with rare exceptions, chosen to toe the lines of corporate owners, advertisers or the government. Civil society voices in the national media are few and coverage of the crackdown has largely been limited to disseminating, unchallenged, the government line.

Legal redress has proven more effective, for those who have had the stomach to take that route. It is, however, limited to the few organisations that can find the bandwidth, resources and courage to pursue the long, arduous route through the legal system. And prevailing in court is not sufficient to restore either incomes or reputation.

Civil society resistance to the onslaught has been limited, sporadic and lacking solidarity. Responses have ranged from denial to defeatism, leaving both outspoken activists and the voices of the marginalised, isolated and vulnerable.

A steady drip of disinformation, painting civil society as unaccountable, ineffective, corrupt and possibly anti-national has gone largely uncontested, alienating the middle-class constituency that might provide both material and political succor.

Where then, might a way forward be found? A small but growing number of civil society groups has begun to coalesce around core beliefs and values of constitutionalism, democracy, pluralism and justice offering solidarity with activists under threat and seeking to collaborate in new ways.

A few philanthropists too are willing to support these efforts including support for initiatives in the areas of governance, independent media, strengthening the ecosystem and amplifying marginalised voices.

More, much more, is necessary. “NGOs need to scale up; build second line leaderships; specialise; focus on systemic change rather than immediate vulnerabilities; engage and confront sagely; collaborate more closely; increase the footprint and relevance for ideas that support civil liberties democracy and rule of law through mass outreach; and rely on objective facts rather than ideology to make the public argument”, says Maja Daruwala, an erstwhile Board member of CIVICUS and, till recently, the Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.

Framing and disseminating a counter-narrative is critical. Communicating the size, impact, value, diversity and innovation of civil society could help recover lost ground and build new constituencies among young Indians and new entrants to the middle class.

Particular focus is necessary on adopting and communicating norms for accountability, transparency and governance. Facilitating these will require new channels of dialogue across barriers of ideology and thematic focus.

Investing in outreach, convening, capacity building and technology to strengthen domestic giving, especially from the Indian public, requires greater support from domestic philanthropy. More vitally, transcending the mind-sets and attitudes of mutual suspicion, hostility, competitiveness and disdain will require shared diagnosis of threats, opportunities and responsibilities.

International solidarity, while necessary, can be detrimental when it reinforces the notion that dissent emanates mainly from those whose interests are antithetical to India’s national interests and largely funded from abroad.

Solidarity, supporting convening across silos and facilitating the exchange of ideas and strategies from diverse contexts may be some areas where international donors could be helpful. So too would ensuring support, financial and non-financial, to the groups who are most marginalised in today’s Indian context.

Forging connections with like-minded Indian philanthropists, business leaders, journalists and civil society groups is another key contribution international donors could make. Persuading their own governments to uphold international norms and laws and to pursue values-based global standards in finance, banking, trade, climate and human rights are as necessary as is ensuring that the right of Indian civil society organisations to access international resources Is protected.

India’s democracy and its civil society are resourceful and resilient. They have coped with threats of similar magnitude in the past, most notably during the infamous Emergency of the mid 1970s.

Both, the champions of these values and their opponents, are now armed with greater reach, more sophisticated tools and broader networks that ever before. One side has greater access to money, political clout and fewer inhibitions to violence.

The eventual outcomes of this struggle between the forces of control and those of freedom are far from decided. We must each play our part in determining them.

* The views expressed in the article are personal and do not reflect those of the university or any other institution she is affiliated with.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Excerpt:

Fiji landscape. Credit: UN Photo

By Pascal Laureyn
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 5 2017 (IPS)

It’s a busy week for movers, shakers and policymakers attending a global gathering of civil society activists here in Fiji. For the first time, the International Civil Society Week (ICSW) is holding its sessions in the Pacific. It’s a sign of a growing awareness of the problems facing these remote islands – problems they cannot be ignored any longer.

When in Fiji, it is easy to get into a holiday mood. The picture postcard beaches, spectacular mountains and friendly faces can temporarily distract many workaholics. But not so for the participants of Civil Society Week. Already on arrival at the international airport of Nadi, the activists, civil workers, social entrepreneurs and journalists start mingling quickly and exchanging business cards. The debates are not confined to conference halls.

More than 700 participants from 109 countries are gathering in Suva, Fiji’s capital, to discuss key global issues, including human rights, global warming, gender empowerment, and many more. CIVICUS, an alliance for citizen participation, has organized the global event in cooperation with PIANGO, the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organisation. Their goal: to strengthen the civil society sector and to look for common solutions to global challenges.

“Raise your voices and be heard,” the president of Fiji encouraged participants at the opening ceremony of the ICSW. That is exactly what the CEO of CIVICUS had in mind. “We are in a unique time in history: democracy is in crisis, trust in institutions is declining and we fail to act on climate change,” Danny Sriskandarajah says. “This is not only an important time to talk about these issues. We want to create a space for action.”

There’s plenty of action on the pretty campus of the University of the South Pacific where the event is organized. There are dozens of panel discussions, workshops and lectures every day. The participants talk about sexual exploitation, fair trade, land rights, volunteering and peace building to name just a few.

Najmin Kamilsoy, a bright and energetic young man, is an activist for the NIDA Civic Movement, a pro-democracy youth organization that defends human rights in Azerbaijan. “I want to meet people from other countries who face the same problems,” says Najmin, who has been arrested several times. Devesh Gupta of New Delhi is building an international education organization for the Dais Foundation. “I’m here to promote Dais and find new opportunities for growth.”

“We want civil society to take global action to counter the growing restrictions on civic freedoms. But that is not possible without local grassroots movements,” Sriskandarajah says. “That’s why we have to bring activists together, also to keep them motivated. The weight of the world is lighter because in Fiji they can meet people who care as well.”

For the first time, Civil Society Week is organized in the Pacific. Many participants of the conference are eager to meet people from exotic places like Micronesia, Tonga or the Cook Islands and listen to their experiences, ideas and hopes.

The Pacific is regularly overlooked by many, although it deserves more attention for the disasters that rising sea levels and stronger cyclones are causing. Emele Duituturaga, the executive director of PIANGO, told participants that it’s hard for the Pacific to be visible. These micro states are remote, small and politically weightless.

“But this year the region has become the epicenter of activism,” she says. In November, Fiji held the presidency of COP23, the UN Climate Change Conference. Thousands of government delegates and leaders from all sectors of society gathered in Bonn, Germany. The Civil Society Week adds to this growing awareness. The many island nations of the Pacific use these global platforms to remind the world that “we are all in the same canoe when it comes to climate change.”

Brianna Fruean, a 19 year old student from Samoa, explained how best to navigate a va’a, a Samoan canoe. You need to put the old boatsmen in the back and the youth in front. Steering is best done by experience and for powerful peddling you need muscles. Connecting a sense of direction with the sheer will to get things done, that’s what this conference is all about.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific and small island states who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

The island nation of Dominica, once know as a modern-day Garden of Eden, was ravaged by Hurricane Maria in September 2017. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
ROSEAU, Dominica, Dec 4 2017 (IPS)

McCarthy Marie has been living in the Fond Cani community, a few kilometres east of the Dominica capital Roseau, for 38 years. The 68-year-old economist moved to the area in 1979 following the decimation of the island by Hurricane David.

But even though David was such a destructive hurricane, Marie told IPS that when Hurricane Maria hit the island in September, islanders witnessed something they had never seen before.“How many of the countries that continue to pollute the planet had to suffer a loss of 224 percent of their GDP this year?” --Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit

“The entire city of Roseau was completely flooded,” Marie told IPS. “There is a major river flowing through the centre of the city. The river rose pretty quickly and that was compounded by the fact that we have five bridges crossing the river and a couple of those bridges, especially those we built more recently, were definitely built too low so they presented a barrier to the river and prevented the water from flowing into the sea as it would otherwise have done.”

Hurricane Maria, a category five storm with sustained winds reaching 180 miles an hour, battered the Caribbean nation for several hours between Sep. 18-19. It left 27 people dead and as many missing, and nearly 90 percent of the structures on the island damaged or destroyed.

Marie said Dominicans have been talking a lot about climate change for quite some time, but the island was not fully prepared for its impacts.

And while Dominicans in general have not been building with monster hurricanes like Maria in mind, Marie said he took an extraordinary step following his experience with Hurricane David.

“I prepared for hurricanes by building my hurricane bunker in 1989 when I built my house. When the storm [Maria] started to get serious, we went into the bunker and we stayed there for the duration of the storm,” he said.

“I have been seeing more and more buildings going up that have concrete roofs but it’s not the standard by far. The usual standard is a house made of concrete and steel with a timber roof. So, most of the houses, the damage they suffered was that the timber roof got taken off and then water got inside the house and damaged all their stuff.

“We need to build houses that can withstand the wind, but the wind is not so much of a big problem. Our big problem is dealing with the amount of water and flooding that we are going to have,” Marie explained.

Like Marie, Bernard Wiltshire, who is a former attorney general here, believes Dominica is big on talk about climate change but the rhetoric does not translate into tangible action on building resilience.

He cited the level of devastation in several countries in the Caribbean over the last hurricane season.

“We certainly did not act fast enough in Dominica, we know that. And from looking at what happened in Puerto Rico and in Antigua and Barbuda, I didn’t see any evidence that we have really come to grips with what is required to make us more resilient in the face of those conditions that are going to confront us,” Wiltshire said.

“It brings us to the question how do we make ourselves more resilient, what do we do? I would say we have to look not just to the question of making buildings stronger and more rigid, but we also have to look at ways in which the community is made more resilient; our pattern of production and consumption, we’ve got really to reorient our society to eliminate the causes that prevent those communities from being able to withstand the effects of these disasters.”

Dominica acts as a microcosm of the climate change threat to the world, and the island’s prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, has called for millions of dollars of assistance so the country can build the world’s first climate-resilient nation.

“How many of the countries that continue to pollute the planet had to suffer a loss of 224 percent of their GDP this year?” asked Skerrit.

“We have been put on the front line by others. We were the guardians of nature, 60 percent of Dominica is covered by protected rain forests and has been so long before climate change,” he said.

The island’s Gross Domestic Product has been decimated, wiped out due to severe damage to the agriculture, tourism and housing sectors.

It is the second consecutive year that all 72,000 people living on Dominica have been affected by disasters.

Skerrit is convinced that the only way to reduce the number of people affected by future severe weather is to build back better to a standard that can withstand the rainfall, wind intensity and degree of storm surge which they can now expect from tropical storms in the age of climate change.

As Dominica seeks to become the world’s first climate-resilient nation, Skerrit said they cannot do this alone and need international cooperation.

But Wiltshire said Caribbean countries must shoulder some of the blame for climate change.

“I don’t want us in the Caribbean simply to point fingers at the bigger countries and completely ignore our own role. There is a problem I think, in our islands, if not causing climate change, in contributing to the degree of damage that is actually done, the severity of these disasters,” Wiltshire said.

“In Dominica for example, one of the most obvious things was the deluge of debris from the hillsides, from the interior of the country, carried by the rivers down to the coast. It is up there where we have unplanned use of the land, building of roads, the construction of houses without a proper planning regime. So, we ourselves have a role to play in this where for example we are giving away our wetlands and draining them for hotel construction,” he added.

Head of the Caribbean Climate Group Professor Michael Taylor said climate change is happening now and Caribbean residents no longer have the luxury to see it as an isolated event or a future threat.

“I think the first thing that we have to think about is how in the Caribbean are we really perceiving climate change and not necessarily only at the government level but at the individual level, at the community level,” he said.

“Do we perceive climate change as something that is an event or are we beginning to recognise that climate change for us in the Caribbean is a developmental issue? We have to begin to see that climate change is interwoven into every aspect of our lives and it impacts us daily. It’s where you get your water from, the quality of your roads. Until we begin to realise that climate change is interwoven into life then we will always be almost with our foot on the backburner, always trying to catch up.

“We do have resource constraints within the region, we do have other pressing issues which sometimes tend to cloud over both at the community level going right up to the government level, but I think climate has put itself on the forefront of the agenda and that said, we need now to mainstream climate into the very short-term planning and at all levels of community going right up through government and even regional entities,” Taylor added. 

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific and small island states who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Brazilian Indigenous people during one of their regular protests in Rio de Janeiro demanding the demarcation of their lands and to be taken into account in environmental and climate measures. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO , Dec 4 2017 (IPS)

Indigenous peoples, recognised as the best guardians of the world’s forests, are losing some battles in Brazil in the face of intensified pressure from the expansion of agriculture, mining and electricity generation.

The Brazilian indigenous lands (TI), called “reserves” or “reservations” in other countries, are the most protected in the Amazon rainforest. They cover 22.3 percent of the territory and the deforested portion represented just 1.6 percent of the total deforestation in the region up to 2016, according to the non-governmental Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA)."They are destroying our culture, our consciousness and our economy by destroying our forests, which we defend because they are our life and our wisdom." -- Almir Narayamoga Suruí

The conservation units, under state protection for research, limited sustainable use or as biological reserves, suffered much higher losses, although deforestation has declined drastically in recent years.

The expansion of these two preservation instruments would be decisive for Brazil to fulfill its nationally intended determined contribution to the mitigation of climate change: to reduce greenhouse gases by 43 percent as of 2030, based on 2005 emissions, which totalled just over 2 billion tons.

But deforestation in indigenous reserves demarcated in the Amazon increased 32 percent in August 2016 to July 2017, compared to the previous period, while throughout the Amazon region, made up of nine states, there was a 16 percent reduction.

It is little in absolute terms, but it has other dramatic effects.

“They are destroying our culture, our consciousness and our economy by destroying our forests, which we defend because they are our life and our wisdom,” protested Almir Narayamoga Suruí, a leader of the Suruí people in the September Seven TI, where nearly 1,400 indigenous people live, in northwestern Brazil.

The destruction is caused by loggers and “garimpeiros” or informal miners of gold and diamonds that have invaded the Suruí land since the beginning of 2016.

The complaints and information offered by the indigenous people have not obtained any answers from the government, said Almir Suruí, who became internationally known, as of 2007, for using Google Earth technology to monitor indigenous lands with the aim of preventing invasions and deforestation.

“It’s a good alliance, we have access to a tool that facilitates and allows us to have key information. But the government is not cooperating,” he said in a conversation with IPS.

Deforestation due to the expansion of livestock farming dominates the landscape near Alta Floresta, a southeastern gateway to the Brazilian Amazon. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

His suspicion is that government corruption, widely revealed in the last three years through investigations by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, weakens the government agencies that should fight the invasion of indigenous lands: the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources and the National Indian Foundation (Funai).

This is also dividing his people, with some of its members “co-opted” by loggers and “garimpeiros” to facilitate the illegal exploitation of natural resources, Suruí lamented.

“It is in fact what divided the Suruí people, some of their leaders were involved in the theft of timber with the support of Funai,” said Ivaneide Bandeira, project coordinator of the Kanindé Association for Ethno-Environmental Defence, a non-governmental organisation based in Porto Velho, capital of the northwestern state of Rondônia.

“And the Uru-ue-wau-wau people are facing an even worse situation,” she told IPS.

They are a small community, which has shrunk as a result of massacres and epidemics brought by the invaders in the last four decades, and is now suffering the invasion of thousands of farmers trying to illegally take possession of lands in the reserve west of the Suruís, in Rondônia.

“In Brazil, the TI’s play an important role in curbing the advance of deforestation and in preserving biodiversity, complementing the National Conservation Unit System,” philosopher Marcio Santilli, founder of the ISA, where he coordinates the Politics and Law programme, told IPS.

But some of these lands in the Amazon suffer greater deforestation, given “the intensity of the nearby territorial occupation, the execution of major works, the presence of roads, agricultural expansion fronts and mining or logging activity,” said Santilli, who presided over Funai in 1995-1996.

“That generates an unfavourable correlation of forces”, which exceeds “the capacity of organisation and territorial control of the indigenous people to discourage and even repel invasions,” he explained.

“Targeted actions on some 10 especially affected TI’s, with efficient inspections by government oversight bodies, would reduce deforestation, he suggested. In Brazil there are currently 462 TI’s.

This is what has been happening in general in the Amazon since last year, “through permanent actions by environmental authorities in areas of deforestation pressure”, such as the vicinity of the BR163 highway, a route for transporting soy for export in the Amazon, said Santilli.

Indigenous people are the eyes of the fight against deforestation even outside their reserves, all the sources interviewed agreed. Their information was decisive in guiding the Ríos Voladores Operation through which the police and the Public Prosecutor’s office dismantled a gang that occupied public lands for logging in the Amazon state of Pará.

“The elimination of forests in the surrounding areas have impacts within, such as the drying up of rivers that cross indigenous land and attracting fires,” said Paulo Barreto, senior researcher at the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (Imazon).

Controlled burns, a traditional form of deforestation, have multiplied and have become more destructive in the Amazon, given the greater frequency and intensity of droughts. More flammable material accumulates and forests are more vulnerable, after the drop in rainfall in 2010, 2016 and this year.

This is added to another debilitating trend in the Amazon: increased forest degradation, caused by the droughts, timber extraction and other phenomena that reduce forest density, Barreto told IPS.

Last year the forest degradation rate reached a record and last October there was an increase of 2,400 percent over the same month of 2016, growing from 297 square km per month to 7,421, according to data from the Deforestation Alert System, created by Imazon.

“The degradation in one month exceeded the deforestation for the whole year. That impoverishes the forests biologically while the fires affect the health of animals and humans with the smoke. Brazil is not prepared to face this phenomenon, which requires strong local prevention measures,” said Barreto.

Restoring forests, mainly at the sources of rivers and along the banks, is a way to mitigate part of the damage, a technique used by the Xingu Seed Network, an initiative of the ISA launched in 2007 along the upper section of the highly deforested basin of the Xingu River in the Amazon rainforest.

In addition to supplying companies and institutions involved in reforestation, it generates income for the approximately 450 mainly indigenous collectors of seeds, plays a role in environmental education, and brings together different actors, such as farmers and landowners, said Rodrigo Junqueira, promoter of the Network and coordinator of the ISA Xingu Programme.

“I learned a lot about trees, life and the importance of nature, in addition to earning money as head of the ‘seed bank’” in Nova Xavantina, 19-year-old student Milene Alves, in the state of Mato Grosso, told IPS.

Her father, a fisherman, “overcame depression” and her mother, a homemaker, changed her life, both by devoting themselves to the collection of seeds, said Alves, who chose to study biology at the university after her experience.

All this is crucial for the future of climate change. Nearly 24 percent of the carbon stored on the earth’s surface is in the tropical forests in indigenous and communal lands, according to the international World Resources Institute.

According to the 2010 census, the indigenous population in Brazil is 897,000, which is 0.45 percent of the country’s total population, while the TI’s cover 1.17 million square km, equivalent to 13.8 percent of the country’s territory, but encompassed mostly in areas especially vulnerable to temperature rises.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji Dec. 4-8 for International Civil Society Week.

By Mandeep Tiwana
SUVA, Fiji, Dec 4 2017 (IPS)

At CIVICUS, a global civil society alliance working to strengthen citizen participation, we receive bad news of attacks on compatriots every day.

In the past few years, with nauseating regularity, we’ve heard from colleagues who’ve been arbitrarily imprisoned, had their organisations’ starved of resources or have had their life’s work to create just, inclusive and sustainable societies ridiculed by crafty politicians.

Sadly, others — such as Caruna Galizia, a Maltese journalist who investigated corruption in high places and Santiago Maldonado, an Argentine activist who supported the land rights of the Mapuche indigenous community — were assassinated earlier this year.

Attacks on peaceful activists and restrictions on their organisations have become so brazen and so commonplace that we are calling the current emergency the ‘new normal’ in a race to the bottom.

In this ‘new normal’ there are striking similarities in tactics used to prevent civil society colleagues from carrying out their work. Tactics include travel bans and control oriented laws that allow pervasive government interference in civil society activities and funding.

The nerve centres of the global crackdown on civil society might be located in Addis Ababa, Beijing, Cairo, Istanbul or Moscow but the impacts of resurgent right-wing ideologies, elite collusion and old school authoritarianism are being felt across the Global South and the North, including in countries with proud democratic traditions such as India and the United States.

By CIVICUS’ estimates, only two percent of the globe’s population of some 7.5 billion people can now claim to live in countries where the freedoms to speak out against injustice, organise and protest peacefully are adequately protected.

The rising spate of restrictions over the years has promoted deep introspection among civil society leaders and others interested in healthy and vibrant civil societies as a means to good governance and peace in our lifetimes. We’ve identified five strategies which may be worth considering to address the present set of problems of constrained space.

First, civil society leaders and their supporters need to proactively challenge the misinformation propagated by those who attack civil society through stronger, clearer and more popular messaging on the value of civil society whether in contributing to the economy, keeping a check on corruption or creating better social relations.

It is important the public are able to see that their rights closely linked to those of civil society, that the country gains when civil society flourishes, and that civil society space and respect for constitutional norms by those who hold power are closely linked.

Second, collecting comparable and accumulated data on violations of civil society rights is critical. Guarantees on civil society participation and enabling environments are enshrined in most constitutions, national policies, and international aid and development agreements.

Open data tools can help track whether space is worsening or improving in different contexts over time, and also trigger early alerts to act in cases where space can demonstrably be seen to be deteriorating. Better data on rights violations, including threats and violence against human rights defenders, can support effective advocacy to realise rights in the courts, national institutions or in international bodies.

Third, dedicated focus on demonstrable and impeccable internal accountability protocols can help counter unwarranted criticism of civil society and build resistance against externally imposed measures to restrict activities.

Building communities of practice centered around values and investing in efforts to strengthen roots in stakeholder communities can enable civil society organisations (CSOs) to demonstrate clearly that they are acting independently and working for the public good.

Fourth, there is a pressing need for civil society champions in academia, the media and among business leaders. Building relationships with academia and the media is key in times of constrained action as those who attack civil society often resort to emotive spurious allegations of ‘foreign’ influence and erosion ‘cultural’ values that well respected academics and media commentators can help unravel.

Further, civil society leaders need to explore avenues to influence corporate behaviour by offering reputational reward for companies that respect human rights and reputational risk for those complicit in attacks on civil society.

Lastly, and importantly, standing together helps. The issue of civil society space is a cross-cutting one, which ultimately impacts everyone in civil society from those engaged in service delivery to those exposing abuses by the very powerful.

Moreover, investment in civil society resilience strategies, solidarity actions and coalitions to ride out waves of restrictions is critical as is the development of broad-based alliances that connect different parts of civil society, including classic NGOs, social movements, bloggers, trade unions, youth groups, artistic platforms, professional associations and others. We are being attacked together, and so we must mobilise and fight back together.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world are currently meeting in Suva, Fiji, through 8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Excerpt:

Out of 300 nominations from across the globe, just four have won an innovation award for their commitment to human rights.

Now in its 12th year, the Nelson Mandala-Graça Machel Innovation Awards seeks to celebrate and promote diverse individuals and organizations for their excellence and bravery in creating social change.

“Awards like this are so significant because the winners truly are ‘sparks of hope’ with the poten-tial to inspire many others. It’s important that those of us with the freedom to speak out, use our voices to lift up these courageous individuals and organisations,” said Graça Machel of the initi-ative.

This year, the awards form a part of the #WalkTogether campaign which aims to celebrate such ‘sparks of hope’ and inspire compassion and empathy at a time when fear, xenophobia, and hate speech threaten global freedoms and unity.

“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires,” Nelson Mandela once said.

The awardees, who will be honored at the upcoming International Civil Society Week in Fiji, were selected across four categories: youth activist, individual activist, civil society organization, and brave philanthropy.

Nic Mackay from the civil society coalition CIVICUS highlighted the significance of the majority of winners being from developing countries, telling IPS: “People of color and citizens of develop-ing countries are often disproportionately affected by social issues – from poverty to climate change to fundamental freedoms – and so, the solutions to these issues need to come from within these communities as much as from without.”

“Equally, when profiling great work in the area of social change, we need to be acutely aware of any bias – intentional or otherwise – toward recognizing white Westerners, or else we risk rein-forcing the type of systemic inequality that is at the core of many of the issues we are seeking to address,” he added.

At just 19, Jubilanté Cutting founded the Guyana Animation Network to help empower young people with skills in media and animation.

Guyana is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere and has a youth unemploy-ment rate of almost 40 percent.

With the dream of developing Guyana’s digital and creative industries, Cutting was honored to to receive the youth activist award under the names of Mandela and Machel.

“I could never have imagined that I would one day receive an award named in honor of these heroes,” she said.

Khaled Elbalshy, who won the individual activist category, is a prominent Egyptian human rights defender and journalist fighting to protect free speech.

The North African country has increasingly cracked down on the press and has since become one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists.

Some spend years in detention without being charged, while others face long jail terms or the death penalty after unfair trials.

One of the most well-known cases is that of Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, who was arrested in August 2013 after he photographed security forces’ violent retaliation against protestors during the coup d’état.

He remained in prison for almost three years without charges and finally in March 2016, he was charged with six offenses and now faces the death penalty.

Elbalshy himself was detained in 2016 and sentenced a year later for harboring journalists wanted for expressing critical views against the government.

“This Award is a powerful recognition of all who are defending freedom of the press in Egypt. It is also a message to the more than 20 imprisoned journalists that their voices are still able to penetrate even the walls of prison,” Elbalshy said.

Civil society organization category winner Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) is working to raise awareness, de-stigmatize, and promote services on mental health.

Mental health around the world is severely underfunded as low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries allocate only 0.5 percent and 1.9 percent of their total health budgets to mental health, respectively.

Founder of MANI Victor Ugo dedicated their win to all Nigerian youth coping with mental illness. “We are motivated to keep up the discussion and hope our voice will continue to resonate both within and beyond our borders.”

Winning the brave philanthropy category, German-based Guerrilla Foundation is an alternative funder supporting grassroots activists and movements.

Their most recent grantees include Campaign Bootcamp, which aims to build and sustain a di-verse community of campaigners and activists, and Ende Gelände, a grassroots movement that organizes civil disobedience actions against coal mining and use in Europe.

“Courage in philanthropy is truly lacking and it is a field that craves bravery far more than it knows. We hope to give a nudge – or thrust – to that end,” said foundation advisor Ivan Juric.

Mackay urged for others to inspire change like those being honored.

“Remember that the biggest change often begins with the smallest actions…never lose sight of why and who you are doing it for,” he told IPS.

The Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Innovation Awards are led by the global civil society alli-ance, CIVICUS.

This year, the awards have run in collaboration with The Elders, a Nelson Mandela-founded group of independent leaders working together for peace, justice, and human rights. The Elders, which include former Secretary-Generals Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, launched the #WalkTogether campaign on their 10th anniversary.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are re-sponding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

The 57 small island developing states (SIDS), including 20 described as territories which are non-UN members, are some of the world’s most vulnerable – both economically and environmentally.

The United Nations says their vulnerabilities are due primarily to their “small size, remoteness, narrow resource and export base, and exposure to global environmental challenges and external economic shocks, including to a large range of impacts from climate change and potentially more frequent and intense natural disasters.”

Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, the secretary general and CEO of CIVICUS

Of the 37 SIDS who are UN member states, 16 are in the Caribbean, 13 in the Pacific and 8 in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Mediterranean and South China seas.

A major conference of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Fiji next week (December 4-8)— billed as International Civil Society Week (ICSW) — will specifically focus on the plight of small island developing states in the Pacific.

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/sids/list

An annual forum co-organized by CIVICUS and regional or national platforms, ICSW brings together NGOs worldwide for a key global gathering for civil society and other stakeholders to engage constructively in finding common solutions to global challenges.

And for the first time in more than 20 years of international convening, CIVICUS will hold its flagship event in the Pacific region.” The theme of the forum is: “Our Planet. Our Struggles. Our Future.”

Asked why Pacific islands need particular attention, Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, the secretary general and CEO of CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, told IPS the Pacific region has been at the forefront of global issues, from climate change to nuclear non-proliferation.

This is partly because as small island states – or large ocean states – they are particularly vulnerable to changes in the environment, whether rising sea levels, ocean acidification or super storms. “But I think that their leadership on these issues is also about much more than the threats they are facing,” he said.

The Pacific Climate Change Warriors often use the phrase “we’re not drowning, we’re fighting”. “To me, this reflects the spirit and strength of how the peoples of the Pacific are responding to climate change — and something that should inspire the rest of the world.

This is why I was delighted when the CIVICUS Board decided to hold this year’s International Civil Society Week (ICSW) – one of the biggest and most diverse gatherings of civil society leaders – in Fiji.

Having grown up in Australia, I fear that there’s a certain creeping “hemispherism” in which Pacific peoples are often overlooked in global discussions and debates, despite everything they have to offer.”

Asked how civil society plans to respond to the growing crises facing the world’s most vulnerable states, including the least developed countries (LDCs), he said: “We can certainly look to our fellow activists in the Pacific for inspiration”.

Indeed, one of the most important ways to address both global and local issues is to remember that often local, and indigenous activists and organisations are at the forefront of action, he noted.

Protecting civic freedoms of local activists, and their ability to organise and mobilise is essential in terms of ensuring that the world’s most vulnerable people don’t get left behind.

“While we’re holding our meeting in the Pacific, it’s important to remember that it’s not just Pacific Island nations that are affected by climate change. We’ve just had an absolutely devastating hurricane season in the Caribbean.”

Other countries at risk include river delta countries, mountainous countries and countries at risk of drought, so really every type of country in terms of geographical features. In reality, the people who will be most hurt by climate change are already among the world’s most vulnerable.

“What’s forgotten sometimes is these same people often have some of the best solutions, so we need to make sure that we’re letting them do their jobs. Our delegates include leaders from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, so we’ll have a chance to hear firsthand from some of the Indigenous Environmental defenders, who too often face violence and even death when protecting natural resources from exploitation,” Sriskandarajah said.

Asked if the crises was primarily a shortage of funds for climate adaptation or lack of political will, Sriskandarajah told IPS: “When I think about the biggest risks facing the world, there is no shortage of external risks. From climate change to war to rising populism. But one risk that I see is that civil society doesn’t step up to meet those challenges”.

Often civil society, he pointed out, trades in incremental change, “we’re not at the vanguard of progressive change. So for our part as civil society we need to be an effective force that needs to drive behavioral change, whether on climate action, resisting populism or promoting democracy.”

When it comes to financing, he said, the problem is that the funds are not reaching the right places. One of the biggest challenges across the board, whether in humanitarian financing, international development or climate adaptation, is that too little support flows to the people and organisations working at the local level to address these issues.

For example, only a fraction – around 2 percent – of international humanitarian funds go to local or national organisations in the countries where humanitarian crises happen.

In climate change adaptation and mitigation, funds set aside to go to developing countries, are primarily going to middle income countries, not to the poorest countries, that still lack basic access electricity and are eager to leap frog to sustainable, renewable energy, he added.

Asked what the Fiji meeting hopes to achieve in the long run and whether it will adopt a plan of action, Sriskandarajah said: “Importantly this will also be an opportunity right off the bat for civil society to convene around the decisions made at this year’s UN Climate Change COP 23, which was hosted remotely by Fiji in Bonn, Germany. We’ll be particularly able to hear first hand from Fijian delegates to the meeting about the next steps in areas including the implementation of loss and damage programs.”

“One goal that we particularly hope to achieve at the ICSW is to amplify the voices of young leaders in civil society from around the world. 43 percent of the world’s population is under the age of 30, yet this age group is consistently underrepresented in politics.”

“We have some fantastic young leaders joining our meeting, including UN Youth Envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, from Sri Lanka, and Yolanda Joab, from Micronesia, the founder and executive director of Island PRIDE.”

“There will also be launches of several new initiatives that we hope will help in the long-run, ranging from a declaration on climate- induced displacement and a new Global Standard for CSO Accountability that will help with strengthening civil society’s own role.”

Asked what next after Fiji? And will there be a follow up, if any?

ICSW is in part a members’ meeting, Sriskandarajah said, so bringing together all these delegates from around the world has many benefits in terms of learning and sharing ideas. It’s great to see that this year’s ICSW will be just as diverse as our last ICSW held in Colombia in 2016.

He said he is expecting delegates from more than 100 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

As the largest global alliance of this sort, “we hope that CIVICUS can help connect activists and organisations, across issues and across geographies, who are working building a more just, inclusive and sustainable world,” he declared.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Aerial View of Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2017 (IPS)

The 1951 UN convention on political refugees– which never foresaw the phenomenon of climate change– permits refugee status only if one “has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

But a proposal for an amendment to that Convention—or an optional protocol — to include a new category of “environmental refugees” has failed to get off the ground.

The threat of sea-level rise — and the possibility of tiny islands, mostly in the Pacific, including Tuvalu, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Palau, Micronesia and Vanuatu, vanishing from the face of the earth or facing economic calamities because of a projected sea-level rise triggered by climate change — — has raised new fears and new challenges.

Should the threat of environmental catastrophes be legitimate grounds for asylum and refugee status?

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former UN High Representative and Under-Secretary-General for Least Developed Countries, Land-locked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), told IPS the rationale for the recognition of the category of “environmental refugees” has been established for quite some time.

“As Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations, I had highlighted the case of the most vulnerable countries affected by the degradation of the environment and had advocated for recognition of the resulting refugee situations,” he said.

“These environmental refugees need to be recognized formally as refugees and entitled to be covered by the 1951 U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees. It is high time for us to do that,” Chowdhury declared.

As has been the case with a number of other international treaties and conventions, an optional protocol to the 1951 refugees convention could be adopted to recognize the environmental refugees, he pointed out.

““While climate change affects us all, the risks of displacement are significantly higher in lower-income countries and among people living in poverty. Women, children, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups are also disproportionately affected.”

Simon Bradshaw, Climate Change Specialist at Oxfam Australia
The international community owes it to these ill-fated hapless victims of environmental catastrophes whether manifesting as loud emergencies or the silent ones,” Chowdhury said.

“The international community should also be forward-looking and flexible to accommodate the new realities our world faces,” he noted.

Chowdhury also said it is not prudent to remain stuck with the sole category of “political refugees” while the world is watching a mass movement of people across international boundaries for economic reasons, now compounded by environmental causes.

“We expect the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, (a former UN High Commissioner for Refugees), to speak up for the cause of the environmental refugees, as he has the right background of managing the global refugees situation for a long time.”

In an address to the UN Security Council in 2011, referring to the climate change, he said “It is a challenge which is adding to the scale and complexity of human displacement; and a challenge that has important implications for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

Even from this perspective, the environmental refugees turn out to have serious political implications for international peace and security, Chowdhury said.

The proposal to recognize “environmental refugees” has surfaced once again, this time against the backdrop of a major conference of non-governmental organisations (NGOs)—the International Civil Society Week (ICSW)– scheduled to take place in Fiji, December 4-8.

An annual forum co-organized by CIVICUS and regional or national platforms, ICSW brings together NGOs from all over the world for a key global gathering for civil society and other stakeholders to engage constructively in finding common solutions to global challenges.

And for the first time in more than 20 years of international convening, CIVICUS will hold its flagship event in the Pacific region.” The theme of the forum is: “Our Planet. Our Struggles. Our Future.”

According to the United Nations, about a third of the world’s 47 least developed countries (LDCs), including SIDS, described as the poorest of the world’s poor, are threatened by global warming and sea-level rise.

Selena Victor, Director of Policy & Advocacy, Mercy Corps Europe, told IPS global institutions and conventions must evolve to meet new and developing challenges, and climate change is one of the most pressing facing our world today.

“At Mercy Corps we recognise that people are forced to flee due to many factors; political persecution, war, violence, abject poverty, and climate change are just some of them”.

”It is absolutely critical that we maintain – and strengthen – the fragile protection available to those fleeing persecution – that does not lessen our obligation to help all those forced to flee for their own and their children’s survival,” Victor said.

“When faced with a growing number of displaced people around the world, the question we must ask ourselves is if people are running for their survival, should we make the distinction as to their reasons, or focus our efforts on support and providing refuge?”, she asked.

Simon Bradshaw, Climate Change Specialist at Oxfam Australia (who co-authored Oxfam’s recent policy paper on climate refugees) told IPS that climate change is already forcing people from their land and homes, and putting many more at risk of displacement in future.

He said supercharged storms, more intense and prolonged droughts, rising seas and other impacts of climate change all exacerbate people’s existing vulnerabilities and the likelihood of displacement.

“While climate change affects us all, the risks of displacement are significantly higher in lower-income countries and among people living in poverty. Women, children, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups are also disproportionately affected.”

Bradshaw also said the world’s atoll countries face a particularly severe challenge from climate change. Rising seas, increased wave heights and higher storm surges are inundating land on which communities grow food, contaminating the thin groundwater lens of which they depend for freshwater, and swallowing homes.

While relocation will always be an option of last resort, even conservative projections for sea level rise over the course of this century pose a grave threat to atoll communities and other low-lying populations around the world.

He pointed out that the loss of homes, livelihoods and ancestral lands through displacement epitomizes the human cost and grave injustice of climate change.

“Those least responsible for climate change are bearing the brunt of its impacts, and have fewer resources to cope with these new realities. However, much can and must be done to minimize the risk of displacement linked to climate change, and to guarantee rights, protection and dignity for those who are forced to move”.

A first priority, he argued, must be far more rapid reductions in global climate pollution, in line with limiting warming to 1.5C and thereby significantly reducing the risks and impacts of climate change.

Minimizing displacement also depends on supporting communities with building resilience to the impacts of climate change, which means increasing the scale and accessibility of international finance for climate change adaptation.

“And while recognizing that all possible measures must be taken to avoid displacement, it is also necessary to support strategies to ensure that people who are forced to can do so safely, with dignity, and on their own terms.”

Bradshaw said the negotiation by September 2018 of a new Global Compact on Migration offers a critical opportunity to help ensure safety, dignity and lasting solutions for those displaced or at risk of displacement as a result of the impacts of climate change.

It must reaffirm the need to minimize displacement by addressing the root causes of climate change and factors in vulnerability; encourage expanded channels for regular migration for those who are nonetheless forced to move; begin a process to ensure status and legal recognition for those displaced in the context of climate change; and ensure all solutions uphold human rights and sovereignty, and are grounded in the perspectives and priorities of affected communities.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Demonstration gardens with an array of vegetables are being established in communities across Tafea province. Credit: Mark Chew/CARE

By Elisa Webster, CARE International and Julia Marango
PORT VILA, Vanuatu, Nov 22 2017 (IPS)

It’s been dry in Isavai on the island of Aniwa for last couple of years – ever since Tropical Cyclone Pam tore through Vanuatu in March 2015, leaving an El Nino-induced drought in its wake. A dry phase is bad news for farmers anywhere, but in Aniwa, where there is no constant water source and the only water supply comes almost exclusively from harvesting rain into tanks, it’s disastrous.

Without water, crops can’t be irrigated. Without irrigation, crops are much more likely to fail. And when crops fail, food becomes more scarce, nutrition decreases, and health declines. To combat this cycle, communities across Tanna, Erromango and Aniwa – including Isavai – are adapting to the impacts of droughts, disasters and other climate shocks by diversifying their crops and improving farming techniques to increase food security.

For Kalgy, an agriculture teacher in Isavai, these are projects close to his heart. He has been working with students at the Irumori Primary School in Isavai to share his knowledge about farming using a teacher’s garden, a long walk away from the classrooms.

The garden lies in full sun. It has rained only once since he planted it and there hasn’t been enough water for watering the seedlings.

Adopting climate resilient agriculture techniques is difficult. Education is critical. Together with partners, CARE International has introduced 10 communities in Taffeta province in southern Vanuatu to a range of new agricultural methods by establishing demonstration gardens.

The communities provide lots of land, either in schools or elsewhere within the community, and agriculture ministries provide a range of hybrid plants, which have been especially produced to require minimal water to flourish, and CARE provides seeds for a range of vegetables, most of which are varieties that are not currently grown in the community’s gardens.

Over two days of training in each community, citizens work together to clear the land and build fences using the timber removed from the plots, or other locally sourced materials, then plant the plants and seeds.

The demonstration gardens include a nursery for small seedlings, made from layers of readily available coconut husks, and an array of vegetables, including yam, taro, kumala, cabbage, beans, tomato and lettuce. Providing a wide assortment of varieties enables the community to experiment to see which will survive and thrive in their area.

Once the crops have been harvested, community members are able to use seedlings, root stock and grafts from the successful varieties to diversify their own gardens.

In Isavai, one of the demonstration gardens is inside the school boundary and students as well as teachers, members of the school committee and the wider community helped to build it. The experience has been eye opening for many, especially the students.

“The children never knew how to raise a tomato because every time they see a tomato, it has been brought from Tanna,” says Kalgy. “But now, they can observe a tomato from seed till harvest. The children know now how to look after the vegetables.”

According to Kalgy, the students are now leading the way in putting their new skills into action – ensuring their climate-responsive knowledge will impact the community far beyond today.

“It has been interesting to watch the children enjoying their time planting the vegetables without the support of teachers or adults. The children are taking charge of mulching, composting and pruning in the demonstration plot without the supervision of a teacher, and they seem to be doing it perfectly well.”

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week

Mala Silas was involved in a project to help the people of Fotuna in Vanuatu build home gardens to bring them more food that can handle changing weather patterns and disease. Credit: CARE

By Mala Silas
PORT VILA, Vanuatu, Nov 15 2017 (IPS)

Here in Vanuatu, the ocean has been getting warmer and more acidic. Scientists are predicting that cyclone patterns will change, we’ll see heavier rainfalls, a wetter wet season and a drier dry season. We’re already seeing the sea rising six millimeters per year in the capital, Port Vila; higher than the global average.

For many people, the ocean rising by a few centimeters doesn’t sound like much, but for those of us living in small island nations like Vanuatu, it will mean the waves are rising higher than ever during storms; changes to where and how we get our food; and fishermen, farmers and growers face more uncertainty.

With world carbon emissions on the rise again after a three year hiatus, our future in Vanuatu is being compromised. The latest projections show that we are on track for a 3.2C rise in temperature by 2100 and sea level rise will be measured by the meters. UN assessments on the impacts for small island states, such as Vanuatu, show we are not ready.

Recently, I was on the island of Futuna, a place that, even by Vanuatu standards, is quite remote. There are no roads (just rugged footpaths) and only a couple of boats to get between communities. There’s little or no mobile reception and poor radio coverage.

People in Futuna mostly rely on the land and the ocean for their food, and their water comes from natural springs, which are a long walk from home. In dry times, water is harder to find, and in floods, the soil runs off the gardens, and with more erratic weather and a rising sea, the job of growing or gathering food is becoming tougher.

It’s particularly tough for women in Futuna; they are often isolated by cultural traditions that keep them at home and silent in community meetings.

With CARE, I was involved in a project to help the people of Futuna build home gardens to bring them more food that can handle changing weather patterns and diseases. Before the project, the people of Futuna mostly ate boiled fish and boiled cassava (a root vegetable common in the Pacific).

If they wanted to eat any other vegetables, they had to send money (which was, of course, hard to come by) to islands many hours away by boat. As well as helping to introduce these new, durable crops, CARE has run classes on food storage and cooking (using traditional and modern methods).

This means families on Futuna can have food all year-round, and they are no longer relying on just one or two types of food. Despite the cyclones that frequently pass across Vanuatu, the communities of Futuna are now much more resilient, because they know how to store and preserve food and protect the fresh water they have.

Many families on Futuna now have gardens next to their houses. They grow vegetables like cucumber, carrot and tomato. Jeannine Roberts, a mother of four from Futuna’s Mission Bay, told me that her children are now eating more and are much healthier, because they’re eating more than just boiled fish and cassava.

Children in Futuna learn about agriculture and nutrition in their school´s community garden. Credit: Daniel Vorbach/Oxfam

When I first arrived on Futuna a few years ago, I wouldn’t have seen a woman stand up or speak during a community meeting; they were too shy and didn’t seem comfortable getting involved. When I now go back to Futuna, I can see the progress that’s been made.

Seeing the women standing up to talk – even challenging the men – was something very special. These inspiring women have plenty of knowledge about their local environment, gardens and households, and I feel lucky to be working with them to improve their lives and break down many cultural and social barriers.

Futuna is just one small island among hundreds across Vanuatu and hundreds of thousands across the Pacific. But the progress there – achieved through teamwork and giving women a voice – is a great example of what can be achieved in the face of a changing planet.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.

Excerpt:

In the Pacific, climate change is an ever-present threat, undermining human rights, livelihoods, and security. Pacific Islanders are working with courage and resolve to build the resilience of their communities and to catalyse international actions towards ending global carbon pollution.

While the Pacific has contributed almost nothing to the causes of climate change, the region is determined to lead the world towards a more just and sustainable future. And while often labelled as ‘small island states’, Pacific Island countries are more accurately characterised as ‘large oceans states’ as they are custodians of vast tracts of ocean, to which their economies, culture, identities and livelihoods are inextricably tied.

Pacific Island countries are hugely diverse in their geographies and cultures – from low-lying atoll nations to volcanic archipelagos with high mountains. But all face a combination of severe challenges from climate change.

Climate change is increasing the destructive power of tropical cyclones. Many Pacific Island countries, including the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Federated States of Micronesia, lie within the south or north-western Pacific cyclone belts.

In 2016, a year after Cyclone Pam brought devastation to Vanuatu, Cyclone Winston – the strongest ever recorded in the southern hemisphere – displaced 55,000 people in Fiji (about 6 per cent of the population) and caused loss and damage worth around one-fifth of the countries’ GDP.

For the atoll nations including Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, rising seas and higher storm surges are inundating scarce land and contaminating scarce groundwater resources on which people depend for freshwater.

In the long-term, and without far stronger international action on climate change, atoll nations face losing much of their land area. At the same time, these and all Pacific Island communities face damage to critical marine ecosystems through ocean acidification, shifting rainfall patterns and other impacts of climate change.

Pacific peoples are determined to adapt to these growing realities and to do everything possible to avoid being displaced from their land and homes. Forced displacement epitomises the grave injustice and human rights implications of climate change. No one wants to leave, to lose their cultural ties, traditional livelihoods, and deep ancestral connection to their land.

Across the region, from the regional to the local level, Pacific governments and communities are working to confront the climate crisis. One of the many inspiring examples of community-led action comes from Vanuatu.

The Vanuatu Climate Action Network (VCAN) is a powerful example of diverse stakeholders, from community organisations through to the national government, working together to build more resilient communities to amplify the voices of Pacific Islanders on the world stage. It has enabled a broad range of local and international NGOs to pool their knowledge and resources and to draw on each other’s strengths.

It has helped ensure that local communities and civil society have better access to information on climate risks and adaptation strategies, and has embraced the leadership of Ni-Vanuatu women and elevated their role in decision-making and in representing Vanuatu in international fora.

From developing climate resilient food systems built on local traditional knowledge to establishing awareness programs in schools, it has enabled communities to build on their strengths and ability to flourish amidst current and future challenges.

Similar networks exist in other Pacific countries including in Tuvalu and Kiribati, and they come together at the regional level under the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN). They play a vital role in building local capacity to deal with climate change, in facilitating greater cooperation between government, civil society, communities and the private sector, and in responding to the needs and capacities of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

And, perhaps most importantly, in ensuring the voices of Pacific Islanders are heard loud and clear on the world stage. COP23 – the Pacific COP – is an unprecedented opportunity to highlight the Pacific people’s determination and leadership in highlighting and driving solutions to the acute challenges facing the region from climate change.

It is time for us all to listen to those on the frontlines of the climate crisis and commit to the scale and pace of action needed to ensure a just and sustainable future for all.

This article is part of a series about the activists and communities of the Pacific who are responding to the effects of climate change. Leaders from climate and social justice movements from around the world will meet in Suva, Fiji from 4-8 December for International Civil Society Week.