Jovita Ambrose and Timson Irowane are two young athletes training to be part of the Solomon Islands national team at the Pacific Games. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
HONIARA, SOLOMON ISLANDS, Nov 17 2023 (IPS)

The Pacific Games, the most prestigious sporting event in the Pacific Islands region, will open in the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific on 19 November. And it is set to shine a spotlight on the energy, hopes and aspirations of youths who comprise the majority of the country’s population.

Timson Irowane (25), who has been competing in triathlons for the past six years, is brimming with confidence and anticipation. “The Pacific Games is a big event because my people are here, and it is very special because this is the first time the Solomon Islands is hosting the Games that I’ve been involved in,” Irowane told IPS during an interview at the Solomon Islands National Institute of Sport in the capital, Honiara. 

Every four years, a Pacific Island nation is chosen to host the regional multi-sport Pacific Games. And this year, about 5,000 athletes from 24 Pacific Island states, such as Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Fiji and New Caledonia, will arrive in Honiara to compete in 24 sports, ranging from athletics and swimming to archery and basketball.

The Solomon Islands has a high population growth rate of 2.3 percent and about 70 percent of the country’s population of about 734,000 people are aged under 35 years. Christian Nieng, Executive Director of the Pacific Games National Hosting Authority, told IPS that it will be a chance to showcase their talents and achievements. “It is the biggest international event ever hosted in the country. And as we are hosting, we want to compete for every medal chance,” Nieng said.

Not far from Honiara city centre, the new Games precinct includes a large national stadium, which can accommodate 10,000 people, as well as swimming and tennis centres. Eighty percent of the funding needed to build the facilities and organize the Games has been provided by international donors and bilateral partners, including Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Korea and Indonesia.

“One of the long-term benefits of the Games is that we now have a new sports city as a legacy of the event,” Nieng added. It will be one of the best in the Pacific region, he believes, and, if well maintained, will last for 25 years, providing world-class facilities for Solomon Islanders to pursue their development and ambitions in sport.

At the sports institute, about 1,200 athletes are in training, and their energy and excitement is palpable. Here, Irowane, who is from Western and Malaita, two outer island provinces, is one among many who are striving to be selected for the national team of about 650 athletes who will represent the Solomon Islands later this month. His dedication has already led to international success. He participated in the Pacific Games held in Samoa in 2019 and numerous regional championships before heading to the Commonwealth Games hosted in Birmingham in the United Kingdom last year.

But he said that there were many wider benefits of sport to young people. “Triathlon is a multi-sport which involves discipline. Sport is not just for training, for fitness and skills that you learn in a specific sport, but it trains holistically to be a better person and a responsible person,” Irowane said. “And it helps athletes and individuals to be good citizens.”

Another local star aiming high is 21-year-old Jovita Ambrose, also from Malaita Province. “I started athletics and running during school games when I was 17 years old. When I’m running, I know that I’m good at it. When you are good at sport, it keeps you busy; it helps you stay healthy and not get involved in negative activities, such as drugs,” Ambrose said. In the last two years, she has travelled to competitions overseas, including the World Athletics Championships in Oregon in the United States last year and in Budapest, Hungary, three months ago.

Many local businesses in the formal and informal sectors are hoping for increased visitors and business during the Pacific Games being hosted in the Solomon Islands in late November. Burns Creek Settlement market in Honiara. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

The Solomon Islands has a rural majority population that is scattered across more than 900 islands where there is often limited access to roads, basic services and employment. And the younger generation faces significant economic and development challenges. In a country which is not generating enough jobs for those of working age, the government estimates that 16,000-18,000 youths enter the employment market every year, with less than 4,000 likely to gain a secure job. Estimates of youth unemployment range from 35 percent to 60 percent.

“There is a lot of unemployment and, also, under-employment, where young people get a job opportunity which does not match their skill set. It is a real frustration for them when they are educated and still waiting for a job opportunity,” Harry James Olikwailafa, Chairman of the Solomon Islands National Youth Congress, explained to IPS. “The important issues for young people today are economic opportunities, employment opportunities and educational opportunities.”

In the last two decades, Solomon Islanders have also grappled with the aftermath of a five-year civil conflict. ‘The Tensions’, triggered by factors including urban-rural inequality, corruption and competition for land and resources, erupted in 1998 between rival armed groups representing local Guale landowners on Guadalcanal Island and internal settlers from Malaita Province. Hostilities ended in 2003, by which time many people, including children, had experienced violence, atrocities and displacement and had been deprived of education.

Morrison Filia 936) and his wife, Joycelyn (32), grew up in the aftermath of the conflict. And now, through a new entrepreneurial initiative, are aiming to help grow economic opportunities in Honiara. In August, they launched a new tourism business, Happy Isle Tours and Transfers, which offers airport transfers for visitors and tourists to hotels, as well as tours of Honiara, its history and landmarks, and excursions to World War II memorial sites on Guadalcanal Island.

“In Honiara, there are a lot of young people, and employment is a problem. So, the main idea is that we try to create this business so that we can employ more young people. We are trying to give young people opportunities,” Morrison told IPS.

They have also opened their business in time for the Games. “One of the other reasons why we started the business is that we noticed tourists and visitors coming [to the Solomon Islands], but they find it difficult to find transport,” Joycelyn said. “We are excited and looking forward to the Games because we are expecting more tourists. It will bring other different people to the country, and we are expecting increased bookings. I think it will also increase employment in the country and help us in our economy,” she continued.

The Pacific Games will continue for two weeks and finish on the 2 December. And like Morrison and Joycelyn, Timson Irowane has long-term goals. “I wish to be a role model, to introduce the sports and motivate more young people to be involved in any sport they are interested in. I love to encourage them because we have the advantage of the facilities here beyond the Games,” he declared.

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Rt. Hon Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, visited the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu in April to discuss climate justice and witnessed the impacts of Cyclones Judy and Kevin in the country. Photo Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jun 5 2023 (IPS)

In the Pacific Islands and many developing and emerging countries worldwide, the informal economy far outsizes the formal one, playing a vital role in the survival of urban and rural households and absorbing expanding working-age populations.

Informal business entrepreneurs and workers make up more than 60 percent of the labour force worldwide. But they are also the most exposed, with precarious assets and working conditions, to the economic shocks of extreme weather and climate disasters.

In 2016, Category 5 Cyclone Winston, the most ferocious cyclone recorded in the southern hemisphere, unleashed widespread destruction of Fiji’s infrastructure, services and economic sectors, such as agriculture and tourism.  And in March this year, Cyclones Judy and Kevin barrelled through Vanuatu, an archipelago nation of more than 300,000 people, and its capital, Port Vila, leaving local tourism businesses with severe losses.

More than 80 percent of people in Papua New Guinea live in rural areas and are sustained by informal business activities, especially the smallholder growing and selling of fresh produce. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

It is now three months since the disasters. But Dalida Borlasa, business owner of Yumi Up Upcycling Solutions, an enterprise at Port Vila’s handicraft market, which depends on tourists, told IPS there had been some recovery, but not enough. “We have had two cruise ships visit in recent weeks, but there have only been a few tourists visiting the market. We are not earning enough money for daily food. And other vendors at the market don’t have enough money to replace their products that were damaged by the cyclones,” she said.

Up to 80 percent of working-age people in some Pacific Island countries are engaged in informal income-generating activities, such as smallholder agriculture and tourism-dependent livelihoods. But in a matter of hours, cyclones can destroy huge swathes of crops and bring the tourism industry to a halt when international visitors cancel their holidays.

Climate change and disasters are central concerns to the Commonwealth, an inter-governmental organization representing 78 percent of all small nations, 11 Pacific Island states and 2.5 billion people worldwide. “The consequences of global failure on climate action are catastrophic, particularly for informal businesses and workers in small and developing countries. Just imagine the struggles of an individual who relies on subsistence and commercial agriculture for their livelihood. Their entire existence is hanging in the balance as they grapple with unpredictable weather patterns and unfavourable conditions that can wipe out their crops in a matter of seconds,” Rt. Hon Patricia Scotland KC, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, told IPS. “It’s not simply a matter of economic well-being; their entire way of life is at stake. The fear and uncertainty they experience are truly daunting. But they are fighting. We must too.”

The formal economy in many Pacific Island countries is too small and offers few employment opportunities. In Papua New Guinea, an estimated four million people are not in work, while the formal sector has only 400,000-500,000 job openings, according to PNG’s Institute of National Affairs. And with more than 50 percent of the population of about 8.9 million aged below 25 years, the number of job seekers will only rise in the coming years. And so, more than 80 percent of the country’s workforce is occupied in self-generated small-scale enterprises, such as cultivating and selling fruit and vegetables.

But eight years ago, the agricultural livelihoods of millions were decimated when a record drought associated with the El Nino climate phenomenon ravaged the Melanesian country.

“Eighty-five percent of PNG’s population are rural inhabitants who are dependent on the land for production of food and the sale of surplus for income through informal fresh produce markets. In areas affected by the 2015 drought, especially in the highlands, the drought killed food crops, affecting food security,” Dr Elizabeth Kopel of the Informal Economy Research Program at PNG’s National Research Institute told IPS. “Rural producers also supply urban food markets, so when supply dwindled, food prices increased for urban dwellers,” she added.

In Vanuatu, an estimated 67 percent of the workforce earn informal incomes, primarily in agriculture and tourism. On the waterfront of Port Vila is a large, covered handicraft market, a commercial hub for more than 100 small business owners who make and sell baskets, jewellery, paintings, woodcarvings and artworks to tourists. The island country is a major destination for cruise ships in the South Pacific. In 2019, it received more than 250,000 international visitors.

Highly exposed to the sea and storms, the market building, with the facilities and business assets it houses, bore the brunt of gale force winds from Cyclones Judy and Kevin on 1-3 March.  Tables were broken, and many of the products stored there were destroyed. Thirty-six-year-old Myshlyn Narua lost most of the handmade pandanus bags she was planning to sell. The money she had saved helped to sustain her family in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, but it would not be enough to survive six months, she stated in a report on the disaster’s impacts on market vendors compiled by Dalida Borlasa.

The country’s tourism sector has suffered numerous climate-induced economic shocks in recent years. In 2015, Cyclone Pam left losses amounting to 64 percent of GDP. Another Cyclone, Harold, in 2020 added further economic losses to the recession across the region triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To address the climate emergency and protect the lives and livelihoods of people, particularly those in the informal sector, countries must fulfil their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement. They must work to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and provide the promised US$100 billion per year in climate finance,” said the Commonwealth Secretary-General. She added that climate-vulnerable nations should also be eligible for debt relief. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Secretariat is working with member countries to improve their access to global funding for climate projects. And it is calling for reform of the global financial architecture to improve access to finance for lower-income countries that need it the most.

At the same time, the International Labour Organization predicts that the informal economy will continue to employ most Pacific Islanders, and the imperative now is to develop the sector and improve its resilience.

In PNG, the government has acknowledged the significance of the informal sector and developed national policy and legislation to grow its size and potential. Its long-term strategy is to improve the access of entrepreneurs to skills training, communications, technology and finance and encourage diversity and innovation within the sector. Currently, 98 percent of informal enterprises in the country are self-funded, with people often seeking loans from informal sources. The government’s goal is to see informal enterprises transition into higher value-added small and medium-sized businesses and to see the number of these businesses grow from about 50,000 now to 500,000 by 2030.

In Port Vila, Borlasa and her fellow entrepreneurs would like to see their existing facilities made more climate resilient before they face the next cyclone. She suggested that stronger window and door shutters be fitted to the market building and the floor raised and strengthened to stop waves and storm surges penetrating.

Looking ahead, the economic forecast is for GDP growth in all Pacific Island countries this year and into 2024 after three difficult years of the pandemic, reports the World Bank. Although, the economic hit of the cyclones is likely to result in a decline in growth to 1 percent in Vanuatu this year. But the real indicator of economic well-being for many Pacific islanders will be resilience and prosperity in the informal economy.

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Sea level rise threatens Raolo island in the Solomon Islands. The ongoing negative effects of climate change, inadequate agricultural, industrial and household waste management, to name but a few, all threaten and undermine the promise of the Blue Economy. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Cameron Diver
NEW CALEDONIA, Nov 20 2018 (IPS)

We live on a “blue planet” where water covers around 75 percent of the Earth’s surface. Without water we would simply not survive as a species. As we strive to find pathways to and take action for inclusive sustainable development, we must ensure that our ocean, our seas, rivers, lakes, waterways and wetlands, together with their invaluable biodiversity, are preserved, sustainably used and integrated into development programming.

Above all, we should understand, value and harness these natural pillars of the Blue Economy as answers to many development challenges, as solutions to help us achieve the ambition of the Paris Agreement, deliver a new deal for nature and people, and reach the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Blue Economy has enormous potential as a driver of economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection, but it is also faced with immense challenges.

The ongoing negative effects of climate change, inadequate agricultural, industrial and household waste management, plastic and chemical pollution, corruption and lack of robust water governance mechanisms, the alarming rate of biodiversity loss in global ecosystems and sometimes wilful ignorance of scientific evidence and advice, to name but a few, all threaten and undermine the promise of the Blue Economy.

There are inspiring examples worldwide of action to clean up waterways, restore habitat and create clean environments for economic and recreational activities. But you don’t have to be a wealthy developed country to share the same ambition or achieve similar outcomes.

Here are just a few examples from the Pacific region, whose large ocean/small island states are taking up the challenge, all the while dealing with the immediate impact of climate change, natural disasters and the very real tyranny of distance.

The Pacific Islands are uniquely vulnerable to the environmental impacts of maritime transport due to their reliance on shipping and the fact that many ports in island contexts are located both in the main urban area and in fragile coastal ecosystems like lagoons.

Through programmes like our Green Pacific Port initiative my organisation, the Pacific Community, is helping its Member States address these issues through improved efforts to increase port energy efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint, and enhanced environmental management including marine pollution and waste management.

In the tiny archipelago of Wallis and Futuna, the issue of used oils, batteries and saturated landfill was prioritised by local authorities due to its potential repercussions on the quality of the aquifer, lagoon and coastal water, and of course marine biodiversity.

Working alongside local communities and decision makers, our teams contributed to developing multiple measures to remove hazardous waste from the islands. A viable export business was set up to process this type of waste and, on the island of Futuna, the landfill was closed and underwent site remediation.

In the agriculture sector Pacific Island countries are also tackling threats to soil quality, plant life and water resources. In Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Samoa we are helping develop and implement innovative approaches using soft chemicals and biocides to target specific pests and diseases without affecting other forms of biodiversity and significantly lessening the environmental impact.

Alongside other partners, the Pacific Community contributed to the 2018 Pacific Marine Climate Change Report Card. The Report Card provides an easy to access summary of climate change impacts on coasts and seas in the Pacific region.

It also highlights the critical nexus between the ocean and climate change and underscores the significant threat that deteriorating marine and coastal biodiversity would present for livelihoods, health, culture, wellbeing and infrastructure.

It also proposes are range of responses Pacific Islands can adopt such as: building resilience to unavoidable climate change impacts on coral reefs, mangroves and seas grass by reducing non-climate threats and introducing protected areas; working with communities to diversify fisheries livelihoods and restore and preserve fish habitats; optimising the sustainable economic benefits from tuna through regional management.

For the large ocean/small island States of the Pacific region the ocean is at the heart of their identity: “We are the sea, we are the ocean, we must wake up to this ancient truth”. Through the Blue Pacific narrative, Oceania’s Leaders seek to harness the potential of Pacific peoples’ shared stewardship of the Pacific Ocean based on an explicit recognition of their shared ocean identity, ocean geography, and ocean resources.

The Blue Economy must therefore contribute to the Blue Pacific identity and help fulfil a higher ambition for regionalism and sustainable development based first and foremost on the deep-rooted bond between the peoples of the Pacific, the land, the ocean and biodiversity.

In this context, the Pacific Community and our partners provide scientific and technical expertise and advice for evidence-based policy making and sustainable solutions tailored to the needs of the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories. Globally, as in the Pacific, we must ensure that the Blue Economy is more than a slogan, more than a concept encouraging sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth.

It must become a concrete reality where decisions are informed by science and the best available evidence. We must use the Blue Economy so that nature and the environment are not sacrificed for short-term political or economic gain but leveraged for long-term sustainable growth and development.

We must truly transform the promise of the Blue Economy from the page and the conference hall to tangible and integrated climate action, ocean action and biodiversity action to guarantee a sustainable future for our planet and, as a consequence, ourselves.

Excerpt:

The sprawling informal community of Lord Howe Settlement, in Solomon Islands’ capital city of Honiara, lies along the Mataniko River. The piped sewerage system in the capital does not extend to unplanned settlements as waste, especially untreated sewage, has become a dire threat to coastal waters and their fisheries. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Oct 29 2018 (IPS)

At the mouth of the Mataniko River, which winds its way through the vibrant coastal port town of Honiara to the sea, is the sprawling informal community of Lord Howe Settlement, which hugs the banks of the estuary and seafront. A walk from the nearby main road to the beach involves a meandering route through narrow alleys between crowded dwellings, homes to about 630 people, which are clustered among the trees and overhang the water.

An estimated 40 percent of Honiara’s population of about 67,000 live in at least 30 squatter settlements. Sanitation coverage is about 32 percent in the Solomon Islands and in this capital city the piped sewerage system, which does not extend to unplanned settlements, is dispersed into local waterways and along the coastline.

For centuries, coastal fishing has been central to the nutrition, food security and livelihoods of Pacific Islanders, as it will be in the twenty first century. But, as population growth in the region reaches 70 percent and cities and towns expand along island coastlines, waste, especially untreated sewage, has become a dire threat to coastal waters and their fisheries.

“Areas of high population density, such as cities and tourism areas, are associated with excess release of poorly treated wastewater onto reefs. Many coastal communities rely heavily on fishing for their subsistence and household income and endangering the lagoons and fishing areas will threaten their livelihoods,” is the personal view of Dr. Johann Poinapen, who also holds the position of director of the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.

Subsistence fishing in near shore areas, typically of finfish, trochus, molluscs, clams, crabs and bêche-de-mer, accounts for 70 percent of all coastal catches in the Pacific Islands and 22 percent of the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Sewage waste pollutes the oceans

Sewage waste is a global issue, accounting for about 75 percent of pollution in the world’s oceans, and every Pacific Island state has identified it as a cause of environmental and health problems, ranging from marine ‘dead zones’ and the loss of reefs to outbreaks of seafood poisoning.

Critically its discharge in coastal areas leads to the loss of habitats for marine life, according to Associate Professor Monique Gagnon, an expert in ecotoxicology at the School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University in Western Australia.

“Effluent, or nutrient pollution, produces eutrophication and the growth of algae can change marine habitats, threatening local fish populations and encouraging invasive species,” Gagnon told IPS.

A semi-submerged graveyard on Togoru, Fiji. Sewage waste is a global issue, accounting for about 75 percent of pollution in the world’s oceans, and every Pacific Island state has identified it as a cause of environmental and health problems. Credit: Pascal Laureyn/IPS

Health and environmental issues

Human effluent generates the over-production of algae and cyanobacteria in waterways and the sea. Toxic algal blooms can infect all types of fish and shellfish and lead to the demise of coral reefs and their fish stocks. Sewage also depletes oxygen in aquatic ecosystems, leading to the condition of Hypoxia, which causes the death of fish through paralysis. And the consumption of fish contaminated by biotoxins can cause serious illnesses, such as paralytic shellfish poisoning and ciguatera.

A study of marine pollution in the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 2016 found that nine of ten ocean and lagoon sites surveyed were heavily polluted, particularly with disease carrying bacteria from human and animal waste.  In Samoa, the Ministry of Health has connected typhoid cases with seafood collected near shore which has been spoiled by effluent from coastal villages.

Lack of sewage treatment facilities and collection services for households in Pacific cities, together with mostly unimproved sanitation in rural areas, are leading to increasing amounts of effluent entering coastal waters or conveyed there from rivers and streams.

The problem is acute in urban areas where under-resourced civic services are struggling to cope with a high influx of people migrating from less developed rural areas. Urban centres are growing at a very high annual rate of 4.7 percent in the Solomon Islands, 3.5 percent in Vanuatu and 2.8 percent in Papua New Guinea.

The situation in Honiara in the Solomon Islands is typical of many other Melanesian towns and cities in the southwest Pacific.

“Upstream [of the Mataniko River] there are sewerage outlets which are coming directly into the river. Then, as you come down, you see these little houses on the riverbanks; these are toilets,” Josephine Teakeni, president of the local women’s civil society group, Vois Blong Mere, told IPS.

Lack of resources restricts improved sanitation

The Honiara City Council is involved in manufacturing affordable toilet hardware items, especially for people in settlements who are on low incomes, and provides a septic tank collection service. But lack of resources severely restricts their operations.

“We don’t have the capacity to do this for the whole city, but we can empty septic systems for anyone who can pay the fee of SB$400 (USD51),” George Titiulu in the Council’s Health and Environment Services told IPS.

He admits that there is an environmental problem.

“We have done some studies of the Mataniko River and there is a high level of E.coli in the water,” Titiulu elaborated.

The proportion of people in the Pacific Islands using improved sanitation rose by only 2 percent, from 29 percent to 31 percent, over the 25 year period from 1990 to 2015, reports the World Health Organization.  This leaves a shortfall of 6.9 million people who lack this basic service across the region.

In the Solomon Islands, as in other developing Pacific Island states, the obstacles to better progress include lack of basic infrastructure, expertise, technical capacity and reliable funding. The challenges are even greater to extend basic services into informal settlements because of complex customary land rights and insecure tenure for residents, as well as their frequent location in natural hazard and disaster prone areas, such as flood plains.

Subsistence fishing in near shore areas, typically of finfish, trochus, molluscs, clams, crabs and bêche-de-mer, accounts for 70 percent of all coastal catches in the Pacific Islands and 22 percent of the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Significant economic losses expected if pollution is not addressed

Yet the issue will have to be tackled with experts predicting that habitat destruction, together with climate change and over-exploitation of marine resources, will drive a continuing decline in coastal fisheries in the coming decades. For Pacific Islanders, this could lead to significant economic losses, a rise in the cost of fish and diminishing food. The regional development organisation, the Pacific Community, predicts that within 15 years an additional 115,000 tonnes of fish will be needed to manage the food gap.

“Tackling sewage pollution in the Pacific Island region is not an easy feat,” Poinapen told IPS. His personal view is that all stakeholders, not just governments, must be involved in developing and implementing appropriate solutions, as well as educational, policy and legislative approaches.

But, to begin with, he believes that “one of the biggest gaps related to sewage pollution is the lack of baseline data to inform the stakeholders on the severity of the issue.”

“We know there is sewage pollution in many receiving waterbodies, but we do not know the extent of this pollution as we have not conducted a robust and systematic quantification of the various contaminants and their effects,” Poinapen emphasised.

• The first global Sustainable Blue Economy Conference will be held in Nairobi, Kenya from Nov. 26 to 28 and is being co-hosted with Canada and Japan. Over 4,000 participants from around the world are coming together to learn how to build a blue economy.

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:

Many Pacific Island states, including Papua New Guinea, have introduced free education policies resulting in primary school enrolments surging. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Mar 24 2017 (IPS)

In the South Pacific nation of Fiji, free and compulsory education, introduced three years ago, in association with better awareness and child protection measures, is helping to reduce children’s vulnerability to harmful and hazardous forms of work.

But eliminating child labour, which is also prevalent in other Pacific Island states, such as Papua New Guinea and Samoa, is dependent on growing decent remunerated work and reducing inequality as well.“Because of the level of poverty, particularly in settlement areas, there are a ton of children on the streets who are not engaged in education, they are not in school.” --Reverend Ronald Brown

“The introduction of free education in Fiji has dramatically reduced the problem of child labour,” a spokesperson for Fiji’s Ministry of Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations, told IPS, with the number of reported child labour cases falling from 64 in 2011 to five last year.

The government’s education initiative is supported by other measures, such as increased staff capacity in the Ministry of Employment to carry out thousands of inspections for child labour and enforce labour regulation compliance. And in 2015 a toll free helpline was set up for members of the public, including children, to report any form of child labour, abuse or neglect.

However, Fay Volatabu, General Secretary of Fiji’s National Council of Women, told IPS that, while she recognized the government’s good initiatives, “children still sell pastries and doormats when we go shopping at night and that should be rest or homework time. Yet no-one is sending them home or checking up on their parents and taking them to task for still making their children work.”

Studies conducted in Fiji and Papua New Guinea (PNG) by the International Labour Organization (ILO) during the past decade identified poverty and financial difficulties as the major driving factors of child labour with children engaged in street vending, begging and scavenging and young girls vulnerable to prostitution and domestic servitude.

More than 60 percent of children surveyed on the streets in both countries were involved in hazardous work, such as carrying heavy loads and handling scrap metal, while 6.8 percent in Fiji and 43 percent in Port Moresby, PNG’s capital, were trapped in commercial sexual exploitation. A study of 1,611 children in Fiji in 2009 drew a correlation between students dropping out of school and the prevalence of child workers, with 65 percent of the latter not in education.

Lack of economic growth, high unemployment and low wages are major factors contributing to poverty in the region with only two of 14 Pacific Island Forum countries, Cook Islands and Niue, achieving MDG 1, the reduction of poverty. The size of households is also a factor with the hardship rate rising in Fiji from zero for a family with one child to 44 percent for a family of three or more children, reports the World Bank. For many poorer families the costs of schooling are prohibitive and sending children out to work is a way of surviving and meeting basic needs.

The value of education to human and economic development, well understood by Pacific Island governments, has been the impetus for free education being implemented in numerous countries, such as Fiji, PNG, Tonga, Cook Islands and the Solomon Islands, and compulsory education in some.

In 2012 the PNG Government removed tuition fees for students in Elementary Prep to Grade 10 and subsidized education for those in late secondary years 11-12. However, while enrolment figures have surged, Reverend Ronald Brown, Chief Executive Officer of City Mission PNG, a Christian non-profit social welfare organization, told IPS that children were still highly visible in the capital selling small goods, such as betelnut and cigarettes, particularly near informal settlements.

“Because of the level of poverty, particularly in settlement areas, there are a ton of children on the streets who are not engaged in education, they are not in school,” Reverend Brown said.

He continued that “the issue is also that there are hidden costs in every school. Many schools charge project fees, which can amount to K50 (15 dollars) per child and up. There is also the purchase of uniforms, which are extremely expensive.”

Both PNG and Fiji have ratified the ILO Minimum Age Convention (No. 138) and Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182). Yet City Mission PNG is seeing increasing numbers of trafficked minors.

“We are dealing with more and more children, young girls who are being internally trafficked into prostitution. In 2012, we had about 20-25 women and children in our Crisis Support Centre, now there are 50,” Reverend Brown said. Although he acknowledged it was unclear if the rise in statistics was due to a real increase in cases or wider awareness of the issue.

Fiji, which, together with PNG, participated in the TACKLE project, a joint program by the European Union, ACP Secretariat and ILO to combat child labour through education-related initiatives from 2008-2013, has been rolling out awareness in urban and rural communities in a bid to grapple with the issue at the grassroots.

“So far a total of 200 teachers and 50 police officers together with 150 community leaders and farmers have been trained in the area of child labour and the importance of sending children to school through the free education program,” the Ministry of Employment spokesperson said.

But, even with increased numbers of children accessing primary education, the retention of students to the completion of secondary school remains low in some Pacific Island countries, while many are unable to provide adequate jobs for those who graduate.

An estimated 57 percent of enrolled primary students in PNG complete the last grade, while only 12.5 percent of the estimated 80,000 annual school leavers secure formal employment. In Fiji up to 94 percent of primary level students make the transition to secondary level, but unemployment among youth remains a challenge at 18.2 percent in 2015, according to ILO data.

Higher tides and coastal erosion are encroaching on homes and community buildings in Siar village, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Jan 19 2017 (IPS)

The new political power of business magnate Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated Jan. 20 as the 45th President of the United States, will have ramifications for every global region, including the Pacific Islands.

Pacific leaders who are witnessing rising seas, coastal erosion and severe natural disasters in the region are alert to the new president’s declared scepticism about climate change and the contributing factor of human activities. His proposed policy changes include cutting international climate funding and pushing ahead fossil fuel projects.“It is sad for us who rely on the United States to do the right thing and to hear the president embarking on the opposite path, which is ensuring our destruction.” -- Reverend Tafue Lusama

They say the United States’ solidarity on climate change action is vital to protecting people in developing and industrialised nations from climate-driven disasters, environmental degradation and poverty.

There are 22 Pacific Island states and territories and 35 percent of the region’s population of about 10 million people lives below the poverty line. One of the most vulnerable to climate change is the Polynesian nation of Tuvalu, home to about 10,000 people spread over nine low lying coral islands.

“Tuvalu is among the poorest in the world, it is isolated, small and low in elevation. All aspects of life, from protecting our small land to food security, from our marine resources to our traditional gardens are being impacted by climate change. All the adaptation measures that need to be put in place need international climate funding. With Trump’s intended withdrawal pathway, our survival is denied and justice is ignored,” Reverend Tafue Lusama, General Secretary of the Tuvalu Christian Church and global advocate for climate action, told IPS.

Trump’s 100-day action plan, issued during last year’s presidential campaign, claims it will tackle government corruption, accountability and waste and improve the lives of U.S. citizens who have been marginalised by globalisation and ‘special interests’ of the political elite.

But his intended actions include cancelling billions in payments to United Nations climate change programmes, aimed at assisting the most vulnerable people in developing countries, and approving energy projects, worth trillions of dollars, involving shale, oil, natural gas and coal in the United States in a bid to boost domestic jobs.

Last December, 800 scientists and energy experts worldwide wrote an open letter to the then president-elect encouraging him to remain steadfast to policies put forward during the Barack Obama administration such as reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, which in association with industrial processes accounts for 65 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and supporting renewable energy development.

“It is sad for us who rely on the United States to do the right thing and to hear the President embarking on the opposite path, which is ensuring our destruction,” Reverend Lusama added.

London-based Chatham House claims that a key success of the COP21 climate change conference in Paris in 2015 was the supportive ‘alignment’ of the United States, the second largest emitter accounting for 16 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Here the United States joined the High Ambition Coalition, a grouping of countries committed to rigorous climate targets, which was instrumental in driving consensus that global warming should be kept lower than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Increased global warming could be disastrous for Pacific Island states with many already facing a further rise in sea levels, extremely high daily temperatures and ocean acidification this century, reports the Pacific Climate Change Science Program.

In 2015 the region was hit by a severe El Nino climate cycle which ‘forced people to walk for days seeking sustenance…and, in some cases, to become severely weakened or die from malnutrition,’ Caritas reports. In Papua New Guinea, 2.7 million people, or 36 percent of the population, struggled with lack of food and water as prolonged drought conditions caused water sources to dry up and food crops to fail.

And a consequence of more severe natural disasters in the region is that their arc of impact can be greater.

“Kiribati is one country in the world that is very safe from any disaster….[but] during Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu [in 2015] and Cyclone Winston, which hit Fiji [in 2016], the effects also reached Kiribati, which has never happened in the past,” Pelenise Alofa, National Co-ordinator of the Kiribati Climate Action Network, told IPS.

The economic toll of natural disasters is well beyond the capacity of Kiribati, a Least Developed Country with the third lowest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world in a ranking of 195 countries by the World Bank.

“It is not in a position to meet its own adaptation needs because the climate change problems are too enormous for a small country like Kiribati to have enough resources to meet the problem head on,” Alofa said.

The economic burden extends to replacing coastal buildings at risk of climate change and extreme weather, which would cost an estimated total of 22 billion dollars for 12 Pacific Island nations, claims the University of New England in Australia. The risk is very high in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu, where more than 95 percent of built infrastructure is located within 500 metres of a coastline.

Recently several Pacific Island countries benefitted from the United Nations-administered Green Climate Fund (GCF), the largest multilateral climate fund dedicated to assisting developing countries cope with climate change. Three grants, ranging from 22 million to 57 million dollars, were awarded for a multiple Pacific nation renewable energy programme, to enable Vanuatu to develop climate information services and Samoa to pursue integrated flood management.

But the GCF, to which the United States, its largest benefactor, has committed 3.5 billion dollars, could suffer if Trump follows through on his promise, given that international pledges currently total 10.3 billion.

Ahead of the next United Nations climate change conference, to be chaired by Fiji in Bonn, Germany, in November, Pacific Island leaders are keen that President Trump visits the region. President Bainimarama has already invited him to Fiji and the Reverend Lusama would like him to also “visit Tuvalu to witness firsthand the proof which is so obvious to the naked eye of climate change impacts.”

Coastal communities in the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific Islands are already threatened by climate change with rising seas and stronger storm surges. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Jan 1 2016 (IPS)

Women leaders in the Pacific Islands have acclaimed the agreement on reducing global warming achieved at the United Nations (COP21) Climate Change conference in Paris as an unprecedented moment of world solidarity on an issue which has been marked to date by division between the developing and industrialized world. But for Pacific small island developing states, which name climate change as the single greatest threat to their survival, it will only be a success if inspirational words are followed by real action.

“It’s a huge step forward and I don’t think it would have been possible without the voices of indigenous Pacific Islanders banding together and demanding action and justice…. I am very optimistic about the future,” Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, climate activist and poet from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, who attended the historic meeting, told IPS.

Intense negotiations and compromise between the interests of 195 countries, plus the European Union, which make up the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the climate change convention, marked its 21st meeting in Paris last month.

Dame Meg Taylor, Secretary General of the regional Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), said that “while not all the issues identified by Pacific Island countries were included in the final outcome and agreement, there were substantive advances with recognition of the importance of pursuing efforts to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the inclusion of loss and damage as a separate element in the agreement and simplified and scaled up access to climate change finance.”

Claire Anterea of the Kiribati Climate Action Network in the small Central Pacific atoll nation of around 110,000 people added that the outcome was “good, but not perfect,” highlighting that the new temperature goal and call to boost climate finance were particularly important.

The World Meteorological Organisation predicted this year will be the hottest on record with average global temperatures expected to reach 1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial age. Meanwhile Pacific Island countries are bracing for further rising temperatures, sea levels, ocean acidification and coral bleaching this century. Maximum sea level rise in many island states could reach more than 0.6 metres, reports the Pacific Climate Change Science Program.

Due to rising seas in the Marshall Islands “a simple high tide results in waves flooding and crashing through sea walls built of cement and rocks and completely destroying homes. The salt from the flooding also destroys our crops and food,” Jetnil-Kijiner said..

In the best case scenario, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea could experience a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius, but under high emissions this might soar to 2.9 degrees Celsius by 2090.

Global warming could result in yields of sweet potato, a common staple crop, declining by more than 50 per cent in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands by 2050, estimates the Asian Development Bank. The burden of crop losses will fall on the shoulders of Pacific Islands’ women who are primarily responsible in communities for growing fresh produce, producing food and fetching water.

Pacific Islanders led a campaign in Paris this year to recognize a new temperature rise threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is critical, they argued, to stem future climate shocks and mitigate forced displacement as islands become increasingly uninhabitable due to loss of food, water and land.

And in a sign of shifting views in the industrialized world, Pacific Islanders were joined in their campaigning on this issue by numerous developed and developing nations in a ‘Coalition of High Ambition’ which emerged during the second week of COP21. Solidarity was demonstrated by, amongst others, Mexico, Brazil, Norway, Germany, the European Union and United States.

The final Paris agreement which seeks to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius and ‘pursue efforts’ to further reduce it by another 0.5 degree was a win for the coalition.

“1.5 degrees Celsius wasn’t even on the table before the conference began, so hearing it first announced that it even made it into the text made me cry with relief. That being said, the vague wording definitely has me worried and I know it’ll take a continued push from all of us to actually reach 1.5,” Jetnil-Kijiner said.

This will not decrease the immense challenges the region already faces in adapting to extreme weather, which cannot be met by small island economies without access to international climate finance. This year island leaders called for the international community to honour its pledge to raise 100 billion dollars per year by 2020 to fund adaptation in developing countries, an objective first conceived in Copenhagen in 2009. Assessments since then of how much has been raised vary, but the World Bank claimed in April there was a serious shortfall of 70 billion dollars.

Taylor believes “there is a positive outlook for climate financing post-2020 with Article 9 of the Paris Agreement identifying that, for Small Island Developing States, financing needs to be public and grant-based resources for adaptation.” There has been debate about whether finance mechanisms, such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF), should issue free grants or concessional loans.

Anterea emphasised that, to be effective, funding “needs to reach grassroots people through a simple processing method.”

Recognition of loss and damage caused by extreme weather and natural disasters in the final pact was also a milestone, the PIFS Secretary General added, even though it does not provide for vulnerable nations to claim liability or compensation from big polluters.

“The legal right of countries to test the liabilities of other Parties using other avenues has not been diminished by this decision,” she said.

But the greatest hope is being invested in the binding commitment by nations to set emission reduction targets and be subject to a process of long term monitoring and review, a move which would accelerate the global transition toward renewable energy and make the burning of fossil fuels, the greatest driver of greenhouse gas emissions, increasingly unviable.

“We need the five-year review as a crucial step to keeping countries’ governments accountable to our targets and goals,” Jetnil-Kijiner emphasised. If nations are not emboldened to better their goals every time, the planet may continue toward a devastating temperature increase of 2.7 degrees Celsius or more, experts conclude.

The most pressing question, after the euphoria of the global accord demonstrated in Paris has died down, is how will these lofty promises be implemented? Pacific Islanders are depending on it.

(End)

Campaigners at the September 2014 NYC Climate March say, “We need a cooperative model for climate justice.” Credit Roger Hamilton-Martin/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 16 2015 (IPS)

The United Nations, which is tasked with the protection of the global environment, has asserted that climate change affects people everywhere – with no exceptions.

Still, one of the greatest inequities of our time is that the poorest and the most marginalised individuals, communities and countries — which have contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions — often bear the greatest burden, says the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.“Our climate-impacted communities have a moral and legal right to defend our human rights and seek Climate Justice by holding these big carbon polluters accountable." -- Tuvalu delegate Puanita Taomia Ewekia

With an increasing link between climate change and human rights, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, which is conscious of the growing threat of rising sea levels to Pacific island nations, is seeking “climate justice,” including both redress and accountability.

“For the first time anywhere in the world,” says Greenpeace, it will submit a petition to the Philippines Commission on Human Rights asking the Commission to investigate the responsibility of the world’s biggest polluters for directly violating human rights or threatening to, due to their contribution to climate change and ocean acidification.

Anna Abad, climate justice campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, told IPS: “The filing of the human rights petition before the Philippine Commission on Human Rights is a first step to investigate the responsibility of the Carbon Majors (a.k.a. big carbon polluters) for their human rights violations or threatened human rights violations resulting from climate change and ocean acidification impacts.”

Asked whether there is a possibility of the issue being taken up either by the Security Council or the International Court of Justice, she said Greenpeace Southeast Asia is also exploring other avenues – both legal and transnational – to amplify the urgency of climate justice and to ensure that those responsible for the climate crisis are held accountable for their actions.

“This is a collective effort between our partners and allies. With the climate justice campaign, we have certainly begun the trial by public opinion,” Abad said.

Zelda Soriano, legal and political advisor from Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said climate change is a borderless issue, gravely affecting millions of people worldwide.

“The U.N. Human Rights Council has recognised that climate change has serious repercussions on the enjoyment of human rights as it poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around the world.”

In this light, she said, “We view climate change as a social injustice that must be addressed by international governments and agencies, most especially those responsible for contributing to the climate crisis.”

Last week, the President of Vanuatu Baldwin Londsdale joined climate-impacted communities from Tuvalu, Kiribati, Fiji and the Solomon Islands, as well as representatives from the Philippines, at “an emergency meeting” in Vanuatu vowing to seek ‘Climate Justice’ and hold big fossil fuel entities accountable for fuelling global climate change.

The Climate Change and Human Rights workshop was held on board the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, with the participation of about 40 delegates and civil society groups from Pacific Island nations.

“It is now more important than ever before that we stand united as affected communities in the face of climate change, rising sea-levels and changing weather patterns. Let us continue to stand and work together in our fight against the threats of climate change,” Londsdale told delegates.

The workshop concluded with participants signing on to the ‘People’s Declaration for Climate Justice,’ which was handed over to the President of Vanuatu.

According to Greenpeace, human-induced climate change is forecast to unleash increased hardship on the Philippines and Pacific Island nations due to stronger storms and cyclones.

A new study, Northwestern Pacific typhoon intensity controlled by changes in ocean temperatures, suggests that with climate change, storms like Haiyan, which in 2013 devastated Southeast Asia and specifically the Philippines, could get even stronger and more common.

It projects the intensity of typhoons in the western Pacific Ocean to increase by as much as 14 percent – nearly equivalent to an increase of one category – by century’s end even under a moderate future scenario of greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenpeace says it believes that those most vulnerable will continue to suffer, representing a violation of their basic human rights.

According to Greenpeace, recent research has shown that 90 entities are responsible for an estimated 914 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) of cumulative world emissions of industrial CO2 and methane between 1854 and 2010, or about 63 percent of estimated global industrial emissions of these greenhouse gases.

Abad said: “These big carbon polluters have enriched themselves for almost a century with the continued burning of coal, oil and gas. They are the driving force behind climate change.”

She said time is running out for these vulnerable communities and the world’s big carbon polluters have a moral and legal responsibility for their products and to meaningfully address climate change before it is too late.

Tuvalu delegate Puanita Taomia Ewekia was quoted as saying: “Climate change is not a problem for one nation to solve alone, all our Pacific Island countries are affected as one in our shared ocean.”

She said governments must stand up for their rights and demand redress from these big carbon polluters for past and future climate transgressions.

“Our climate-impacted communities have a moral and legal right to defend our human rights and seek Climate Justice by holding these big carbon polluters accountable and to seek financial compensation,” she declared.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Pacific civil society organisations say that local industries must be nurtured before the region embarks on more free trade agreements. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Jun 3 2015 (IPS)

Fourteen Pacific Island Forum countries are currently locked in negotiations with their two largest economic neighbours, Australia and New Zealand, to forge a new regional free trade agreement called ‘PACER Plus’, which supporters believe will boost economic growth in the region.

With the Pacific Islands holding a tiny 0.05 percent share in world trade, Edwini Kessie, the Pacific Islands’ chief trade adviser, told IPS the pact could lead to their integration “in regional and global supply chains and enable them to enhance their participation in international trade.”

"PACER Plus is definitely not for Papua New Guinea. The destruction of people’s lives and resources of this country is the result of such agreements, which do not benefit our people." -- John Chitoa, coordinator of the Bismarck Ramu Group
PACER Plus talks follow the 2001 Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) between the same countries. It intends to go further than a standard trade agreement to include the movement of goods, services such as education and health, and investment with additional discussions about increased labour mobility and development assistance to small island states.

But the Fiji-based Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), along with 32 other civil society organisations from countries such as Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Samoa, are unconvinced by the spin and have launched a protest with the ‘Tabu PACER Plus’ campaign.

“PACER Plus is sold as a development agreement for the Pacific, but current proposals see the Pacific missing key flexibilities that apply to Least Developed Countries. This means that some of the smallest economies in the world will be expected to make the same levels of binding restrictions on how they can regulate as their bigger neighbours,” Maureen Penjueli, PANG’s coordinator, said in an April statement.

PANG claims the agreement will deliver more markets to the Australasian nations with little in return for developing island states, which presently have limited export commodities and under-developed local industries.

PACER Plus negotiations have been underway for seven years and are expected to conclude by mid-2016. But PANG is calling for Pacific Island leaders to end talks now.

“Leaked text [of the agreement] has confirmed a lot of our fears about what it will mean for Pacific communities […]. By not signing up to PACER Plus many of the Pacific countries will be able to develop their local industries the way Australia and New Zealand did, by protecting and nurturing them until they are able to compete on the global stage,” a PANG spokesperson told IPS.

There is a large trade imbalance in the region. In 2009-10, Australian imports from the Pacific Islands totaled 3.14 billion Australian dollars (2.3 billion U.S. dollars), but exports to the Pacific were nearly double at 5.7 billion Australian dollars (4.3 billion U.S. dollars).

The islands’ main exports are raw materials like timber, sugar, palm oil, fish, coffee, cocoa, and mineral resources from Melanesian countries, destined for Australasia, the United States, the European Union and Asian countries where profits are made from value-adding.

With limited manufacturing, most Pacific Island countries have high import dependencies reflected in substantial trade deficits.

In Tonga, a South Pacific archipelago nation comprised of 177 islands, exports of goods and services comprise 17 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in contrast to imports at 63 percent, while exports from the Cook Islands totalled 4.2 million U.S. dollars in the September Quarter of last year, a fraction of its imports worth 23.4 million U.S. dollars.

“After more than a decade of trade liberalisation resulting in broad-ranging goods market access, most regional countries continue to run trade deficits as they have since Independence” and in a “woefully under-developed environment, new foreign competition will do little to generate growth,” reports the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PIPP) in Vanuatu.

Pacific Islands have had duty free access to Australia and New Zealand since 1981 under the South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement (SPARTECA).

Competing equally in global trade is a challenge given the islands’ geographic isolation from main markets and lack of economies of scale in production exacerbated by insufficient infrastructure and small labour forces.

According to Kessie, “The focus should not be on trade deficits, but whether PACER Plus will overall improve the competitiveness of Pacific economies.”

However, it could take years before local industries are on a competitive standing with their larger neighbours. Even then the gap between the high cost of production in the Pacific and world prices for manufacturing and services is unlikely to narrow dramatically, predicts the World Bank.

Trade discussions aim to encourage more donor assistance from Australia and New Zealand to improve the Pacific’s productive capacity. Although this is less than assured, as neither Australasian country will be legally bound to promises of more aid or labour mobility, even though all parties will make binding commitments on market access for goods, services and investment.

Ultimately Pacific islanders see international pressure resulting in their economies opening up further to free trade before they are ready.

The consequences, according to activists, could be increased inequality if an influx of cheap imported goods crushes local enterprises and unemployment rises.

Loss of government revenue due to import tariff reductions could also potentially reach 110 million U.S. dollars across the region per year, PIPP reports, detrimentally affecting state resources and public services.

Lowering the regulation of foreign investors to increase the inflow of investment also has islanders concerned about threats to indigenous communities from potential loss of decision-making rights about land use and higher impunity for corporate human rights and environmental abuses.

“PACER Plus is definitely not for Papua New Guinea. The destruction of people’s lives and resources of this country is the result of such agreements, which do not benefit our people,” John Chitoa, coordinator of the Bismarck Ramu Group, a civil society organisation in the country’s Madang Province and member of the PANG coalition, told IPS.

Papua New Guinea has attracted the highest levels of direct foreign investment in the region, averaging more than 100 million U.S. dollars per year since 1970. Yet the proportion of the population living below the poverty line has risen from 29.5 percent in 1981 to 40 percent today and most people live without adequate basic services.

Larger volumes of imported processed foods, such as fatty meats, instant noodles, carbonated drinks and alcohol, could also put health outcomes at risk. Dietary habits are strongly linked with the current epidemic levels of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), such as heart disease and diabetes, which account for 75 percent of all deaths in the Pacific.

Kessie responded that PACER Plus will allow “countries to impose strict health standards on imported food, provided they have scientific justification.”

However, Tabu PACER Plus campaigners say this is not enough and are calling for full social, cultural, environmental and human rights impact assessments of the agreement before negotiations go any further.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

In the Pacific Islands, transportation, including cargo boats that ply the waters between islands, is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, May 6 2015 (IPS)

The recent dramatic fall in world oil prices, with Brent crude plummeting from a high of 115 dollars per barrel in June last year to around 47 dollars in January 2015, is beginning to benefit Pacific Islanders who are seeing lower prices for fuel and energy.

Although the global price per barrel inched up to 68 dollars in early May, regional experts continue to anticipate fiscal gains as the trend eases costs of government operations and service delivery.

“How and to what extent [Pacific Island governments] will be able to derive benefits from the dramatic oil price drop depends on how quickly they [...] channel public spending on infrastructure and other development programmes.” -- Dr. Dibyendu Maiti, associate professor at the School of Economics at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji
“There is evidence to suggest that reduced fuel costs are having some impact in all Pacific Island markets, at least through lower prices charged for fuel, but the impact on secondary markets, like food and transport, may take longer to be realised,” Alan Bartmanovich, Petroleum Adviser to the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) in Fiji, told IPS.

It will take time for the oil price drop to fully impact island governments and all economic sectors due to the length of supply chains and other factors, such as price fuel regulation within countries, he added.

A global oversupply of oil, due to a surge in United States production and decline in consumption driven by reduced growth in Europe and Asia, have been the main causes of the downward price trend.

The decision of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), including Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, which produces 40 percent of the world’s crude oil, to maintain its level of output has diminished the likelihood of prices soaring again quickly.

The Pacific Islands region is home to 10 million people living in 22 countries and territories totalling thousands of islands spread across 180 million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean.

According to the World Bank, more than 20 percent of Pacific Islanders are unable to afford basic needs, while employment relative to population is a low 30-50 percent in Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu.

Capitalising on lower oil prices will be vital to improving the lives and development outcomes of millions of people in this region, where the vast majority live in rural areas with little access to basic facilities and global job markets.

Many countries have embarked on plans to transition to renewable energy, but the region still depends heavily on fossil fuels, especially for power and transportation.

Fossil fuel imports amount to 10 percent of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) and in five countries – the Cook Islands, Guam, Nauru, Niue and Tuvalu – diesel is still used for nearly all power generation.

Transporting oil long distances to small Pacific islands scattered across vast sea distances entails complex and costly supply chains. Further shipment to outer lying island provinces within countries can result in an additional 20-40 percent on the price of fuel for local consumers.

In Fiji, Maureen Penjueli, coordinator of the Pacific Network on Globalisation, a regional civil society organisation, said, “Only a month ago the people of Fiji started to enjoy the real benefits of the fall in oil prices, particularly at the gas pumps, but also for basic energy needs, such as kerosene.”

Since 2014, the price of diesel in Fiji, commonly used to fuel power generators, has dropped from 1.17 dollars to 0.82 dollars per litre in April this year.

Over the same period, the cost of kerosene has fallen from 1.09 dollars to 0.62 dollars per litre.

“The cost of kerosene coming down is significant as this benefit trickles right down to rural and urban areas where most people are dependent on it as a source of energy for cooking,” Penjueli continued.

The trend is welcomed in the region after soaring oil prices from 2002-2008 and the global financial crisis intensified fiscal pressures, costing many Pacific Island countries about 10 percent of their gross national incomes.

Rising inflation and worsening trade deficits impeded the capacity of governments to reduce poverty and deliver development programmes and public services.

Rural communities in the Solomon Islands use fossil fuels for transportation, such as motorized canoes. Catherine Wilson/IPS

At this time ordinary Pacific Islanders witnessed escalating food, electricity and transport costs. Between 2009 and 2010 some staple food prices increased by 50-100 percent in at least six Pacific Island countries.

In Vanuatu, the price of taro rose from 1.95 to 3.91 dollars and yams from 6.85 to 14.68 dollars. The purchasing power of family incomes shrunk, with the poorest often the worst hit.

But, according to Penjueli, food prices remain largely unaffected so far by fuel price reductions.

“The rationale is that there should be a drop in prices of both imported foods and local produce because transportation costs will come down, however, we really haven’t seen that benefit yet. Retail stores have not brought their prices down,” she said.

The World Bank claims that a decline of 10 percent in world oil prices is likely to boost economic growth in oil importing countries about 0.1-0.5 percentage points.

But while prices declined about 30-40 percent in 2014-15, current growth forecasts for the region remain modest. GDP growth in the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu is predicted to remain the same from 2015-2016 at 3.5 percent, 2.5 percent and 3.2 percent respectively.

Global oil prices are forecasted to remain low during the course of this year and increase marginally in 2016.

Dr. Dibyendu Maiti, associate professor at the School of Economics at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji, emphasised it was important for Pacific Island governments to respond to the price shift.

“How and to what extent they [governments] will be able to derive benefits from the dramatic oil price drop depends on how quickly they adjust the inflation target and channel public spending on infrastructure and other development programmes.”

Some priorities include investing more in higher education and skills development and “encouraging the private sector to participate with more investment. This would have a long term spill-over effect […] such as raising employment,” Maiti told IPS.

Beyond the oil market, reducing the vulnerability of the Pacific Islands to economic shocks and alleviating the financial burden of fossil fuel imports demands that countries remain on course with plans to convert to locally generated renewable energy.

Three years ago, Tokelau, a tiny Polynesian territory in the central Pacific, led the way by converting to 100 percent renewable energy with a large off-grid solar system providing power to its population of 1,411.

It was a critical move toward sustainable development given Tokelau’s GDP is about 1.5 million dollars, while its annual fuel importation bill was around 754,000 dollars.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Port Vila's informal settlements, characterised by vulnerable housing, were destroyed by Cyclone Pam, which hit Vanuatu on Mar. 13, 2015. Credit: International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Apr 13 2015 (IPS)

Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam, which swept through the South Pacific Island state of Vanuatu in mid-March, has deepened hardships faced by people living in the informal settlements of the capital, Port Vila. Winds of up to 340 kph and torrential rain shattered precarious homes, cut off fragile public services and flooded communities with unsealed roads, poor drainage and sanitation.

“Eighty percent of my community has been affected by the cyclone,” Joel, a Port Vila resident, told IPS, describing that his house was damaged by gale force winds. “We have enough food, but the quality of the water has been very bad.”

“Most of the displaced in urban and peri-urban areas have been highly devastated and are vulnerable to future shocks. The scale of devastation to homes and infrastructure is huge." -- Peter Korisa, operations manager at Vanuatu’s National Disaster Management Office
Other city residents saw their homes completely destroyed. In the last week, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) found 50 people still sheltering in a shed-like structure in the informal settlements a month after the cyclone. They are in need of food, water and sanitation as they wait for assistance to rebuild their homes.

Vanuatu is an archipelago of more than 80 islands and an estimated 265,000 people located northeast of Australia. Sixty-three percent of the population, or close to 166,000 people, were affected by Cyclone Pam, which counted a death toll of 11 and is thought to be the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.

The main urban centre of Port Vila, situated on the southwest coast of Efate Island, is very exposed to severe weather and sea surges. An estimated 30-40 percent of its 44,000 residents live in informal settlements, such as Freswota and Seaside. Here, sub-standard housing, inadequate basic services and overcrowding all contribute to a poverty rate of 18 percent in Port Vila, in contrast to 10 percent in rural areas.

In the wake of Cyclone Pam, Peter Korisa, operations manager at Vanuatu’s National Disaster Management Office, said, “Most of the displaced in urban and peri-urban areas have been highly devastated and are vulnerable to future shocks. The scale of devastation to homes and infrastructure is huge. Bridges and roads have also been damaged and that will definitely be a high cost in the recovery effort.”

Frido Herinckx, head of the International Red Cross support team in Vanuatu, told IPS that he had witnessed serious damage in the urban settlements. “During the first week after the cyclone there were 43 evacuation centres in Port Vila supporting 4,000-5,000 people,” he said.

United Nations Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said this past Friday that only 36 percent of the U.N.’s ‘flash appeal’ for 30 million dollars has so far been pledged. He called attention to the fact that 111,000 people have no access to safe drinking water, and warned that the destruction of 90 percent of the country’s crops spelled danger for those who rely on agriculture for a livelihood.

While most people live in rural areas, urbanisation, driven by people seeking jobs and services, is happening at a rapid rate of four percent in Vanuatu, exceeding the state’s capacity to scale up urban planning. One quarter of the national population is now urban and that is predicted to increase to 53 percent by 2050.

Situated on the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’ and in a tropical climate zone south of the equator, with a cyclone season from November to April, the developing island state is vulnerable to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones and tsunamis.

It has been hit by at least 20 damaging cyclones in the past 25 years and only one year has passed since Cyclone Lusi impacted 20,000 people across northern and central provinces, destroying villages and crops, in 2014. According to the United Nations, Vanuatu has the most exposed population to natural disasters in the world, at 63.6 percent.

The vulnerability of the urban population is heightened by the makeshift state of 27 percent of houses in the capital. Constructing a strong, resilient house is too expensive and financial credit is unaffordable for many residents who live on low wages.

In the Freswota settlement area, home to 7,000-8,000 people, Chief Kalanga Sawia explained, “The government’s objective is to provide housing for the people, but they can only provide the land. The government doesn’t have the financial resources to build houses as well.”

Therefore, people have turned to building improvised dwellings as best they can with salvaged or cheaply bought materials, such as timber, corrugated iron, tin and fabric.

While power, water and communication services were all crippled by the disaster, Herinckx said, “[B]asic services are now back to the state they were before the cyclone, which is not optimal.”

Residents of the Freswota 2 sub-settlement, for instance, usually have access to a water supply, but only half have electricity. Across the country, only 28 percent of people have access to electricity and 64 percent to sanitation.

Recognising the threat disasters pose to lives, development efforts and the economy, the Vanuatu Government has worked to strengthen the nation’s disaster preparedness.

Nine years ago, it became the first Pacific Island country to integrate disaster risk management into national planning and, in 2013, a new state-of-the-art disaster warning centre capable of monitoring volcanic, seismic, and tsunami activity, operating 24/7, opened in Port Vila.

As Cyclone Pam approached, new technology was used to issue warnings and advice to people via text messages, reaching more than 80 percent of the population.

However, as one of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Vanuatu has minimal capacity to cope with the relentless destructive toll of catastrophes year upon year. Korisa, of the National Disaster Management Office, claims that post-disaster recovery in Port Vila’s settlements will be very slow and hindered by land tenure issues, finance and resource constraints.

Currently the Red Cross is helping people in the settlements to build back better after the cyclone “by advising people on simple methods of building homes so they are more stress resistant,” Herinckx said.

But looking to the future, Korisa emphasised that more investment is needed in urban disaster risk reduction measures.

“For instance, the building code needs to be applied and enforced in all dwellings, including private, commercial and public buildings, and land use planning policy needs to be improved and implemented.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Natural disasters and climate change, including sea level rise, are already impacting many coastal communities in Pacific Island countries, such as the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia , Mar 24 2015 (IPS)

As Pacific Islanders contemplate the scale of devastation wrought by Cyclone Pam this month across four Pacific Island states, including Vanuatu, leaders in the region are calling with renewed urgency for global action on climate finance, which they say is vital for building climate resilience and arresting development losses.

In a recent public statement, the Marshall Islands’ president, Christopher Loeak, said, “The world’s best scientists, and what we see daily with our own eyes, all tell us that without urgent and transformative action by the big polluters to reduce emissions and help us to build resilience, we are headed for a world of constant climate catastrophe.”

“Like other small vulnerable countries, we have experienced great difficulty in accessing the big multilateral funds. The Green Climate Fund must avoid the mistakes of the past and place a premium on projects that deliver direct benefits to local communities." -- Tony de Brum, minister of foreign affairs for the Republic of the Marshall Islands
Progress on the delivery of climate funding pledges by the international community could also decide outcomes at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris in December, they say.

“It is reassuring to see many countries, including some very generous developing countries, step forward with promises to capitalise the Green Climate Fund. But we need a much better sense of how governments plan to ramp up their climate finance over the coming years to ensure the Copenhagen promise of 100 billion dollars per year by 2020 is fulfilled,” Tony de Brum, minister of foreign affairs for the Republic of the Marshall Islands, told IPS.

“Without this assurance, success in Paris will be very difficult to achieve.”

The Pacific Islands are home to about 10 million people in 22 island states and territories with 35 percent living below the poverty line. The impacts of climate change could cost the region up to 12.7 percent of annual gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of this century, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates.

The Pacific Islands contribute a negligible 0.03 percent to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet are the first to suffer the worst impacts of global warming. Regional leaders have been vocal about the climate injustice their Small Island Developing States (SIDS) confront with industrialised nations, the largest carbon emitters, yet to implement policies that would limit global temperature rise to the threshold of two degrees Celsius.

In the Marshall Islands, where more than 52,000 people live on 34 small islands and atolls in the North Pacific, sea-level rise and natural disasters are jeopardising communities mainly concentrated on low-lying coastal areas.

“Climate disasters in the last year chewed up more than five percent of national GDP and that figure continues to rise. We are working to improve and mainstream adaptation into our national planning, but emergencies continue to set us back,” the Marshall Islands’ Foreign Minister said.

The nation experienced a severe drought in 2013 and last year massive tidal surges, which caused extensive flooding of coastal villages and left hundreds of people homeless.

“Like other small vulnerable countries, we have experienced great difficulty in accessing the big multilateral funds. The Green Climate Fund must avoid the mistakes of the past and place a premium on projects that deliver direct benefits to local communities,” de Brum continued.

Priorities in the Marshall Islands include coastal restoration and reinforcement, climate resilient infrastructure and protection of freshwater lenses.

Bilateral aid is also important with SIDS receiving the highest climate adaptation-related aid per capita from OECD countries in 2010-11. The Oceanic region received two percent of OECD provided adaptation aid, which totalled 8.8 billion dollars.

Sixty percent of OECD aid in general to the Pacific Islands comes from Australia with other major donors including New Zealand, France, the United States and Japan. But in December, the Australian government announced far-reaching cuts to the foreign aid budget of 3.7 billion dollars over the next four years, which is likely to impact climate aid in the region.

Funding aimed at developing local climate change expertise and institutional capacity is vital to safeguarding the survival and autonomy of their countries, islanders say.

“We do not need more consultants’ reports and feasibility studies. What we need is to build our local capacity to tackle the climate challenge and keep that capacity here,” de Brum emphasised.

In the tiny Central Pacific nation of Kiribati, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson expressed concern that “local capacity is limited”, a problem that is “addressed through the provision of technical assistance through consultants who just come and then leave without properly training our own people.”

Kiribati, comprising 33 low-lying atolls with a population of just over 108,000, could witness a maximum sea level rise of 0.6 metres and an increase in surface air temperature of 2.9 degrees Celsius by 2090, according to the Pacific Climate Change Science Program.

The country is experiencing higher tides every year, but can ill afford shoreline erosion with a population density in some areas of 15,000 people per square kilometre. The island of Tarawa, the location of the capital, is an average 450 metres wide with no option of moving settlements inland.

As long-term habitation is threatened, climate funding will, in the future, have to address population displacement, according to the Kiribati Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

“Climate induced relocation and forced migration is inevitable for Kiribati and planning is already underway. Aid needs to put some focus on this issue, but is mostly left behind only due to the fact that it is a future need and there are more visible needs here and now.”

Ahead of talks in Paris, the Marshall Islands believes successfully tackling climate change requires working together for everyone’s survival. “If climate finance under the Paris Agreement falls off a cliff, so will our response to the climate challenge,” de Brum declared.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Increasing people's consumption of fresh produce and daily exercise are part of preventing a non-communicable disease crisis in the Pacific Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Feb 11 2015 (IPS)

The rapid rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the Pacific Islands, which now cause 75 percent of all deaths, is one of the greatest impediments to post-2015 development, health ministers in the region claim.

The Western Pacific has the world’s highest regional prevalence of diabetes, an NCD disease that is exacerbated by unhealthy eating habits, obesity and sedentary lifestyles, according to the International Diabetes Foundation. National prevalence rates have reached 25 percent in the Cook Islands, 29 percent in Tokelau and 37 percent in the Marshall Islands.

“Many amputations are done in our Pacific hospitals each day and people are losing their vision constantly due to diabetes." -- Spokesperson for Fiji-based Pacific Disability Forum (PDF)
Experts are increasingly concerned about the impact of the disease on the rate of disability, particularly the amputation of limbs and visual impairment, which threatens to undermine efforts to reduce poverty and inequality.

In Papua New Guinea, a southwest Pacific Island state that is home to over seven million people, “diabetes is increasing its prevalence in the general population, including children 12 years and younger, and the amputation of limbs is known among adults as young as 23 years,” Gerard Saleu, senior nursing officer at the country’s Institute of Medical Research, told IPS.

“Diabetes is certainly having an impact on disability in the region where not everyone can afford wheelchairs or walking and visual aids,” he added.

There has been a marked rise in NCDs in the Pacific Islands since at least the 1970s, experts say.

The incidence of Type 2 diabetes in Apia, capital of the South Pacific Island state of Samoa, rose from 8.1 percent to 9.5 percent in men and 8.2 percent to 13.4 percent in women between 1978 and 1991.

Considerable blame has been placed on the lure of globalised consumer-based lifestyles in a region with a long history of subsistence living, and the increasing influx of imported processed foods, high in fat and sugar content.

Local diets originally based on fresh fish, vegetables and fruit now include a high intake of instant noodles, packaged biscuits and carbonated drinks. Less than 10 percent of adults in Kiribati, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands eat a sufficiently nutritious diet, while more than 60 percent are obese in American Samoa, Tokelau, Cook Islands and Tonga, according to the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).

Increasing urbanisation has accelerated people’s susceptibility to NCD risk factors, including decreased daily physical activity. In Fiji, one study revealed that diabetes afflicted an estimated 11.3 percent of women living in urban centres, compared to 0.9 percent in rural areas.

The onset of diabetes, when the pancreas fails to produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugar levels, can lead to blood circulatory problems and damage to the nerves, heart, eyes and kidneys. This heightens the risk of blindness, stroke and amputation of limbs, commonly feet and lower legs.

Globally, NCDs, including diabetes, account for about 66.5 percent of all years lived with disability.

“Many amputations are done in our Pacific hospitals each day and people are losing their vision constantly due to diabetes,” a spokesperson for the Fiji-based Pacific Disability Forum (PDF) told IPS.

In the Pacific Islands, up to 47 percent of diabetes sufferers experience loss of sight and an estimated 17 percent require amputations, reports the Pacific Islands Forum.

From 2010-2012, the main referral hospital in Fiji, home to over 881,000 people, performed 938 diabetes-related lower limb amputations. Most amputees were aged 45 years and over, but more than 100 were in the 25-44 age group.

Meanwhile the main hospital in the South Pacific Island state of Tonga, home to some 103,000 people, witnessed a 400-percent increase in these amputations over the past decade.

The subsequent loss of mobility, decline in economic participation and increase in household medical expenses is entrenching hardship and inequality, especially for those families that are already economically disadvantaged.

For many islanders with disabilities, “most public buildings are not accessible, employers do not have reasonable accommodation in the workplace and many are unable to work, which is a lost income for the family,” said the spokesperson for the PDF.

While awareness of and political will to address the needs of disabled people, who comprise about 17 percent of the Pacific Islands population, is growing, they continue to be “among the poorest and most marginalised members of their communities…with limited access to education, employment and basic social services, which leads to social and economic exclusion and perpetuates poverty,” according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

In Fiji, for instance, an estimated 89 percent of people with disabilities are unemployed.

There is also an absence of rehabilitation services to assist those with diabetes-related impairment to cope with new physical and psychological challenges in their daily lives, the PDF reports.

The devastating toll that NCDs are inflicting on the lives of Pacific Islanders, in turn denying them better human development outcomes, is matched by the unaffordable economic burden on public health services.

The cost of dialysis for diabetes-related kidney failure in Samoa was 38,686 dollars per patient per year in 2010-11, with the total cost to government equal to more than twelve times the nation’s gross national income, reports the World Bank.

With Pacific Island governments currently funding up to 90 percent of national health services, there is little, if any, capability for them to increase health expenditure to address an NCD epidemic.

Pacific health ministers are driving a focus on prevention and calling for a scale-up of actions and investment in prevention and control strategies with a ‘whole-of-government and whole-of-society’ approach.

That means scrutinizing food industry practices in the interests of better public health. Samoa, Nauru and the Cook Islands have now introduced taxes on food and drinks with high sugar content and eleven countries in the region have developed plans to reduce salt levels in foods.

Non-governmental organisations, such as the Pacific Network on Globalisation, have also expressed concern about the impact of international trade agreements, which, in the aim of liberalising trade, can increase the influx of cheap, imported, but unhealthy foods and beverages and disadvantage local food producers.

But lifestyle interventions are also needed to change consumer and exercise habits among people of all ages, including children.

Saleu, the nursing officer for Papua New Guinea’s Institute of Medical Research, said that in PNG, some awareness about NCDs and education for prevention is being done among the general population, but in line with the view of regional health authorities, current resources and preventive efforts still fall short of matching the scale of the crisis.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Local women's NGO, Vois Blong Mere, campaigns for women's rights in Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jan 28 2015 (IPS)

Women now face a better chance of surviving breast cancer in the Solomon Islands, a developing island state in the southwest Pacific Ocean, following the recent acquisition of the country’s first mammogram machine.

But just a week ahead of World Cancer Day, celebrated globally on Feb. 4, many say that the benefit of having advanced medical technology, in a country where mortality occurs in 59 percent of women diagnosed with cancer, depends on improving the serious knowledge deficit of the disease in the country.

"While cancer is included on the NCD [non-communicable diseases] list, very little attention and resources are specifically addressing women and breast cancer awareness." -- Dr. Sylvia Defensor, senior radiologist at the Ministry of Health and Medical Services in Fiji
“Breast cancer is a health issue that women are concerned about in the Solomon Islands, but adequate awareness of it among women is not really prioritised,” Bernadette Usua, who works for the local non-governmental organisation, Vois Blong Mere (Voice of Women), in the capital, Honiara, told IPS.

Rachel, a young 24-year-old woman living with her two children, aged three and five years, in one of the country’s many rural villages, did not know what breast cancer was when she detected a lump in her breast in August 2013.

But the lump grew larger prompting her to travel to Honiara several months later to see a doctor.

“She went to the central hospital and was advised to have her left breast removed, but due to the little knowledge that she and her husband had about what it would be like, both were afraid of the surgery,” Bernadette Usua, who is Rachel’s cousin, recounted.

“So they just left the hospital without any medication or other assistance, and went home,” she continued.

Rachel tried traditional medicine available in her village, but the cancer and pain became more aggressive. Usua remembers next seeing her cousin in July of last year.

“She was sitting on her bed night and day with extreme pain, unable to lie down and sleep. But she was still brave as she nursed herself, washed herself and cooked for her children. She cried and prayed until she passed away in September,” Usua recalled.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide and in the Solomon Islands, where it accounted for 92 of more than 200 diagnosed cases in 2012. But its incidence in the developing world, where 50 percent of cases and 58 percent of fatalities occur, is rapidly rising.

Low survival rates of around 40 percent in low-income countries, compared to more than 80 percent in North America, are due mainly to late discovery of the disease in patients and limited diagnosis and treatment offered by under-resourced health centres.

Last year Annals of Global Health revealed that of 281 cancer cases identified in women in the Solomon Islands in 2012, 165 did not survive, while in Papua New Guinea and Fiji fatalities occurred in 2,889 of 4,457, and 418 of 795 diagnosed cases, respectively.

Insufficient public knowledge about the disease is an issue across the region.

“Currently public health education and promotion is focussing heavily on the control of NCDs [non-communicable diseases] as a whole. While cancer is included on the NCD list, very little attention and resources are specifically addressing women and breast cancer awareness,” said Dr. Sylvia Defensor, senior radiologist at the Ministry of Health and Medical Services in Fiji, a Pacific Island state home to over 880,000 people.

In the Solomon Islands, mammograms, or x-rays of the breast, will now be free to all female citizens who comprise about 49 percent of the population of more than 550,000. This is after installation of digital mammography equipment, funded by the national First Lady’s Charity, in Honiara’s National Referral Hospital.

Dr. Douglas Pikacha, general surgeon at the hospital, explained that mammograms were vital to early detection of breast disease and the saving of women’s lives through early treatment, such as surgery and chemotherapy.

Mammography is considered the most effective form of breast cancer screening by the World Health Organisation (WHO), with some evidence that it can reduce subsequent loss of life by an estimated 20 percent, especially in women aged 50-70 years.

But with more than 80 percent of the population residing in rural areas and spread over more than 900 different islands, Josephine Teakeni, president of Vois Blong Mere, is deeply concerned about the fate of many women who are located far from the main health facilities in the capital. An estimated 73 percent of doctors and all medical specialists in the country are based at the National Referral Hospital.

She says that reliable breast cancer screening and diagnosis is urgently needed in provincial hospitals if the mortality rate is to be reduced. Most patients must travel an average of 240 kilometres to reach the National Referral Hospital, commonly by ferry or motorised canoe, given the prohibitive expense of internal air services.

There is also a critical shortage of health care workers in the country with 0.21 doctors per 1,000 people and Teakeni claims that “while waiting for an operation the delay can result in full advancement of the cancer and death.”

However, there is a further challenge with almost half of all women diagnosed with breast cancer refusing a mastectomy, which involves the partial or entire surgical removal of affected breasts, even though it may result in the patient’s recovery, the Ministry of Health reports.

“Many prefer traditional treatment to mastectomy because they believe it is more womanly to have their breast than to live without it,” Pikacha said.

The high risk of cancer mortality is another factor impacting gender inequality in the Pacific Island state where entrenched cultural attitudes and widespread gender violence, experienced by 64 percent of women and girls, hinders improvement of their social and economic status.

Teakeni believes that an urgent priority is dramatically improving “awareness among women about the signs and symptoms of breast cancer, and even simple tests that women can do themselves, such as checking the breast for lumps while having a shower,” as well as the importance and impact of medical treatment.

Still, the installation of the new mammogram machine gives women on this island something, however small, to celebrate.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Organisations in the Pacific Islands believe that achieving the post-2015 development goals depends on getting implementation right. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jan 19 2015 (IPS)

As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of poverty-alleviation targets set by the United Nations, come to a close this year, countries around the world are taking stock of their successes and failures in tackling key developmental issues.

The Pacific Islands have made impressive progress in reducing child mortality, however, poverty or hardship, as it is termed in the region, and gender equality remain the biggest performance gaps.

“The main criticism of the MDGs was the lack of consultation, which resulted in a set of goals designed primarily to address the development priorities of sub-Saharan Africa and then applied to all developing countries." -- Derek Brien, executive director of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PIPP) in Vanuatu
Only two of fourteen Pacific Island Forum states, Cook Islands and Niue, are on track to achieve all eight goals.

Key development organisations in the region believe the new Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations are more on target to address the unique development challenges faced by small island developing states. But they emphasise that turning the objectives into reality demands the participation of developed countries and a focus on getting implementation right.

“The main criticism of the MDGs was the lack of consultation which resulted in a set of goals designed primarily to address the development priorities of sub-Saharan Africa and then applied to all developing countries,” Derek Brien, executive director of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PIPP) in Vanuatu, told IPS.

The tropical Pacific Ocean is home to 22 diverse island states and territories, which are scattered across 15 percent of the earth’s surface and collectively home to 10 million people. Most feature predominantly rural populations acutely exposed to extreme climate events and distant from main global markets. Lack of jobs growth in many countries is especially impacting the prospects for youth who make up more than half the region’s population.

Brien believes the ambitious set of seventeen SDGs, to be formally agreed during a United Nations summit in New York this September, have been developed with “much broader input and widespread consultation.”

“From a Pacific perspective, it is especially welcome to see new goals proposed on climate change, oceans and marine resources, inclusive economic growth, fostering peaceful inclusive societies and building capable responsive institutions that are based on the rule of law,” he elaborated.

Pacific Island states are surrounded by the largest ocean in the world, but inadequate fresh water sources, poor infrastructure and climate change are leaving some communities without enough water to meet basic needs. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

Most modern independent nation states emerged in the Oceania region relatively recently in the last 45 years. Thus, the PIPP argues that development progress also depends on continuing to build effective state institutions and leadership necessary for good governance and service provision. New global targets that promise to tackle bribery and corruption, and improve responsive justice systems, support these aspirations.

With 11 Pacific Island states still to achieve gender equality, post-2015 targets of eliminating violence against women and girls, early and forced marriages and addressing the equal right of women to own and control assets have been welcomed.

For instance, in Papua New, the largest Pacific island, violence occurs in two-thirds of families, and up to 86 percent of women in the country experience physical abuse during pregnancy, according to ChildFund Australia.

Experts say community justice programmes in Papua New Guinea’s vast village court system could reduce the high numbers of female and juvenile victims of abuse. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Pacific Island nations say empowering women is the key to addressing population growth across the region. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Customary landowners in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, both rainforest nations in the Southwest Pacific Islands, are suffering the environmental and social impacts of illegal logging. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Improvement is also hindered by entrenched stereotypes of female roles in the domestic sphere and labour discrimination. In most countries, the non-agricultural employment of women is less than 48 percent.

The major challenge for the region in the coming years will be tackling increasing hardship.

Inequality and exclusion is rising in the Pacific Islands due to a range of factors, including pressures placed on traditional subsistence livelihoods and social safety nets by the influence of the global cash and market-based economy, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported last year.

According to the World Bank, more than 20 percent of Pacific Islanders are unable to afford basic needs, while employment to population is a low 30-50 percent in Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu.

Children sit outside an informal housing settlement in Vanuatu. Experts say a lack of economic opportunities is contributing to a wave of youth suicides in the Pacific Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Many people in Freswota, Port Vila, capital of Vanuatu, have spent more than 30 years or most of their lifetimes in informal housing settlements. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

In this community in Port Vila, capital of the Pacific Island state of Vanuatu, one toilet and water tap serves numerous families. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Rex Horoi, director of the Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific, a Fiji-based non-governmental organisation, agrees that the SDGs are relevant to the development needs of local communities, but he said that accomplishing them would demand innovative thinking.

For example, in considering the sustainable use of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, “you have marine biologists working separately and then you have biodiversity experts and environmentalists working separately. We have not evolved in terms of trying to solve human problems with an integrated approach to development,” Horoi claimed.

He called for tangible implementation plans, aligned with national development strategies, to accompany all goals, and more integrated partnerships between governments and stakeholders, such as civil society, the private sector and communities in making them a reality.

At the same time, delivering on the expanded post-2015 agenda will place considerable pressure on the limited resources of small-island developing states.

“Many small island countries struggle to deal with the multitude of international agreements, policy commitments and related reporting requirements. There is a pressing need to rationalise and integrate many of the parallel processes that collectively set the global agenda. The new agenda should seek to streamline these and not add to the bureaucratic burden,” Brien advocated.

PIPP believes industrialised countries must also be accountable for the new goals. The organisation highlights that “numerous transnational impacts from high income states are diverting and even curbing development opportunities in low income countries”, such as failure to reduce carbon emissions, overfishing by foreign fleets and tax avoidance by multinational resource extraction companies.

Brien believes that “rhetorically all the right noises are being made in this respect” with the United Nations promoting the SDGs as universally applicable to all countries.

“However, it remains unclear how this will transpire through implementation. There remains a ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ divide with perhaps still too much focus on this being an aid agenda rather than a development agenda,” he said.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Pacific Climate Warriors organised a canoe flotilla in Australia on Oct. 17 to protest against the Australian coal industry and call for action on climate change. Credit: Jeff Tan for 350.org

By Kaio Tiira Taulu
TUVALU, Oct 25 2014 (IPS)

The fate of my country rests in your hands: that was the message which Ian Fry, representing Tuvalu gave at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen five years ago. This is also the message that the Pacific Climate Warriors have come to Australia to bring.

We have come here, representatives of 12 different Pacific island nations, which are home to 10 million people, to ask the people of Australia to reject plans to double Australia’s exports of coal and to become the biggest exporter of gas in the world.

We want Australia (and other industrialised countries which also rely on the burning and extraction of fossil fuels) to understand that for every kilo of coal which they dig, or every gas well they make, there is someone in the islands who is losing their home.“We want Australia (and other industrialised countries which also rely on the burning and extraction of fossil fuels) to understand that for every kilo of coal which they dig, or every gas well they make, there is someone in the islands who is losing their home”

My home, Tuvalu, is a series of three islands and six atolls halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world and home to 11,000 people and most of us have been there for generations

Tuvalu, like many of our island neighbours, is living on borrowed time with climate change expected to displace over 300 million people worldwide before 2050. The displacement has already started to happen with thousands of my countrymen forced to leave by the rising King Tides and the long drought affecting our food supplies.

One family drew international attention when they became the first refugees to seek asylum in New Zealand based on grounds of climate change.

Aside from the humanitarian cost, there is also the loss to culture and diversity with several thousands of years of civilisation and history wiped from the face of the planet. And there is nothing that we can do about this except hope that you and your country will see the value of keeping our island above water and make the decision to turn away from fossil fuels.

This is the reason I have joined with the Pacific Climate Warriors to come to Australia and represent my country and our region.

For years our leaders have tried to convey our message in the halls of power to politicians, diplomats and whoever else would listen, but the arguments of economic growth have always taken precedence over the arguments for our survival.

I now come as an envoy to ask the people of Australia to please consider the plight of the 11,000 people in Tuvalu and the further millions in other Pacific islands and other low lying nations which may expect to be wiped out by climate change.

In my time in Australia I have heard plenty about the importance of the Australian coal industry and the jobs and economic growth that it generates, yet it is us in the islands who are paying the price with our land, our culture and our livelihoods. This hardly seems a fair price to pay when we gain nothing from this industry.

This is why it incenses me so much to hear that coal is good for humanity or coal will be the solution to poverty. Coal will benefit only the wealthy whereas it will be the poor, like us, who suffer.

This is why it is the ultimate insult to hear that wealthy corporations are acting in the interests of the world’s poor when they dig and burn coal.

The Australian people have the power to decide the fate of my country and others in the Pacific. You need to let your government know that you have considered the matter carefully that you choose human life over the digging and export of coal.

If you do not, you must be ready to open your borders for the flood of climate refugees who will end up on your doorstep.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Excerpt:

A Pacific Climate Change Warrior paddles into the path of a ship in the world’s biggest coal port to bring attention to the impact of climate change on low-lying islands. Courtesy of Dean Sewell/Oculi for 350.org

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 2014 (IPS)

Climate Change Warriors from 12 Pacific Island nations paddled canoes into the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle, Australia, Friday to bring attention to their grave fears about the consequences of climate change on their home countries.

The 30 warriors joined a flotilla of hundreds of Australians in kayaks and on surfboards to delay eight of the 12 ships scheduled to pass through the port during the nine-hour blockade, which was organised with support from the U.S.-based environmental group 350.org."Fifteen years ago, when I was going to school, you could walk in a straight line. Now you have to walk in a crooked line because the beach has eroded away." -- Mikaele Maiava

The warriors came from 12 Pacific Island countries, including Fiji, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Micronesia, Vanuatu, The Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Papua New Guinea and Niue.

Mikaele Maiava spoke with IPS about why he and his fellow climate change warriors had travelled to Australia: “We want Australia to remember that they are a part of the Pacific. And as a part of the Pacific, we are a family, and having this family means we stay together. We cannot afford, one of the biggest sisters, really destroying everything for the family.

“So, we want the Australian community, especially the Australian leaders, to think about more than their pockets, to really think about humanity not just for the Australian people, but for everyone,” Mikaele said.

Speaking at the opening of a new coal mine on Oct. 13, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that “coal is good for humanity.”

Mikaele questioned Abbott’s position, asking, “If you are talking about humanity: Is humanity really for people to lose land? Is humanity really for people to lose their culture and identity? Is humanity to live in fear for our future generations to live in a beautiful island and have homes to go to? Is that really humanity? Is that really the answer for us to live in peace and harmony? Is that really the answer for the future?”

Mikaele said that he and his fellow climate warriors were aware that their fight was not just for the Pacific, and that other developing countries were affected by climate change too.

“We’re aware that this fight is not just for the Pacific. We are very well aware that the whole world is standing up in solidarity for this. The message that we want to give, especially to the leaders, is that we are humans, this fight is not just about our land, this fight is for survival.”

Pacific Climate Change Warrior Mikaele Maiava from Tokelau with fellow climate change warriors at the Newcastle coal port. Courtesy of Dean Sewell/Oculi for 350.org

Mikaele described how his home of Tokelau was already seeing the effects of climate change,

“We see these changes of weather patterns and we also see that our food security is threatened. It’s hard for us to build a sustainable future if your soil is not that fertile and it does not grow your crops because of salt intrusion.”

Tokelau’s coastline is also beginning to erode. “We see our coastal lines changing. Fifteen years ago when I was going to school, you could walk in a straight line. Now you have to walk in a crooked line because the beach has eroded away.”

Mikaele said that he and his fellow climate change warriors would not be content unless they stood up for future generations, and did everything possible to change world leaders’ mentality about climate change.

“We are educated people, we are smart people, we know what’s going on, the days of the indigenous people and local people not having the information and the knowledge about what’s going on is over,” he said.

“We are the generation of today, the leaders of tomorrow and we are not blinded by the problem. We can see it with our own eyes, we feel it in our own hearts, and we want the Australian government to realise that. We are not blinded by money we just want to live as peacefully and fight for what matters the most, which is our homes.”

Tokelau became the first country in the world to use 100 percent renewable energy when they switched to solar energy in 2012.

Speaking about the canoes that he and his fellow climate warriors had carved in their home countries and bought to Australia for the protest, he talked about how his family had used canoes for generations,

“Each extended family would have a canoe, and this canoe is the main tool that we used to be able to live, to go fishing, to get coconuts, to take family to the other islands.”

Another climate warrior, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, from the Marshall Islands, brought members of the United Nations General Assembly to tears last month with her impassioned poem written to her baby daughter Matafele Peinam,

“No one’s moving, no one’s losing their homeland, no one’s gonna become a climate change refugee. Or should I say, no one else. To the Carteret islanders of Papua New Guinea and to the Taro islanders of Fiji, I take this moment to apologise to you,” she said.

The Pacific Islands Forum describes climate change as the “single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and well-being of the peoples of the Pacific.”

“Climate change is an immediate and serious threat to sustainable development and poverty eradication in many Pacific Island Countries, and for some their very survival. Yet these countries are amongst the least able to adapt and to respond; and the consequences they face, and already now bear, are significantly disproportionate to their collective miniscule contributions to global emissions,” it says.

Pacific Island leaders have recently stepped up their language, challenging the Australian government to stop delaying action on climate change.

Oxfam Australia’s climate change advocacy coordinator, Dr Simon Bradshaw, told IPS, “Australia is a Pacific country. In opting to dismantle its climate policies, disengage from international negotiations and forge ahead with the expansion of its fossil fuel industry, it is utterly at odds with the rest of the region.”

Dr. Bradshaw added, “Australia’s closest neighbours have consistently identified climate change as their greatest challenge and top priority. So it is inevitable that Australia’s recent actions will impact on its relationship with Pacific Islands.

“A recent poll commissioned by Oxfam showed that 60 percent of Australians thought climate change was having a negative impact on the ability of people in poorer countries to grow and access food, rising to 68 percent among 18 to 34-year-olds,” he said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

In Samoa two in three young people make a living in the informal economy, including selling food items in market areas and bus stops in the capital, Apia. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
APIA, Oct 9 2014 (IPS)

The size of the youth population in the Pacific Islands is double the global average with 54 percent aged below 24 years, creating enormous challenges for slow-growing small island economies unable to create jobs fast enough.

Generating employment opportunities for tens of thousands of school leavers is now an urgent issue on the Pacific’s post-2015 development agenda. Otherwise a poor landscape of opportunity could jeopardise the potential of a generation whose public and economic participation is vital to progressing sustainable development in the region.

Youth unemployment is estimated at 23 percent in the Pacific Islands region, rising to 46 percent in the Solomon Islands and 62 percent in the Marshall Islands, compared to the global average of 12.6 percent.

"[Institutions] are still bringing out lawyers when there is a desperate need here for electricians and plumbers, and at the university they are producing hundreds of students with commerce degrees, but that is a market adequately filled." -- Jennifer Fruean, chair of the National Youth Council in Samoa
“Youth unemployment in this country is critical and one of our highest priorities,” Jennifer Fruean, chair of the National Youth Council in Samoa, a South Pacific Island developing state located northeast of Fiji, told IPS.

Approximately one quarter of Samoa’s population of 190,372 is employed and economically active and youth account for about half of the remaining unemployed, according to government statistics.

“In the villages, I think that is where most of the youth are static, but there is also a very noticeable shift with urbanisation that is causing a number of youth to come to Apia and they are becoming idle,” she continued.

Lack of sufficient job creation is affecting both young people who lack adequate education, as well as those who possess qualifications and experience. The only route for many of the latter is emigration to larger economies, such as New Zealand, Australia and the United States.

With 76 percent of those with a tertiary education leaving, the country is experiencing a ‘brain drain’ and 44.7 percent of private sector employers are experiencing skills shortages, reports the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Samoa’s economy, dependent on agriculture, fisheries, tourism and remittances, has been severely impacted in the last 20 years by natural disasters. In 2012 Cyclone Evan devastated infrastructure and crops resulting in economic losses equal to 30 percent of GDP.

The global financial crisis also led to widespread formal sector job cuts in Samoa with waged employment declining from 28,179 in 2006 to 23,365 in 2011 and private sector jobs falling from 16,921 in 2007 to 12,711 in 2010.

Only one-quarter to one-third of Pacific Islanders finishing school are likely to secure formal sector employment, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This leaves a high proportion of an estimated more than 5,000 school leavers each year vulnerable to exclusion in Samoa, where formal sector employment is around 30 percent.

The social impacts of high teenage pregnancies and a low secondary school completion rate, with an estimated 35 percent of this age group in Samoa not in education, are also aggravating factors.

Fruean believes the main reason is the inability of families to pay school fees and suggests the government’s introduction last year of fee-free secondary education will help improve the final year retention rate of 48 percent.

But there are also questions about the quality and relevance of education for employment demand.

Institutions “are still bringing out lawyers when there is a desperate need here for electricians and plumbers, and at the university they are producing hundreds of students with commerce degrees, but that is a market adequately filled,” Fruean explained.

Somaya Moll, business, investment and technology expert with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), advocates private sector development, which “basically enables people to take charge of their own lives [by giving] them the tools to do so.”

“Self-sufficiency, ownership and accountability are important and it is proven to work,” she told IPS during the United Nations Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) recently held in Samoa’s capital, Apia.

The small size of Pacific islands and their populations is a drawback for ‘economies of scale’, keeping costs of production high. But Moll said introducing entrepreneurship awareness into school curriculums and encouraging financial institutions to consider the creditworthiness of young people could improve the business environment.

The informal economy, which accounts for up to 70 percent of economic activity in the Pacific Islands and Caribbean regions, is a potential growth area, say regional experts.

“It has always been an important source of sustainability [in the Caribbean],” Dessima Williams from Grenada and UNIDO Senior Policy Advisor said during an interview at the U.N. SIDS conference.

“And what has happened recently is that as the formal sector has crashed, more and more other people are entering the informal sector” as are “young people coming out of college who are finding no jobs in the formal sector,” Williams added.

Fruean sees the same potential in Samoa where two-thirds of young people are making a living through informal activities.

“There is so much potential in the informal and agricultural sectors and we encourage the unemployed youth to become economically active in these sectors”, for example, through organic farming or creative production. The cultural and creative industries in the Pacific are reportedly growing at about seven percent per year.

Also “the solution of co-operatives is coming back because the cost of production is so high. A lot of young people [in the Caribbean] are producing music all together, or somebody is writing it and somebody is mixing it, so it is sustainable,” Williams said.

But if the informal sector is to play a role in sustainable and decent job creation, training, skills, working conditions, value addition and production standards need to be improved, she continued. Low productive subsistence activities also need to be up-scaled and developed with greater market orientation and potential for export explored, where feasible. In the agricultural sector alone, which accounts for two thirds of the workforce, only one quarter of production is for the market with the remainder for domestic consumption.

Many young people in the informal sector don’t have experience of budgeting and managing their money, and this is an important area of awareness that needs to be addressed, too, according to the Samoan National Youth Council.

Efforts to galvanise the potential of Pacific Islander youth must be expanded to prevent increased poverty and inequality in the next generation and the social fallout of disaffection when aspirations for productive lives are not fulfilled.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Children sit outside an informal housing settlement in Vanuatu. Experts say a lack of economic opportunities is contributing to a wave of youth suicides in the Pacific Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Aug 12 2014 (IPS)

Suicide rates in the Pacific Islands are some of the highest in the world and have reached up to 30 per 100,000 in countries such as Samoa, Guam and Micronesia, double the global average, with youth rates even higher.

On International Youth Day, which this year focuses on ‘Youth and Mental Health’, young Pacific Islanders have highlighted the profound social and economic challenges they face in a rapidly changing world.

“Youths committing suicide seem to get younger and younger by the year,” Lionel Rogers of the Fiji-based advocacy and support group, Youth Champs for Mental Health, told IPS. “Stressors contributing to the growing trends of suicide are unemployment, social and cultural expectations, family and relationship problems, bullying, violence and abuse.”

“Many youths refuse to seek assistance from medical professionals due to the stigma associated with suicide and mental health. This along with our culture of silence has driven them further away and forced them to suppress their emotions.” -- Lionel Rogers of the Fiji-based Youth Champs for Mental Health
The Pacific Islands has an escalating youth population, with 54 percent of people in the region now aged below 24 years and those aged 15-29 years are at the greatest risk of taking their lives, according to the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).

Tarusila Bradburgh, coordinator of the Pacific Youth Council, believes that “the burden of multiple issues that affect young people in the Pacific Islands is enormous and many are not well-equipped to cope.”

A decade ago there were an estimated 331,000 annual suicides in the region, accounting for 38 percent of the world total.

Anne Rauch, organisational development advisor for the Fiji Alliance for Mental Health said, “There is […] significant under-reporting of suicide deaths. On outer islands and remote areas the body is buried before an autopsy can be performed. There is a lot of family shame about suicide so doctors will sometimes sympathetically report the causes of death.”

In 2012, there were 160 reported suicides in Fiji with the majority under 25 years of age, but accurate statistics are not available.

Under-funded and under-resourced mental health services are struggling to address the issue, with suicide representing 2.5 percent of the disease burden in the Western Pacific region, nearly double the rate of 1.4 percent worldwide.

According to a 2008 report by the non-governmental organisation Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International, a significant root cause of young people taking their lives is intergenerational conflict as modern lifestyles based on individual freedom and independence challenge centuries of conformism to traditional Pacific communal social hierarchies and conventions of behaviour.

In the tiny central South Pacific territory of Tokelau, located north of Samoa, a national health department report claims a significant factor in youth suicide is relationship breakdowns, including those between parents and children.

There were 40 attempted suicides in the territory, which has a population of 1,500, during a 25-year period ending in 2004, with 83 percent of fatalities involving people under 25 years, and physical punishment of youth by their elders contributing to 67 percent.

Rauch added, “There are an increasing number of young people [committing] suicide because of poor examination results and failure to reach the academic standards expected by parents.”

An equal challenge facing the vast majority of Pacific youth is poor prospects of employment and fulfilment of aspirations generated by exposure to affluent global lifestyles through the digital and mass media.

In the small economies of most Pacific developing island states, high population growth of up to 2.4 percent is far outpacing job creation, thus greater access to education for many is not translating into better chances of gaining paid employment.

In the southwest Pacific Island state of Papua New Guinea, there are an estimated 80,000 school leavers each year, but only 10,000 will secure formal jobs. Youth unemployment is an estimated 45 percent in the neighbouring Solomon Islands.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns that “denial of economic and social opportunities leads to frustrated young people” and “the result can be a high incidence of self-harm” with “the loss of the productive potential of a large section of the adult population.”

According to SPC, actions to combat the tragic fallout of youth suicide for families, communities and a generation that has an important role to play in the region’s future should include measures to reduce the social stigma of mental illness and build the capacity of youth-friendly health and counselling services.

“Many youths refuse to seek assistance from medical professionals due to the stigma associated with suicide and mental health,” Rogers said. “This along with our culture of silence has driven them further away and forced them to suppress their emotions.”

Bradburgh advocates for all stakeholders, including communities and churches, to actively promote greater public understanding of mental illness, while governments need to invest in better mental health and outreach services.

“The more we openly discuss the issues in safe places and forums, the more knowledgeable we will be and better prepared to address the issue of suicide,” she said.

(END)

Pacific Island nations say empowering women is the key to addressing population growth across the region. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
PORT VILA, Jul 10 2014 (IPS)

Populations of many Melanesian countries in the southwest Pacific Islands region are expected to double in a generation, threatening regional and national efforts to improve low economic and human development indicators.

Arnold Bani, executive director of the Vanuatu Family Health Association in the capital, Port Vila, believes that if reproductive health issues are not addressed in the next 10-15 years the result “will be a disaster for the country.”

Vanuatu, an archipelago of 82 islands located west of Fiji, has a population of 247,262 growing at 2.4 percent, compared to a global average of 1.1 percent. Similarly, the growth rate of Papua New Guinea’s population of seven million is 2.1 percent, as it is in the neighbouring Solomon Islands, home to 550,000 people.

“Mostly the extended family provides people’s basic needs and care...So if a woman makes a decision about family planning alone there will be a fight in the family.” -- Helen, a resident of Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila
As the international community prepares to mark World Population Day on Jul. 11, experts here say an important factor will be empowering women in decisions about family planning and, with a high rate of teenage pregnancies in the region, bringing about behaviour changes in the younger generation.

The task is not easy, given strong cultural and social pressures to have large families.

“Mostly the extended family provides people’s basic needs and care,” Helen (not her real name), a mother in Port Vila, where the contraceptive prevalence is 38 percent, told IPS.

“So if a woman makes a decision about family planning alone there will be a fight in the family.”

There are practical reasons for having numerous children, explained Alec Ekeroma, president of the Pacific Society for Reproductive Health in Auckland, New Zealand.

“Large families are akin to an insurance policy for family survival,” he told IPS. “More children will assist with rural subsistence livelihoods, more children means some will survive past infancy, while care for parents is seen as a duty of the children, especially in countries where there are no social services.”

But Helen said that providing for the needs of large families is a struggle in a country where the average monthly income is around 300 dollars.

The nation’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has decreased since the 1960s from seven to four, while in Papua New Guinea it is 3.8 and in the Solomon Islands 4.1, in contrast to a TFR of 2.1, which indicates a stable population.

Regional experts believe that contraceptive use, which ranges from 35 percent in Papua New Guinea to 22 percent in Kiribati, well below the global average for less developed countries of 56 percent, must be improved.

A report published by Reproductive Health journal last year claims that increasing contraceptive prevalence in Vanuatu to 65 percent by 2025 would create a sustainable population, reduce high risk births by 54 percent, adolescent births by 46 percent and the average number of unintended pregnancies by 68 percent from 76 to 12 per 1,000 women.

Greater contraceptive use and smaller families could also save women’s lives. There are an estimated 110 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in Vanuatu, increasing to 120 in Tonga, 130 in Kiribati and an estimated 733 in Papua New Guinea.

But delivering reproductive health services to predominantly widely scattered rural island populations is a challenge given the limited infrastructure, transport services and skilled health care workers in provincial areas.

Low education and the influence of traditional health healers in rural communities are also factors,Rufina Latu of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Vanuatu added. Even when family planning is available, use can be inhibited by misconceptions, such as fear of side effects or fertility decline, religious opposition and illiteracy. A survey by the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) in Vanuatu’s main Shefa province estimates literacy is as low as 27 percent.

Leias Cullwick, executive director of the Vanuatu National Council of Women, said that a major concern for women is gender inequality and the norm of husbands determining the size of families. Fear of widely prevalent gender violence also impacts women’s behaviour.

“Health services data indicate that many women prefer contraception with long-acting depo-provera injections, so that their husbands would not know,” Latu added, claiming that it is not uncommon for husbands to hold the myth that their wives are having affairs if they are using contraception.

Gender inequality is also a factor in Vanuatu’s high adolescent fertility with 66 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years. Across the Pacific Islands, one quarter of girls in this age group enter motherhood.

The Vanuatu Ministry of Health confirmed there were national strategies to improve services to adolescents. An estimated one third of urban youth lack basic knowledge about reproductive health and many are reluctant to access reproductive health services, leading to high-risk behaviour.

Engaging young people is an urgent priority given the negative impacts of pregnancies on young girls’ lives, such as low educational attainment, poverty and maternal mortality. The risk of death for mothers aged below 15 years in low and middle-income countries is double that of more mature women, reports the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Efforts to increase understanding of population issues must include the whole community, Bani advocated, with chiefs and community leaders better informed about family planning to play a role in wider social acceptance.

Latu emphasised that population and reproductive health education for everyone needs to start in early childhood and “family life education should become a compulsory part of school curriculums at all levels.”

“A more enabling environment for women’s empowerment to develop can be better achieved if men and spouses are also engaged” in the task of social change, she added.

Cullwick suggested that male nurses in Vanuatu be trained in male-to-male advocacy about gender equality and family planning.

“With the high rate of illiteracy you cannot print and distribute leaflets, you need a man to talk to others, to generate a dialogue and make them understand what women go through,” she explained.

(END)

Excerpt:

In Port Vila, capital of the southwest Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, low incomes and lack of housing has resulted in many of the 8,000 residents of the Freswota area building their own homes from corrugated iron and salvaged materials. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
PORT MORESBY, Jul 9 2014 (IPS)

While the United Nations claims to have met the Millennium Development Goal target of improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers well ahead of the 2020 deadline, the fact remains that millions around the world continue to live in informal, overcrowded and unsanitary housing conditions.

In the scenic western Pacific Islands, urban poverty is becoming a huge problem for resource-strapped governments, as internal migration spawns massive settlements, and communities jostle one another for scarce resources like water.

On paper, various governments’ commitments and promises suggest a blueprint for action but for the slum dwellers of the Pacific, each new day dawns in wretchedly cramped rooms, narrow alleyways and interminable lines for communal bathrooms.

While many of these informal settlements are lively and diverse places – playing host to government workers, students and market vendors – they remain a stark expression of the inequality that continues to plague developing countries as the sun sets on the U.N.’s ambitious poverty-reduction plan.

The sea level near the Federated States of Micronesia is rising by 10 millimetres per year, more than three times the global average. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, May 29 2014 (IPS)

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a western Pacific Island state located north of Papua New Guinea and east of Palau, has become a regional pioneer in drafting national legislation centred on climate change.

In December last year the government passed the Climate Change Act, making it compulsory for state sectors, including those responsible for the environment, disaster management, transportation, infrastructure, health, education and finance, to mainstream climate adaptation in all policies and action plans. The president is also required to report to congress annually on the Act’s implementation.

“The legislation is a first in a Pacific Island country and a small island state, so we broke new ground,” Lam Dang, legislative counsel to the Micronesian congress, told IPS.

"One alternative for a small island country to the deadlock in international climate change negotiation [is] to pass our own domestic legislation." -- Lam Dang, legislative counsel to the Micronesian congress
The legislation acknowledges the profound challenge that extreme climate hazards pose to human security and economic health. It reinforces, too, the rationale that action on climate change will only have an enduring effect if enforced.

When high tides flood coastal areas or a typhoon descends on the Pacific Island state, local – and often low-income – communities suffer the most. Thus their experiences and input were crucial to the development of the new policy, said Dang.

“The main concern at the community level is sea-level rise with the resulting loss of agricultural capacity and pollution of drinking water,” Dang said.

Most of Micronesia’s population of 104,000 live in close proximity to coastlines and are engaged in subsistence fishing, as well as farming of crops like taro, banana and yam. The average subsistence household income is close to 11,000 dollars per year.

But the sea level near the island state is rising by 10 millimetres per year, more than three times the global average, leading to more aggressive ‘king tides’ and coastal erosion. Flooding has damaged villages and infrastructure and contaminated arable land and fresh groundwater supplies, affecting thousands of people. As a result, food and water insecurity is a consistent challenge for communities and the government.

According to the Pacific Climate Change Science Program, Micronesia will experience increasing air and sea surface temperatures; rising sea levels; higher rainfall; and typhoons with faster-than-average wind speeds during this century.

The country is already vulnerable to natural disasters and endures an annual typhoon season from July to November.

Suzie Yoma, executive director of the Micronesia Red Cross Society in Pohnpei, recalled the devastation wrought by Typhoon Chata’an in 2002 when a landslide triggered by excessive rainfall tragically buried 47 people in Chuuk state. In 2004 Typhoon Sudal damaged 90 percent of homes and infrastructure on Yap Island and affected more than 6,000 people.

Small islands on the global stage

The groundbreaking reform was informed by FSM’s participation in international meetings of the Global Legislators Organisation, otherwise known as GLOBE International, whose objective is to support national lawmakers in developing legislation that promotes sustainable development.

At a time when the international community seems unable to reach consensus on a carbon emissions peak – which scientists have warned is essential to prevent a global temperature increase of two degrees Celsius – Small Island Developing States like Micronesia struggle to be heard at the global level, compared to industrialised super-powers, such as the United States, Russia and China.

Talks at the GLOBE summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012, followed by the conference on climate change adaptation in Beijing in 2013, were clear calls to action.

“It became clear after discussions with the large number of gathered legislators from around the world that one alternative for a small island country to the deadlock in international climate change negotiation was to pass our own domestic legislation,” Dang explained.

By demonstrating action with clear accountability at the national level, developing nations hope to galvanise movement towards a binding international climate change agreement that includes high carbon emitting industrialised nations. Currently, the Pacific Islands as a region produces some 0.006 percent of greenhouse gases, yet the people here are bearing the brunt of melting ice and rising seas.

The potential of global warming to increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters and their impact on human settlements, livelihoods and economic infrastructure prompted the government of Micronesia to integrate disaster risk management into its climate law.

Over the past 60 years natural disasters have affected 9.2 million people in the Pacific Islands region, incurring damage costs of 3.2 billion dollars.

Micronesia’s policy is aligned with a broader regional Pacific Islands strategy to incorporate climate change and disaster risk management into policies and legislation. Regional development organisations such as the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) have supported this approach since 2008.

Andrew Yatilman, director of FSM’s office of environment and emergency management, said the integrated policy would strengthen the operation of his division.

“Activities [related to disaster risk and climate change] tend to be carried out by staff separately, with climate change generally viewed more as an environmental issue,” he said. “We are now in the process of realigning our programme to make the two more complimentary.”

Benefits include reducing the duplication of tasks and more effectively utilising limited funding and resources.

President Emmanuel Mori has called the Climate Change Act “essential [for] protecting our nation and furthering the interests and wellbeing of our people.”

The country’s leadership will play a critical role in making that objective a reality.

“We can pass the best law but it is up to the executive branch to implement it,” Dang emphasised. “If there is enough political will, the legislation itself is very flexible and allows for continual input.”

Micronesia’s leaders have advocated tirelessly for international action to address climate change, especially at the United Nations.

At the 19^th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Warsaw, Poland, in November 2013, Micronesia was a key supporter of a proposal to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) through the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty that aims to gradually eradicate substances that contribute to ozone depletion.

HFCs, manufactured gases commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning, are believed to be highly detrimental to the atmosphere and their use is increasing by 10 to 15 percent per year.

According to GLOBE International, worldwide legislative action to date will not limit the global average temperature rise to two degrees Celsius, widely accepted by the international scientific community as the global warming safety threshold.

Micronesian leaders would like their commitment to inspire a global sense of responsibility for the future environmental fate of all nations and their peoples.

(END)

The new, relocated village of Vunidogoloa on Vanua Levu, the second largest island of Fiji. Credit: Government of Fiji

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, May 25 2014 (IPS)

Still a long way off in many parts of the world, climate displacement is already a reality in the Pacific Islands, where rising seas are contaminating fresh water and agricultural land, and rendering some coastal areas uninhabitable.

In Fiji, where the survival of 676 communities is now precarious, the government is set to establish the region’s first national policy to address the challenges of internal migration as the last option in adaptation.

Home to over 870,000 people in the central South Pacific Ocean, the 300 volcanic islands that comprise this nation include low-lying atolls, and are highly susceptibility to cyclones, floods and earthquakes. Thus Fiji is no stranger to the devastation wrought by climate change, and its national policies hold valuable lessons for all governments bracing for climate-induced population movements.

During its recent chairmanship of the Group of 77 nations plus China (G77), Fiji brought the plight of Small Island Developing States to the international arena, highlighting the disproportionate nature of the climate crisis.

The Pacific Islands, for instance, are responsible for only 0.006 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet they are experiencing its worst impacts. According to the Pacific Climate Change Science Program, the sea level near Fiji rose by six millimetres per year over the past decade, double the global average. During this century, ocean acidification, temperatures and the intensity of rainfall are also predicted to increase.

When adaptation measures, such as building seawalls and planting mangroves, no longer stem the tide, survival depends on moving the affected population to new land and safer ground. The London School of Economics estimates that across the Pacific Islands, home to 10 million people, up to 1.7 million could be displaced due to climate change by 2050.

Mahendra Kumar, director of the climate change division at the ministry of foreign affairs and international co-operation in the capital, Suva, told IPS that “the Fiji government recognises it has a primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and assistance to people at risk of climate change.”

"[T]he Fiji government recognises it has a primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and assistance to people at risk of climate change.” -- Mahendra Kumar, director of the climate change division at the ministry of foreign affairs
The guidelines for internal population movements will become an addendum to the national climate change policy, introduced in 2012. They will be aligned with the broader policy’s principles of community ownership, involvement and consent, equitable benefits for all, including disadvantaged social groups, and the mainstreaming of climate change issues into national planning and budgeting.

The new “relocation procedure is to be followed in all cases when communities seek the assistance of the government,” Kumar clarified.

The preference of many Pacific Islanders is to relocate within their own country. More than 80 percent of land in Fiji is under customary ownership and has been for generations. Land is the main source of livelihoods, food, social security and ancestral identity for clans and extended families.

Melanesian society places great importance on community self-reliance with solutions to local challenges historically driven by traditional leaders. This has determined people’s survival for generations and is one reason why, today, many refute the term ‘climate refugee’.

But that doesn’t diminish the socioeconomic repercussions of, or financial resources needed, for physically moving large numbers of people, housing and infrastructure.

Vunidogoloa: An exercise in inclusive adaptation

Now in its final draft, the climate policy was first informed by the move and reconstruction of the Vunidogoloa village on Vanua Levu, one of Fiji’s two main islands, back in January.

Living by the edge of Natewa Bay, as the people of Vunidogoloa had for generations, became untenable when the encroaching sea breached seawall barriers, daily flooding homes, while saltwater degraded the soil and destroyed crops like taro and sweet potato.

While villagers had watched the gradual encroachment of the sea over a period of years, the ultimate loss of their traditional ancestral land and homes, they say, was distressing.

The move, which took a total of three years, began in 2010, before the relocation policy was conceived last year. However, since then the experiences of both the government and local residents have been incorporated.

“We are happy in our new village,” Suluwegi, a villager from Vunidogoloa, told IPS. “The houses are good and we are able to grow new crops for food.” The ministry of agriculture provided the new community with pineapple plants and technical support to promote new farming livelihoods.

The ministry of rural and maritime development and national disaster management led the multi-sector process of moving 150 people and building 30 new houses, with each costing approximately 5,400 dollars.

Suluwegi said that villagers actively participated in the decision about where the new settlement would be situated. Plans for relocation only went ahead after the community had given consent. Fortunately, customary land owned by the community was available about two kilometres away on higher ground, which was quickly identified as the preferred new site.

“There were no land issues or disputes, which made our work much easier,” George Dregaso of the national disaster management office told IPS, hinting that the acquisition of additional customary land could have involved long, complex negotiations and substantial compensation to host landowners.

Various ministries and authorities responsible for local government, agriculture, water, fisheries, forests and labour contributed funding and resources for the provision of basic services and new livelihoods.

New water tanks and a solar power system were installed in the community. Villagers received assistance in re-establishing agriculture, including plants, breeding livestock and farming materials, as well as new ponds for fish farming as an income-generating initiative.

Government funds covered 75 percent of costs associated with the relocation of Vunidogoloa, which totalled close to 535,000 dollars (about 978,000 Fijian dollars). The remainder represented the value of the timber that the community contributed to the project.

While the villagers of Vunidogoloa were fortunate enough to find refuge close to their old home, others who are impacted by climate change might not be so lucky.

Globally there is a critical lack of policies and laws to address the plight of climate migrants, either within states or across national borders. For instance, people internationally displaced due to climate extremes are not recognised under the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention.

But last year international lawyers, climate change experts and U.N. representatives devised the Peninsula Principles on climate displacement within states as an initial guiding framework for policy and lawmakers, based on current international law.

Many of those principles, such as community participation and consent, provision of affordable housing, land solutions, basic services and economic opportunities to those affected, have been observed in Vunidogoloa.

Kumar emphasised, however, that formal discussions about the legislative implications of Fiji’s relocation policy are yet to occur.

“We are taking this one step at a time,” he said. “The policy will need to be considered by all stakeholders, including relevant ministries, before it can be considered by cabinet. Cabinet’s decision and response to recommendations will be key to determining what the next steps will be.”

Fiji’s current climate change policy is supported by existing laws and a new constitution established last year, which recognises that all Fijians, irrespective of ethnicity or status, have equal rights to housing, public services, health and economic participation.

However, all Pacific Island states face challenges in fully implementing government policies due to limited technical, human resource and financial capacities. According to Kumar, further work on solutions to issues of land availability and sustainable funding ahead of future relocation projects will be needed as the policy draft enters its final stages.

The learning process for all concerned continues, with the government still to undertake post-relocation monitoring and evaluation at Vunidogoloa in order to address any long term or unforeseen impacts.

(END)

Villagers in Papua New Guinea point to their village destroyed in a landslide from a quarry being excavated for a liquefied natural gas project. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Feb 22 2014 (IPS)

Natural reserves such as gold, copper, nickel, gas and timber are being extracted in the western Pacific island states of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to feed the soaring economies of East and South East Asia. But despite these Pacific nations recording economic growth rates of 6-11 percent over the past seven years, opportunities for human development have not been grasped.

“There is very little confidence amongst communities in resource extraction projects that governments are operating,” Maureen Penjueli, co-ordinator of the civil society organisation, the Pacific Network on Globalisation in Fiji, told IPS."Customary landowners and civil society groups have not been adequately consulted on the type of development that is appropriate for the Pacific.”

“There is a perception that governments are pro-big business, pro-foreign investment and have paid very little attention to the plight of their own people. Customary landowners and civil society groups have not been adequately consulted on the type of development that is appropriate for the Pacific.”

In Papua New Guinea (PNG) there are at least six mines extracting gold and copper. The nation’s largest resource project, PNG LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas), centred in the highlands is expected to begin supply this year, while generating up to 1.5 billion dollars of annual government revenue for the next 30 years.

The Solomon Islands, an archipelago to the northeast of Australia, has a 50-year history of timber exploitation. Logging currently contributes to 15 percent of state and 60 percent of export revenues.

Natural resource management has brought the interests of corporate developers determined by short-term profit competing with local Melanesian perspectives that prioritise culture, identity and the well-being of future generations.

The PNG government claims a state right to mineral resources, while in the Solomon Islands traditional landowners determine timber extraction. Either way ordinary citizens have experienced no benefits.

Two million in a population of more than seven million in PNG live in poverty, while the under-five mortality rate is a high 75 per 1,000 births. In the Solomon Islands 23 percent of people live below the poverty line, and literacy is 17 percent.

Pacific island governments with shortfalls in capacity and expertise can be disadvantaged in negotiating resource agreements with international investors. An unhealthy alliance between the political elite and foreign companies has served the interests of a few, while negatively impacting the rural majority who suffer inadequate public services and human rights protection.

In the Solomon Islands an influx of Southeast Asian logging companies in the 1980s paralleled escalating corruption and declining regulatory compliance.

“The links between politicians and foreign logging companies are complex and well-entrenched,” a Transparency International spokesperson told IPS in the Solomon Islands  capital, Honiara. “We regularly hear of politicians using their power to protect loggers, influence police and give tax exemptions to foreign businesses; in return loggers fund politicians.”

Solomon Islands landowner Lily Duri Dani said that corruption had resulted in women resource owners being “pushed aside” in decisions about land use.

“Women would make decisions that are honest, open and fair to everybody. We would use the [resource] money to help people at the grassroots,” she declared.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), “poor governance and corruption [in PNG] prevent ordinary citizens from benefitting from resource wealth….large-scale extractive projects have generated environmental and human rights concerns that the government has failed to address.”

The PNG LNG project is set to deliver a windfall to foreign investors that hold 80 percent ownership, including Exxon Mobil and its subsidiary, Esso Highlands.

Social impacts documented by the New Zealand-based Otago University include increased inequality, alcohol consumption, domestic violence and prostitution. Local communities have also faced a 38 percent food price increase and deteriorating education and health services as staff seek more lucrative LNG-related jobs.

In 2012, a devastating landslide from a quarry being excavated by a project sub-contractor buried two villages, Tumbi and Tumbiago, killing an estimated 60 people and destroying 42 homes. Safety concerns about quarry operations had been identified by an independent environmental consultant, D’Appolonia, the previous year. The PNG Government has failed to commission an independent investigation into the disaster, leaving victims deprived of justice.

Tumbi village chief Jokoya Piwako, who lost his entire family in the tragedy, claimed that the government and the companies “are concerned about their income and revenue, but they are not concerned about lives in the communities.”

Non-governmental organisation Jubilee Australia reported last year that “there are serious risks that the revenues generated by the [PNG LNG] project will not mitigate the negative economic and social impacts.”

The Porgera gold mine, located in Enga Province and majority owned by the Canadian company Barrick Gold, has produced 20 billion dollars worth of gold in the past 20 years. Communities in the area live in severe poverty while HRW has reported gang rapes committed at the mine site by private security personnel in 2011.

Last year the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) organised a Pacific conference in Fiji to tackle the question of how natural resource exploitation could translate into improving the lives of ordinary citizens. But the necessary framework of good transparent governance, strong extractive industry regulation, environmental and social protection measures and participation by rural communities in decisions about resource use is yet to emerge in the region.

Penjueli advocates that “a key role for civil society organisations is to mobilise the public to engage with difficult questions of human rights and social justice” in the extractive sector.

Indigenous communities need to be empowered with skills, knowledge about the implications of decisions and alternative livelihoods, and better access to legal support to defend their rights, activists say.

“We have to educate all the landowners because they have to make good decisions,” Judy Tabiru, president of the Isabel Provincial Council of Women in the Solomon Islands, told IPS. “We must create rules to protect our resources for the benefit of our people. That is for the betterment of our generation and that of our children’s children.”

Long-term dependence on development aid in Pacific Island nations, many of which have been independent for 30-40 years, continues to cause concern.

The World Bank reports that overseas development assistance (ODA) to the region amounts to 469 dollars per capita, compared to 64 dollars in Caribbean small states and 54 dollars in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Pacific development experts are calling for greater political will for locally driven self-sustaining economic growth and development.“Local communities need to be involved from the start to articulate an expressed need for donor funding and develop ownership and accountability for development assistance."

“International development cooperation requires a facelift that begs support from traditional and non-traditional donors whose record of increasing support, even to the detriment of recipient nations, continues,” a spokesperson for the Vanuatu-based think-tank Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PIPP), told IPS.

Equally, “an unwillingness or incapacity of our own Pacific Island leaders to halt the debilitating political mentality of aid dependence must be updated with our own understanding of the political, economic and socio-cultural motivations of donor states that are not always altruistic.”

Major donors to the region include Australia, New Zealand, the European Union, United States, France and Japan with the growing presence of China. Aid supports governments, community projects, local and regional organisations, such as the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, and the inter-governmental organisation, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

Emele Duituturaga, executive director of the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (PIANGO) in Suva, Fiji, believes the need for foreign aid will continue due to island states’ small isolated economies.

“If foreign aid was seriously reduced, health and education standards would drastically reduce – with shortage of technical staff, lack of medicines and infrastructural challenges,” she declared.

Papua New Guinea, which has natural resource wealth, including oil, copper, gold and natural gas, has so far failed to translate an economic growth rate of 6-11 percent since 2007 into development progress.

In 2013/14, it will receive 462 million dollars, but isn’t expected to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

A core action by Pacific states to reduce aid reliance must be to “better govern our own budgets and machinery of government to make the most of our own resources and any foreign inputs,” PIPP said.

Aid effectiveness is a key issue. Development assistance to Oceania from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has increased from 1.2 billion dollars to 1.7 billion dollars since 2000. Currently aid dependent Pacific nations, including the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Marshall Islands and Tonga are not on track to overcome poverty (MDG1) by 2015.

A 2009 community “aid listening” project in the Solomon Islands revealed issues such as misuse of aid funds, donor-led projects unaligned to local priorities, and “boomerang aid” characterised by large numbers of highly paid expatriate advisors and corporate contractors.

According to PIPP, the impact of corruption on aid and development in the Pacific Islands are “staggering”, and “many in power have had an overwhelming tendency to personalise economic opportunities, public funds and resources.”

Duituturaga said that donors often attribute greater fiduciary risk in giving funds to small community groups and instead direct aid to “governments and large NGOs that then misappropriate funds.” Governments receive about 73 percent of aid to the region, according to PIF.

“Local communities need to be involved from the start to articulate an expressed need for donor funding and develop ownership and accountability for development assistance,” she said.

For PIPP, quantity risks outdoing quality of some aid programmes. The Tongan government’s aid management division, for example, is significantly challenged with managing 200 different donor projects in a small island state of 104,941 people.

Lack of consistent monitoring also means that “credible data simply does not exist to meaningfully measure progress against quantitative goals.”

Donor practices often serve foreign policy, rather than recipient development priorities. In 2002-03 Australia, the largest aid donor to the Pacific Islands, awarded aid contracts worth 58.3 million dollars, of which 47.8 million dollars went to Australian companies.

Duituturaga said donors have a “tendency to bring readymade solutions for the Pacific, instead of investing in Pacific people coming up with our own solutions guided by Pacific expertise.”

A 2011 independent Australian aid effectiveness review reported that use of Australian contractors had halved in the previous five years.

However, questions surrounding Australia’s aid programme and political objectives continue, most recently in relation to its controversial offshore asylum seeker detention centres that have been established in Pacific Islands such as Papua New Guinea.

“Asking a developing nation that happens to be a resource rich neighbour suffering from internal and political woes to support a refugee policy that includes a dwindling development budget component equates to poor policy design and the worst diplomacy,” the PIPP spokesperson said.

The United States strategic foreign policy “pivot” in Asia parallels increasing aid to the Pacific region, in addition to its Compact of Free Association funding to the FSM, Marshall Islands and Palau. Motivations of China and Taiwan, both of which have massive resource extraction stakes in countries such as Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to increase aid and concessional loans to the region invite closer scrutiny.

With foreign aid amounting to more than 50 percent of government development budgets in Tonga, Marshall Islands, FSM and Solomon Islands, there are potential repercussions for political and economic independence.

For PIPP, “Pacific Islands living in debt often dance to the tune of those who provide much needed resources. Even when Pacific Islands are out of debt, they remain indebted in principle for the ‘generosity’ provided to them in the past.”

The PIF-led 2007 Pacific Aid Effectiveness Principles and 2009 Cairns Compact on strengthening development co-ordination aim to increase Pacific ownership of regional development, donor and recipient accountability and aid alignment to national priorities. Since 2010 a peer review process among Pacific Island countries is supporting improved governance, public finance and aid management and national planning.

But there is still a long way to go before foreign aid is seen as consolidating, rather than impeding, self-determination.

PIPP believes better poverty alleviation outcomes and addressing development barriers such as climate change demand less political interference in aid decision-making, while Pacific states need at the same time to boost local economic development through greater regional co-operation.

“Foreign aid should be complimentary to locally driven development which is flourishing in the informal, small and medium enterprise sectors,” Duituturaga said.

Maddlyn Maelofa (far right) and young girls in Huahai village in Malaita Province in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
AUKI, Malaita Province, Solomon Islands, Dec 1 2013 (IPS)

Logging is the largest industry in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago located northwest of Fiji, where 80 percent of the islands are covered in tropical rainforest. But, although timber accounts for 60 percent of this South Pacific nation’s export earnings, most local communities have experienced no beneficial development.

And when the social costs for those who live in the vicinity of logging camps includes greater inequality, increased alcohol abuse, the undermining of traditional governance and violation of human rights, such as the commercial sexual exploitation of children, there is reason for people to claim that their lives have got worse.

Today seven Malaysian logging companies operate near the village of Huahai, home to 500 people in the rural Arekwa region of Malaita Island in Malaita Province. But the community, which has been surrounded by timber extraction for a decade with new operators arriving every year, has had enough.“They invite girls aged 13 to 14 years to the logging camps. Sometimes they say they are going to see movies, but we don’t know what happens,”

“The companies are benefitting, but they are destroying our community’s resources,” Maddlyn Maelofa, Mothers Union leader for the Arekwa region, told IPS in Huahai.

But Maelofa’s most ardent concern is for the fate of children and young girls in the village.

“They [the loggers] invite girls aged 13 to 14 years to the logging camps. Sometimes they say they are going to see movies, but we don’t know what happens,” she said.

Maelofa is aware of at least 10 girls who are involved, and many of them have become pregnant.

“I also saw a woman take her teenage daughter to a logging ship,” she continued. “The ship came to pick up the logs and the woman went to sell [prostitute] her daughter.”

Sexual exploitation of minors by foreign logging workers has been identified in four of the nine provinces in the Solomon Islands, namely Makira, Isabel, Western and Malaita.

In 2007, the Church of Melanesia’s Christian Care Centre (CCC) in the capital, Honiara, published a report on the issue in Makira Province. Based on a study of 12 villages and 41 individual interviews, it documented 73 children who had been subjected to sexual exploitation and 12 who had been sold into marriage to migrant logging workers. Half of them were below the age of 15 years. Child prostitution was prevalent in every community with victims between 11-19 years and girls or families receiving rewards of cash or goods.

A spokesperson for the Malaita Council of Women highlighted that one tragic consequence was increased teenage pregnancies and a growing generation of fatherless children. Many families cannot afford to provide for the illegitimate children, she said, especially when workers returned to their home countries and left the girls behind.

In the 1990s international logging companies gained numerous concessions in the country as political instability followed the outbreak of a civil conflict which would last five years from 1998 to 2003. Timber extraction, dominated by companies from South East Asia, soon reached unsustainable levels, feeding the demand for natural resources by rapidly developing Asian economies.

Corruption, limited government resources for monitoring logging operations and a scarce police presence in remote rural areas of the Solomon Islands have contributed to corporate impunity.

However socio-economic hardship and lack of education in remote island communities with 23 percent of the population living below the poverty line are also factors in exploitation.

According to the CCC report, “overseas loggers presented an opportunity for young people to access money and goods which would normally be out of their means.” The prospect of families receiving money was also found to be significant in parents failing to prevent exploitation.

Other issues include early marriage and custom of bride price, which involves the awarding of money or goods to the family of a girl promised in marriage. An estimated 3 percent of children are married by the legal age of 15 years in the Solomon Islands and 22 percent by 18 years.

Aaron Olofia, chairman of the Child Protection Sub-Committee, Ministry of Health in Honiara, told IPS that a Taskforce Against Commercial and Sexual Exploitation of Children (TACSEC) was established to respond to the report’s recommendations, which included improving awareness among communities, empowering children and parents, building more effective local support services and consulting with logging companies.

“We engaged with communities and logging camps,” Olofia claimed. “Communities agreed to set up small working groups comprising chiefs and church leaders to explore how best to address the issue.”

The Taskforce approached several companies that subsequently introduced penalties to workers found to be involved in child exploitation consisting of a fine of 10,000 dollars and forced return to their home country. Due to lack of funding, TACSEC has been unable to follow up on implementation.

Existing laws in the Solomon Islands prohibit the defilement of girls below 13 years and the luring of females below 15 years for prostitution. A review this year of the penal code for sexual offences by the Law Reform Commission recommends that further criminal offences should include acting as an agent to induce a child to engage with commercial sexual exploitation, receiving a benefit from child prostitution or exploitation and permitting it to occur by a parent or child-carer.

Longden Manedika, director of the Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT), a national NGO, also believes that women and girls must be given more meaningful and empowered roles in village decision-making and rural development.

Community development of bylaws to protect human rights in communities before logging companies enter an area is advocated by the Malaita Council of Women, as well as improvement of literacy in rural communities and delivering awareness of child exploitation in local schools.

The people of Hauhai village have also explored sustainable economic alternatives to timber extraction.  Nearly three-quarters of people in the village are now employed by locally run coconut enterprises.

“We make coconut oil and export it,” Maelofa explained. “Those who own the factory sell it, but those who grow coconuts also benefit, because they sell their fruit to the factory.”

The community now sees no reason for logging to continue in their area.

“Last year a company tried to come and operate here and they [the chiefs] did not allow it, so the company left,” Maelofa recounted. “Our chiefs don’t allow logging to come here now.”

In the apparently idyllic Solomon Islands, trauma continues for many families whose loved ones went missing in the civil war. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
AUKI, Malaita Province, Solomon Islands, Nov 13 2013 (IPS)

Anguish over the whereabouts of loved ones who went missing during a five-year civil conflict that ended a decade ago continues for countless families in the Solomon Islands. Searching for the remains of those who disappeared is vital to enduring peace in this culturally diverse south-west Pacific island nation of 550,000.

“I can’t sleep, I want to know the truth because he [a man in the village] is talking to people when he is drunk and telling them that he killed them all. We don’t know. When I look into the eyes of my brother’s child, I feel very, very angry. I want the truth.”

This plea for help came from a family in a small village in Malaita Province where seven people disappeared during the war known as The Tensions (1998-2003). To this day no one knows what happened to them. But one man in the community, on occasions when he is inebriated, boasts of being the perpetrator.“I can’t sleep, I want to know the truth because he is talking to people when he is drunk and telling them that he killed them all."

In 1998 the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army, later the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM) on Guadalcanal Island began to evict migrant settlers from neighbouring Malaita Province who were perceived to be dominating access to land, resources and employment. Combat ensued as the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) was formed to defend Malaitan interests.

The reason for these seven disappearances is confirmed. However, hearings of the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established in 2009 indicate that a significant number of abductions during hostilities occurred within the same community or indigenous group as rumour led to suspicion of individuals being collaborators or spies for rival militia groups or the enemy.

Deputy director of the Malaita Peace and Reconciliation Office, Francis Kairi, believes that many more untold stories will be revealed during the course of its outreach programmes.

Ambiguous loss, in which the whereabouts of someone is unknown and relatives experience relentless psychological stress, can significantly impede healing within post-conflict societies.

The view of many is that “unless we know where our missing relatives are, unless we know where they are buried, I don’t think we can accept reconciliation,” Reuben Lilo, director of peace and reconciliation in the Ministry of National Unity, Peace and Reconciliation, told IPS in the capital, Honiara.

Father Sam Ata, TRC Chairman, told IPS that the endless uncertainty and trauma of these families must be addressed, otherwise projects aimed at development could become the targets of retaliation.

This year four villages in Central Malaita, home to some of the 20,000 people forcibly displaced to the province in the late 1990s as they fled evictions on Guadalcanal were destroyed by arson, with an estimated 500 people made homeless. According to Leslie Filiomea, the Anglican Church of Melanesia’s justice, reconciliation and peace co-ordinator in Malaita, ongoing untreated trauma was a major factor in the rapid escalation of small disputes in the communities into wider retribution.

Five years of armed hostilities had a severe impact on people’s lives.  An estimated maximum of 50,000 people were displaced on both sides. Guadalcanal communities fled to other areas of the island to escape bloodshed, and long established settlers from Malaita made an exodus to become refugees in their former home province.

Many of those kidnapped from their villages, places of work or from the side of the road were subjected to torture and executions. In two years of hearings from 2010-2011 the TRC received 1,413 statements of torture and 300 accounts of kidnapping and illegal detention by militia groups and security forces.

But, with no official assessment yet undertaken of the missing, the list of fatalities in the TRC’s final report is believed to be an underestimate.

“We identified 200 based on our mapping of the grave sites,” Father Ata explained. “But some of these are mass graves and there are other grave sites that we could not identify or the locals have not revealed to us.

“People don’t come forward because they fear the continuing presence of former combatants who still have weapons…to give information about missing people would jeopardise their security.”

But there is wide agreement that returning the remains of loved ones to families, one of the key recommendations of the women’s TRC submission, is imperative to addressing ambiguous loss.

“The spirit does not rest until you are buried properly,” Kairi said. “The physical beings living, too, will not rest, as well as the dead. So closure has to be achieved for the spirit of the dead and the family.”

In August 2011, the TRC began exhumations on Guadalcanal Island based on requests from families. The remains of four male victims, two from Guadalcanal and two from Malaita, were retrieved and returned to their next of kin during a national memorial service held in Honiara later that year.

Closure for these families was the culmination of long, complex and sensitive negotiations with communities, village chiefs and witnesses, and assistance by forensic experts from Argentina.

Ata is adamant that continuing the exhumation programme, despite the significant challenge of funding, and ensuring it is done in a locally appropriate way, is vital to achieving true healing in the Solomon Islands.

“We have done a lot symbolic reconciliations where the whole community comes together, but the actual process of healing is far from that,” he said, emphasising the importance of addressing individual human suffering.

The Ministry of National Unity, supported by the UN Trust Fund for Human Security, has begun creating avenues for people to share the burden of their loss. This year 200 trauma counsellors began working in communities in Malaita and Guadalcanal Provinces, including Honiara.

One outcome, Kairi believes, is that the true scale of human loss will slowly become clearer and with it the opportunity to focus on people with unresolved trauma-related needs. Only when these have been addressed can wider peace be built for both victims and perpetrators.

University students in Honiara in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
HONIARA, Nov 6 2013 (IPS)

External interference in the awarding of tertiary scholarships in Pacific Island nations such as the Solomon Islands is denying some of the highest achievers among the young an opportunity to contribute to the future of their country and the region.

“The problem is unnecessary endorsements of students who do not have academic entitlement,” Wilfred Luiramo, president of the University of the South Pacific (USP) Solomon Islands Students Association in capital Honiara told IPS. “This is a waste of taxpayers’ money and it is having a negative impact on the human resources of this country and the economy.“Many students who are victims do not continue with their studies. They go back home or apply for low-paid jobs.”

“When those who do not have academic merit are given overseas scholarships, they do not perform well in their studies and are unable to contribute in any meaningful way to the country’s development.”

A report this year by the auditor general on management of nationally awarded tertiary scholarships identified issues such as preferential treatment of applicants and granting of additional scholarships outside the official approval process with “no evidence of selection criteria used for assessment of applications” and “no supporting documentation of reasons for awarding scholarships.”

Forum Solomon Islands, a concerned citizens group, received more than 60 public complaints about scholarship inconsistencies in the first months of this year alone. But CEO Benjamin Malao Afuga says the problem has been prevalent for years.

“We have had reports of this happening throughout the country” in relation to scholarships to international education institutions and sponsorship for further study within the country, a spokesperson for Transparency Solomon Islands told IPS. The anti-corruption civil society organisation believes “the problem is that government ministers have discretion over recommendations and this is being abused.”

General Secretary of the National Teachers Association in Honiara, Walter Tesuatai, identified key factors as “political interference, bribery and nepotism” which he believes are influenced by the ‘wantok system’.

In Melanesia and other Pacific Islands, people traditionally express their first allegiance to the extended family (‘wantoks’), and this can entail relationships of mutual social and economic obligations. Those who attain access to power or wealth are frequently under pressure to facilitate benefits to their closest relatives or associates.

The East-West Centre in Hawaii acknowledged in a report on education that “political and other elites appear to have unfair advantage in accessing publicly funded scholarships for study overseas” in a number of Pacific Island states.

The opportunity that a scholarship confers on students in developing Pacific Island nations, where the cost of tertiary education is out of reach to families on low incomes or engaged in subsistence livelihoods, cannot be overestimated.

“University education is expensive and there is a growing demand for scholarships as more students complete secondary school,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Education’s National Training Unit (NTU), which is responsible for allocating scholarships, told IPS.

The demand will only increase in the Solomon Islands where the youth population is predicted to grow rapidly until at least 2025. Currently 40 percent of the population is under 14 years and only one in six school leavers will join the formal workforce.

This year the education ministry received 1,650 applications from school leavers for 300 government scholarships. To be eligible, students must have completed Form 7, the final year of secondary education, achieved a Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 3 in their academic results, and be applying to study a priority subject for the country’s development needs, such as medicine or science.

A ministry spokesperson acknowledged that cases of external interference were known to occur after the official selection list by the National Training Council was issued to the public and those who were disgruntled or who had influential connections lobbied politicians to intervene on their behalf.

In a country still striving for reconstruction and socioeconomic recovery following a debilitating five-year civil conflict 1998-2003, this type of corruption impacts a younger generation hoping to achieve a better future through education and merit.

“Many students who are victims do not continue with their studies,” Luiramo said. “They go back home or apply for low-paid jobs.”

A 20-year-old exceptional student from Temotu province who was officially granted a scholarship at the beginning of this year committed suicide after his award was withdrawn and given to the child of a member of parliament.

Afuga emphasised that the future of the country depended on such practices becoming unacceptable. “If people are honest with what they are doing and have a passion for this country, we wouldn’t run into this problem.”

An Auditor General’s report on corruption in 2007 highlighted that improved internal controls and more effective action to combat corruption was urgently needed to reduce incentive and opportunity for maladministration in the public sector.

According to Transparency International’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, 34 percent of respondents in the Solomon Islands reported paying bribes for services. On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least corrupt, the education system was rated 3 and public officials and civil servants at 3.6.

Transparency Solomon Islands, which says it will support public litigation in future cases of interference with scholarship awards, advocates limits on the discretionary powers of politicians. It says an external independent commission should be tasked with screening applications and overseeing the final selection process.

School children in Elelo village are among many vulnerable to Trachoma. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
HONIARA, Solomon Islands, Oct 29 2013 (IPS)

For generations, eye diseases have taken their toll on Pacific Island peoples. Now the first nationwide survey in the Solomon Islands of Trachoma, which can lead to irreversible blindness by early adulthood, is revealing the silent penetration of this disease in widely dispersed Melanesian rural island communities.

“Even though I am a health worker, I didn’t realise that Trachoma was such a problem in the country,” Oliver Sokana, national Trachoma coordinator at the ministry of health, told IPS in the capital, Honiara.

“People experience the symptoms, but they often don’t know what Trachoma is and so don’t report it at health centres.”

Trachoma is an infectious eye condition caused by a microorganism, chlamydia trachomatis, known to be spread by flies, with children and those living in overcrowded conditions the most vulnerable.  Prolonged infection can lead to chronic scarring of the underside of the eyelid and its turning inward, resulting in lashes causing permanent damage to the eye’s cornea. Loss of sight is the most devastating outcome.In the Solomon Islands, approximately 40 percent of the population of 550,000 could have active Trachoma.

In the Solomon Islands, situated southeast of Papua New Guinea and north east of Australia, approximately 40 percent of the population of 550,000 could have active Trachoma, according to an assessment conducted in the last four years.

The government has now embarked on the first ever comprehensive nationwide survey of the disease, which is expected to be completed by the end of November. Preliminary provincial results from Honiara, Guadalcanal, Central, Isabel, Makira and Malaita indicate an initial prevalence range of up to 24 percent.

“Trachoma is everywhere,” Heather Pana, eye nurse at the Helena Goldie Hospital in the urban settlement of Munda on New Georgia, the largest island in Western province, told IPS. “It is present in all communities on this island.” Survey data has recently been collected here.

According to Pana, the disease is evident at every age, but very noticeable in young children between the ages of five and 14. Other eye conditions she frequently encounters are conjunctivitis, corneal ulcers, and glaucoma, which, if left untreated, can also lead to blindness.

In the small coastal village of Elelo, a journey of half an hour by motorised canoe from Munda, residents say they have suffered from eye complaints for as long as they can remember. Early signs of Trachoma are evident among the 300 students at Elelo School.

Olivy Maspita, a preparatory class teacher, and Francina Vagi, who teaches grade three, claimed that a quarter of students in their classes exhibited symptoms.

“Children with Trachoma mostly come from large families with many children where the mother’s time is often occupied with caring for the youngest,” Vagi said.

“It does impact the children,” she said. “They are not able to read as well as other students and have greater difficulties with learning. They are also more hesitant in their interaction and play with other children.”

Trachoma has been named one of 17 Neglected Tropical Diseases by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the persistent human and socioeconomic suffering it continues to inflict, particularly in the developing world. WHO estimates that Trachoma has caused six million people worldwide to lose their sight, and more than 150 million are in need of treatment. It is globally the greatest cause of preventable blindness.

In the Pacific Islands, Trachoma is endemic in Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. A report this year by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) indicates that 15 percent of children aged below nine years have active Trachoma in Fiji, while the figure is 21.3 percent in Kiribati. Pacific health ministers meeting in Samoa in July concluded that the true scale of this disease burden in the region is unknown.

The IAPB reported that of those children diagnosed with active Trachoma in the Solomon Islands, 73 percent lived in communities lacking sanitation, 63 percent had inadequate facial hygiene and only about half had access to a clean water source within a half-hour walk.

“In Elelo community there is no proper sanitation in homes and no reliable clean water supply,” Vagi said.

Sanitation coverage in the Solomon Islands is 32 percent, compared to the regional average of 46 percent. Young people under 15 years, who comprise 41 percent of the population, are the most vulnerable to eye diseases.

For those in education, 46 percent of schools have adequate water and 59 percent sanitation. Elelo Primary School has two outdoor water taps, but no public toilets.

The ministry of health’s five-year action plan from 2014, aimed at reducing the presence of active Trachoma to less than five percent by 2020, is being finalised.

Sokana said “the biggest challenges we face will be in addressing the environmental and behavioural factors. Sanitation, in particular, will be a huge challenge.

“In terms of access to water, we found that it is the way people use water to prevent eye infections which is the issue. People exhibited symptoms of Trachoma, irrespective of whether they had access to water or not.”

The government, which is the main health service provider, with assistance from non-governmental and faith-based organisations, has limited human resources to cater for a mostly rural population widely scattered on more than 990 islands across a sea area of 1.3 million square kilometres, where transport services can be irregular.

There are 0.21 doctors and 1.7 nurses per 1,000 people in the Solomon Islands, compared to a global average of 1.4 and 2.8, respectively. A high proportion, 73 percent of doctors and 33 percent of nurses, are based in the capital, Honiara, with provincial areas experiencing the greatest shortfall.

In villages such as Elelo, where almost half of the people experience visual impairment or a degree of blindness, tackling Trachoma is imperative to improving quality of life and human development.

A new Pacific islands forum will seek to challenge the dominance of Australia and New Zealand in a regional body. The new grouping’s approach is being billed the ‘Pacific Way’, and also the ‘green and blue’ way for its commitment to environmentally sustainable oceans as well as land.

The new Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) challenges the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), a 16-member inter-governmental organisation which includes 14 Pacific Island countries plus Australia and New Zealand. The PIF is headquartered in Fijian capital Suva. Fiji itself was suspended from the PIF in 2009 after naval commander Frank Bainimarama grabbed power in a coup in 2006 and refused to hold elections.

Pacific Islands Map. Credit: David Jackmanson/CC BY 2.0

Bainimarama, now prime minister of Fiji, said at the launch of the PIDF earlier this month that people “have largely been excluded from the decision-making process,” and that the PIDF would do it differently.

“It has been no secret that Commodore Bainimarama has great distaste for the Pacific Islands Forum, especially over the hypocritical way that the Forum has treated Fiji since the military coup,” Prof. David Robbie, director of the Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre, told IPS.

“Attempts by the Forum to destabilise Fiji have backfired. For all the criticisms of the Fiji regime, there are positive moves to ‘open up’ the region for greater development partnerships with Asia.”

Bainimarama is riding resentment among Pacific island nations that the PIF is dominated by highly-paid Australian, New Zealand and other western expatriates, trying to impose developed country solutions on Pacific problems.

“We’re so sheltered away from the rest of society,” Kiribati President Anote Tong said in an interview with Radio Australia. “We’re a club of our own in retreat and away from questions from people demanding answers.”

At closed-door PIF meetings, leaders usually come dressed in suits, while at the PIDF meeting they were all dressed in the colourful short-sleeve Pacific-style shirts, and all discussions were in open forum.

For the first time in a major Pacific Island forum, business, church and civil society leaders sat alongside national political leaders, and spoke at the same forums. Such interaction is being projected as a ‘Pacific Way’ of consultation.

The PIDF is gaining support, said Robbie. “Bainimarama achieved a coup in successfully getting Timor-Leste Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to the PIDF in spite of Australian attempts to prevent him going. Having the East Timor leader there was an important bridge for Asia-Pacific relations.”

The launch of the PIDF reflects new realities in the region, where Australia and New Zealand no longer have a stranglehold on aid handouts. In the past decade China and many other Asian countries have begun to give aid to and invest in the region. The PIDF meeting was funded by grants from China, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

The leaders of the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Nauru attended the meeting along with the deputy prime minister of Vanuatu and the vice-president of Micronesia. Senior ministers from most other Pacific nations and territories also attended.

While Australia and New Zealand sent observers to the meeting, special envoys came from China, Russia and a range of countries such as Chile and Cuba. Government ministers were sent to represent the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.

A clear division between Melanesian and Polynesian nations of the Pacific seems to have opened up, with leaders of Polynesian countries like Samoa, Tahiti and French Polynesia boycotting the meeting.

Polynesians are believed to be a mixture of Malay and Taiwanese who moved into the South Pacific islands more than 3,000 years ago. Melanesians are of Papuan stock, and are believed to have moved from parts of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to other Pacific Islands like Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu more than 4,000 years ago.

The Polynesian nations have a tendency to side with Australia and New Zealand in regional affairs, but Melanesian nations make up about 90 percent of the Pacific Island population, and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) is an influential grouping in the region.

Australia blocked Commodore Bainimarama taking over the leadership of the MSG spearhead group within the PIF in 2010 – a decision that seems to have backfired.

“MSG is the real economic powerhouse of the Pacific and is a serious challenge to the old Forum (largely dominated by the Polynesian islands and Australia and New Zealand),” Robbie said. “And now the PIDF is a new threat.”

In an interview with IPS from Suva, executive director of the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (PIANGO) Emele Duituturaga said many now expect PIDF to give more value to Pacific expertise and to be founded on Pacific perspectives.

“More importantly the governing and secretariat structures will include all sectors, especially civil society, which the PIF has been overlooking,” she said.

“The new organisation should ensure that the process and structures that are put in place are inclusive,” she added. “It will be a mistake for the governments to just set it up and expect us to go along with it.”

School children in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jul 7 2013 (IPS)

Many Pacific Island nations are celebrating the success of rising school enrolment rates, with 14 members of the 16-member Pacific Island Forum on target to meet Millennium Development Goal 2: achieving universal primary education by 2015.

But a closer look inside the classroom, and in communities surrounding these schools, reveals a shockingly low literacy rate.

Two organisations – the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) and Papua New Guinean Education Advocacy Network (PEAN) – teamed up to assess the impact of formal education on people between the ages of 15 and 60 years in the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea, a southwest Pacific Island nation of just over seven million people.

“There is very little exposure to books in the home and in schools, and many children do chores to supplement family income after school, so they have no time to read." -- Lice Taufaga, lecturer at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji.
Their findings suggest that so-called strides in education have not yielded much concrete success: the literacy rate in the national languages of English and Tok Pisin was just 23 percent, with many students unable to read or write after completing primary education.

Similar findings have been reported in Melanesian countries throughout the southwest Pacific region:  in 2011, ASPBAE surveyed 1,475 people aged over 15 years in the Shefa Province of the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu, and discovered that while 85 percent declared they could read and write a simple letter in the official languages of Bislama, French or English, individual testing confirmed that only 27.6 percent were literate.

Vanuatu boasts a primary enrolment rate of 88 percent, and although 90 percent of respondents had experienced some formal education, only 40 percent completed primary school.

In the Solomon Islands, an archipelago nation located southeast of Papua New Guinea, the government has claimed remarkable recovery from a five-year-long civil war (1998-2003), with primary school enrolment at 91 percent. However, poor school facilities in rural areas and disinterest in formal learning have been cited as contributing factors to a critically low literacy rate of 17 percent.

While 97.7 percent of the 2,200 people surveyed by ASPBAE in the capital, Honiara, and in Malaita Province agreed that it was important for children to attend school, 53.8 percent of females and 37.6 percent of males, aged 15 to 19 years, were not in education.

“The issue of low literacy is prevalent mainly with those who are learning in a language other than their primary one,” Lice Taufaga, lecturer at the school of education at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji, told IPS.  “Literacy is best learnt in one’s primary language, yet most learners in South Pacific countries are expected to achieve it in English, the language of business and administration.”

Taufaga added that there were also cultural challenges, as the solitary activity of reading was not always encouraged or supported in many communal-oriented Pacific societies.

“There is very little exposure to books in the home and in schools, and many children do chores to supplement family income after school, so they have no time to read,” she said.

The linguistic diversity of the region, which contains a population of 10 million and one fifth of the world’s languages – plus European languages introduced during the colonial era – makes literacy a complex issue.

In Melanesian countries, there are hundreds of commonly used local vernacular languages, many of which are only oral. These are used by 88 percent of the population in Vanuatu, while 60 percent claim to utilise the national languages of Bislama, English or French in everyday communication.

Yet low literacy also extends to national indigenous languages, with a World Bank study last year in the Polynesian South Pacific state of Tonga concluding that only three in 10 students who had engaged with three years of primary education were able to read fluently enough in either English or Tongan to comprehend content.

More than a decade ago Pacific educationalists began rethinking the legacy of introduced western curriculums and claiming a priority for Pacific languages and cultures within the education process.  However, the reality is that a bilingual approach remains, with English and French perceived as necessary for engaging in a global world.

“The long term impacts of low literacy levels in English and French are a key concern because much of the information about development is only available in English or French, hence a higher level of literacy in these languages will enhance transfer of technology, information and knowledge at all levels of society,” Rex Horoi, director of the Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific told IPS, although he is supportive of translation into vernacular languages.

“It is critically important that Pacific people have direct access to information relevant for their sustainable livelihoods and improvement of life in the language they understand and communicate in…” Horoi emphasised.

Government budgets do not appear to be the main issue, although their allocation raises questions about the delivery of quality education.

According to the World Bank, 23.7 percent of Vanuatu’s government expenditure is allocated to education and this rises to 34 percent in the Solomon Islands, compared to approximately 16.1 percent in New Zealand and 13.5 percent in Australia.

However, up to 90 percent of Pacific Island education budgets are committed to teachers’ salaries, with little funds left to develop education systems, infrastructure and resources.

Inadequately qualified teachers are another issue, especially in light of evidence that only 29 percent of teachers in the Solomon Islands and 54 percent in Vanuatu are trained.

According to Taufaga, many “who are teaching English lack the proficiency to model or teach it well.”  She also pointed out that urban class sizes in the region can be as large as 40 to 50 students and most schools cannot afford suitable books for reading.

Remote students remain the most disadvantaged, with poor education facilities and lack of basic materials plaguing rural communities. In Papua New Guinea, similar to the neighbouring Solomon Islands, approximately 80 percent of schools do not have libraries.

“People keep talking about quality education,” a school graduate named Niniu Oligao told IPS in Honiara. “I believe in people reading books in order to be able to write in full sentences and be exposed to meaningful ideas.”

Oligao is so concerned about the repercussions of the absence of a library in the Takwa Community Primary and High School, an institution of 2,000 students based in the North Malaita Province, that he has taken it upon himself to build a collection of donated books. Though he has no funding, he hopes this initiative will form the beginnings of a library for students’ research.

Addressing poor literacy now is vital to improving students’ chances of completing secondary and tertiary qualifications and empowering Pacific Islanders to contribute to social and economic development, whether at the local, national or regional level.

Farmers on the Weather Coast of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Kastom Gaden Association (KGA)

By Catherine Wilson
HONIARA, Solomon Islands, May 7 2013 (IPS)

Life is difficult enough for communities on the remote southern Weather Coast of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.  Sustaining a livelihood from the land is a daily struggle on the steep coastal mountain slopes that plunge to the sea, made worse by the absence of adequate roads, transport and government services. And now, climate change is taking its toll on the already precarious food situation here.

“From mid-March to June it is always raining and whatever crops we grow will not go to harvest,” Alice, a member of a farming family on the Weather Coast, told IPS, referring to the period locals here call “time hungry”.

During these months, most meals consist of rice and one or two other items procured from the shops in the city of Honiara, the capital of this nation comprising more than 900 islands located northeast of Australia and east of Papua New Guinea.

Stretching for 160 kilometres, this island, the largest in the Solomon Islands archipelago, has a widely dispersed population. Located on the northern coast and home to 64,600 people, Honiara is separated by high mountains from isolated villages on the southern coast, where the total population is more than 19,000.

The climate here is hot and humid all year round and people are vulnerable to cyclones, gale force winds and flooding during the wet season, as well as earthquakes and landslides due to the country’s proximity to the highly seismic Pacific Rim of Fire.

Scientists are now predicting the weather extremes that batter this rugged coast will only get worse as the nation faces the full force of climate change.

The sea level near the Solomon Islands has been rising by eight millimetres per year compared to the global average of 2.8 to 3.6 mm, according to the Pacific Climate Change Science Programme.  During the first half of this century, average annual and extreme rainfall is predicted to increase, along with the intensity of cyclones.

Climate change is the greatest challenge to sustainable development in this South Pacific nation, imperilling the food security of 85 percent of the population who depend on subsistence agriculture. In terms of development, the Solomon Islands is ranked 142 out of 187 countries by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and has the second lowest average per capita income in the Pacific region, while 23 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Residents of Weather Coast villages like Duidui, Reavu and Avuavu use the steep slopes above the coastline to cultivate crops, growing everything from taro, yams and sweet potatoes to cassava and bananas. This region receives heavy rainfall of 5,000 to 8,000 mm a year during two wet seasons, the first from January to April, the second from May to September.

Boku Joke, a climate change advisor working with the non-profit Kastom Gaden Association (KGA), told IPS that resulting floods and intense saturation of the soil has made life difficult for farmers and threatened food production.

Heavy rain also erodes soil nutrients and provides fertile ground for plant pests and diseases like chuaka, which affects taro, to thrive.

“Rain and floods and lack of crop bulking (mass cultivation and storage of different crop varieties) by local farmers have also resulted in a loss of crop diversity,” Joke said, explaining that since farmers plant just one crop, they are often left with nothing if extreme weather ruins the harvest.

Varieties of taro and yam were also lost when food gardens were abandoned and pests and diseases proliferated during the “Tensions” (1998 to 2003), a civil conflict in the Solomon Islands that left hundreds dead and 35,000 displaced when grievances among the indigenous Gwales of the main island, Guadalcanal, led them to fight the influx of numbers of migrants from Malaita, a heavily populated island to the east.

The presence of armed members of the Guadalcanal Liberation Front (GLF) on the Weather Coast forced villagers to flee into the bush for up to two years.

The government now recognises the need to focus investment on developing and supporting agricultural livelihoods to ensure a secure future for people in the region.

“Food and agricultural production has been and will continue to be the most important source of economic development and income generation as well as food security for these communities, given their geographical remoteness,” Hezekiah Valimana, chief field officer at the ministry of agriculture’s Guadalcanal office, told IPS.  Agriculture accounts for 38 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 75 percent of the labour force.

Agriculture will also be critical to enduring peace and stability in this part of the country as a history of poor access to development, basic services and income opportunities in rural and remote areas contributed to the grievances that triggered the conflict more than a decade ago.

“An increase in food and cash crop production will help to improve the livelihoods of families and provide cash incomes,” Valimana said.  Most residents here are subsistence farmers and the average cash income of households in the region can be as little as 13 dollars per month.

Valimana advocates bringing different communities together to “achieve shared goals,” stressing that collaboration on agricultural projects is “key to maintaining peace.”

In recognition of the environmental challenges ahead, the government launched its first National Climate Change Policy last year to improve the coordination of adaptation efforts by various government ministries and national institutions.

The KGA, which works alongside the ministry of agriculture, as well as the ministry of health and the ministry of environment and conservation, has made rural communities a priority, and is working to deliver new technologies to improve farm management and productivity, as well as planting materials to 25 percent of rural households in the Solomon Islands.

On the Weather Coast, KGA is collaborating with local farmer support groups to increase crop diversity, introduce climate resistant crops and promote contour farming, which involves tilling land along lines of consistent elevation on hill slopes to reduce the speed of rainwater run-off and prevent soil erosion.

“We need new or more climate resistant crops,” Alice confirmed.  “But we also need more education and training about how to cultivate bush foods such as breadfruit and nuts and preserve them for eating and selling.  At the moment, most people don’t see these as useful or commercial foods.”

Sea level rise threatens Raolo island in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
AUKI, Malaita Province, Solomon Islands, Apr 30 2013 (IPS)

The deceptively calm waters of Langa Langa Lagoon on the west coast of Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands is home to thousands of people who have lived on artificial islands for centuries. For generations the islanders in this south-west Pacific nation have employed tenacity and ingenuity to maintain their existence on these tiny low-lying man-made atolls, devoid of freshwater and arable land. But climate change is now the greatest threat to their survival.

“The seas are rough and the tides are getting higher. Sometimes the waves come right across the island during the wet season,” Alphonsus Waleronoa said on Raolo Island, which has a total area of about 100 square metres.

Waleronoa is sitting on a bench under the eaves of his traditional dwelling perched on the island’s perimeter, with two of its timber foundation poles planted in the lagoon’s waters and the other two on the island.

There are about half a dozen homes here for the five families, about 26 people, who live on Raolo which was built on a foundation of coral, stones and sand by Waleronoa’s father after a cyclone destroyed their previous home, another artificial island called Rarata, in 1945.  Further cyclones in the late 1960s prompted the small community to move temporarily to Malaita Island, but they returned over ten years ago to flee fighting during the civil war, known as the ‘Tensions’ (1998-2003).

The Solomon Islands is an archipelago of more than 900 islands east of Papua New Guinea with the majority of the population residing close to the nation’s 4,023 km of coastline. Natural disasters are a high risk especially during the wet season from November to April when tropical cyclones, tsunamis and gale force winds can generate floods and destruction.

Today climate change, the most formidable challenge to sustainable development in this Small Island Developing State (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), is increasing weather-inflicted hardship and jeopardising vulnerable coastal communities.

The sea level near the Solomon Islands has risen by 8 mm per year since 1993, compared to the global average of 2.8-3.6mm, according to the Pacific Climate Change Science Programme. The prediction is that by 2030 the sea could rise by a maximum of 15 cm, the average wind speed of cyclones could increase by up to 11 percent and associated rainfall intensity by 20 percent.

Caspar Supa, coordinator of the Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change Programme (PACC) in the country told IPS that places on the frontline were the artificial islands, low-lying atolls and the low-lying areas of larger islands where “there is low food security, lack of development, small resources and limited education about climate change.”

On Malaita Island, approximately 12,000 people live on artificial islands in Langa Langa Lagoon on the west coast and Lau Lagoon on the northeast coast. Thirteen islands can be found in Langa Langa Lagoon, which is 21 km long and a kilometre wide.

In spite of the tradition of oral history many, including Waleronoa, do not know the exact reason their ancestors created these unique environments, where communities are renowned for fishing, shipbuilding and traditional ‘shell money’ manufacture, but some believe it could have been the consequence of disagreements or estrangement from mainland villages.

Thomas Dakero’s ancestors migrated from the West Kwaio region of Malaita Island to the half-natural, half-artificial Busu Island 500 years ago. Busu, which is about a kilometre long, is home to a growing population of 300 people.

Dakero now witnesses high tides occurring almost every month when waves can flood most of the island. There is a mangrove forest on one side, which offers some protection against the sea, but this is also under threat.

“I have been telling the people not to chop down the mangroves, but we need the firewood for cooking,” Dakero said. “In the past we used the dead and dried mangrove wood, but because of population growth we now need to cut the trees.”

Daily life has many other challenges. There isn’t any natural fresh water supply on Raolo and Busu Islands and the ground is unsuitable for agriculture. Busu Islanders collect rainwater in tanks, but during the dry season they make the boat journey to the mainland several times per week to collect supplies in plastic containers.

“We want to stay on our island,” Waleronoa told IPS. “We have been fishermen for generations. We sell fish at the markets and this is the only income we have, so we would find it hard to move.”

Fishing is an important source of subsistence and cash income for many Solomon Islanders, but last year’s State of the Coral Triangle Report identified destructive fishing as an issue in Langa Langa Lagoon.

Dakero says the fisheries have been impacted by a number of local fishermen using dynamite. To try and boost their recovery, he has planted live coral in the waters surrounding Busu Island to create a fish breeding ground.

But the future for artificial islanders is uncertain. “We are trying to build the island higher and grow mangroves on one side,” Waleronoa said on Raolo Island.

Dakero is also considering increasing the height of Busu Island, but emphasised it was very expensive to buy large quantities of stone from landowners on the mainland and transport to the island.

The Malaita Provincial Government is already planning for the potential relocation of communities from two Polynesian atolls, Ontong Java and Sikaina Island, where food and water security is deteriorating.

“The first stage is that we are consulting with the affected communities about future relocation,” Augustine Faliomea, deputy provincial secretary of the Malaita Provincial Government told IPS.

“They will be able to choose where they relocate on Malaita Island. Then we will negotiate with the current landowners in those places to purchase land for resettlement.”

More than 80 percent of land in the Solomon Islands is under customary landownership, which is predicted to be a significant challenge to some climate change adaptation projects. Land has immense significance to Melanesian culture, identity and the security of livelihoods for successive generations of extended families. Therefore acquisition by non-traditional owners can be a difficult and prolonged process.

Faliomea added that the implementation of migration programmes, which still require funding, will trigger huge changes to the lives of islanders, who will have to adapt to new cultures, environments, foods and diets.