Excerpt from tvniue.com
Relocating communities is already happening in Tonga and the Solomon Islands. During the regional dialogue on Loss and Damage earlier in Samoa earlier this month, it was evident that the emotional toll of having to relocate because of the rising waters or forced displacement due to a natural disaster, communities are left with very little choice but to move. It’s been four years since the volcanic eruption in Tonga and subsequent tsunami forced displacement of communities from the outer islands to the mainland. Maikolo Fonua says there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of emotional trauma support. “Every time there is a tsunami warning like that earthquake in Europe. It triggers the memory of the tsunami so there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of the support, emotionally, mentally,” he said. “Assessing the impacts on the children, still a lot of work to be done to deal with the trauma” Maikolo Fonua says: “Some of them, they experienced shock, in terms of the changes of their livelihoods. Some of them rely on fishing for example, for their day to day subsistence but since they moved to the main island they can’t do fishing like they used to. There’s an extra cost of traveling out from the mainland to fish.” In the Solomon Islands, relocating communities is already being done because of the rising sea level however relocating entire communities is very complicated according to its National Coordinator for Loss and Damage, Derek Mane.