Indigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate Change by Jenny Bryant-Tokalau

Author:Jenny Bryant-Tokalau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The Future

The cases of land construction , relocation and environmental management outlined here remind us there are many adaptive approaches to facing the impending scenario of rising sea levels . Climate change is already bringing more devastating storms, inundation and consequences for agriculture and fisheries, water supply and the potential loss of land and even entire countries. Although such a future is now known (no matter that some of the visual portrayals are exaggerated), the real questions remain: should we stay or should we go? And if we stay, where and how should we live? If we go, will the future location be suitable, and what will be the impact on moving population and the hosts? Whatever the future holds for the Republic of Kiribati and others, it is important people are treated with respect, and involved in future decision-making, so they are not solely viewed as ‘refugees or drowning islanders’.94

Some of the case studies detailed here involve technological solutions of modern, futuristic artificial islands , which will not only be extremely costly, but which appear to take little account of how people live currently, or their own knowledge of the sea and surrounding environment. Importantly they pay no heed to people’s own technological solutions, their own ‘adaptive strategies’ also outlined, such as food preservation, artificial islands and areas of reclamations, which have existed for centuries. Additionally, recognition of current technical traditional knowledge on the state of reefs, how rapidly they grow, and can be sustainably managed, can usefully inform people that there are other options and places where people can go so that they do not have to abandon ancestral lands and surrounding sea. Instead, ‘the only adaptation option of relocation ’95 is now being presented as one of the key ‘solutions’ for Kiribati and other countries. The purchase of Fiji land has many negative aspects and far from being the ‘saviour’ of Kiribati may well turn out to have implications not only for the Kiribati people themselves, but also for their hosts, unless cultural traditions can be retained thus enhancing resilience of the communities.

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