Photo retrieved from eastasiaforum.org
Climate change adaptation in the Pacific needs to be examined more carefully. While it is empirically established that those most impacted by climate change are those least responsible for causing it, far more attention on harnessing traditional knowledge for adaptation is needed. This will enable more equitable, effective and sustainable development outcomes and a greater sensitivity to matters of spirituality.
People have lived continuously on islands in the Western Pacific Ocean — far from continental shores — for more than 3000 years, surviving the effects of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and different manifestations of climate change. This did not happen by luck.
It happened because Pacific peoples evolved a comprehensive body of place-based traditional knowledge that secured their livelihoods in the face of environmental adversity. Their knowledge anticipates disaster and short-term climate variability and shows how to cope with their impacts. This knowledge also gave Pacific Island societies a high degree of resilience, something that contrasts markedly with the simplistic narratives of vulnerability that many use to characterise the region today.
Not only is it said that Pacific Island peoples are vulnerable and lack resilience but it is also said that the only way they can survive is through ‘adaptation’ to climate change, underpinned by non-place-based Western scientific understandings.