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© 2025 Island Innovation. All rights reserved.

    News

    Curated stories and analysis from islands and sustainability leaders worldwide.

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    Showing 9 of 254 news items in Policy & Governance
    Small Islands, Big Challenges: SIDS Rally for Stronger Chemicals and Waste Management
    Policy & GovernanceMay 19, 2025

    Small Islands, Big Challenges: SIDS Rally for Stronger Chemicals and Waste Management

    Over 50 representatives from Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are gathering at the Palais des Nations in Geneva for the first in-person ISLANDS Forum to strengthen sound management of chemicals and waste in these uniquely vulnerable nations. In the wake of the 2025 Meetings of the Conferences of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (2025 BRS COPs), the two-day forum opens dedicated space for SIDS-to-SIDS exchange. It will showcase emerging solutions and demonstrated strategies for targeted action on chemicals and waste. “Small island states are on the frontline of pollution and waste challenges — and they are also leading the charge in innovation,” said Anil Sookdeo, Chemicals and Waste Focal Area Coordinator at the Global Environment Facility (GEF). “Through ISLANDS, we are fostering SIDS-to-SIDS cooperation, building lasting capacity, scaling solutions, and ensuring that the knowledge created today drives sustainable progress for years to come.” The ISLANDS Forum will focus on priority areas crucial to SIDS: stronger policies, technical solutions, public-private partnerships and sustainable financing. Experts will share best practices for managing e-waste and end-of-life vehicles (ELVs), controlling hazardous waste flows, and attracting private investment for long-term waste management solutions.

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    After an historic election, now an historic opportunity to host COP31 for Australia and the Pacific
    Policy & GovernanceMay 13, 2025

    After an historic election, now an historic opportunity to host COP31 for Australia and the Pacific

    Photo credit: Image from [The Fifth Estate](https://i0.wp.com/thefifthestate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/cop29.jpg?resize=780%2C514&ssl=1) Australia’s federal election has delivered momentum, not just at home, but for global leadership – as the Bonn Climate Conference and the crucial COP31 host decision draws near. Adelaide is on the cusp of something historic. If Australia secures the bid to host the conference, the prime minister has backed it to host the summit. That means South Australia has an Australian first opportunity to welcome the world to its capital and showcase its leadership in renewable energy and climate innovation, alongside Pacific nations.

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    Caribbean Nations need funding to recover after disasters, but where is it?!
    Policy & GovernanceMay 6, 2025

    Caribbean Nations need funding to recover after disasters, but where is it?!

    Whitney Mélinard remembers when Hurricane Maria’s winds tore through Dominica in 2017. As lightning flashed outside her window, she realized the neighboring house had completely vanished. “I questioned, was the house there? Was it further behind? There was not a structure. There was nothing,” she recounts. “I remember seeing the door of our kitchen being flown off and then minutes later the roof peeled away,” she recalls. Whitney and her mother huddled together in their bathroom, with a basin over Whitney’s head for protection. When the eye of the storm brought temporary calm, they ran barefoot to a neighbour’s house, searching for shelter as her home lay in ruins behind her. The Caribbean’s Shared Reality Her story is far from unique. Across the Caribbean, people grapple with the immediate effects of climate disasters and the struggle that follows when recovery funds fall short or financial systems fail to deliver when needed most. In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, lawyer and founder of Equal Rights, Access and Opportunities SVG Inc., Jeshua Bardoo, has witnessed a similar pattern of inadequate recovery, most recently after Hurricane Beryl in 2024 and the La Soufrière volcanic eruption in 2021.

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    Caribbean Island Leaders Blast Dutch Politician’s “Colonial” Vision
    Policy & GovernanceMay 6, 2025

    Caribbean Island Leaders Blast Dutch Politician’s “Colonial” Vision

    PHILIPSBURG–Prime Minister Dr. Luc Mercelina and Nation Opportunity Wealth (NOW) Member of Parliament (MP) Lyndon Lewis have issued scathing rebukes of recent remarks by Dutch far-right MP Thierry Baudet, calling his statements “racist,” “colonial,” and a direct threat to the island’s dignity and sovereignty. Baudet, leader of the Forum for Democracy (FvD), suggested during a Parliamentary Committee for Kingdom Relations meeting that St. Maarten should be “repopulated” with 300,000 to 500,000 Dutch nationals to bring the island “completely under control.” He compared the vision to Dubai or Hong Kong, and advocated turning the Dutch Caribbean into a tax haven, while also proposing that Saba be used as a holding station for asylum-seekers. Mercelina called the remarks “dangerously racist and deeply disrespectful.” “St Maarten is not a commodity to be traded, nor a territory to be reclaimed by relics of a colonial past. We are not the backdrop for someone else’s ambition. We are a proud, self-determined people – anchored in our heritage, alive in our culture, and empowered by our own voice,” he said in a press release. He warned that Baudet’s rhetoric undermines the democratic foundations of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “This kind of colonial fantasy belongs in the darkest chapters of our shared history, not in the democratic chambers of the 21st century. If the Kingdom is to thrive, it must be built on the foundations of mutual respect, dignity, and genuine partnership, not domination, exploitation, or racial superiority,” Mercelina said.

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    French President Macron announces €3 billion plan to ‘rebuild’ cyclone-hit Mayotte
    Policy & GovernanceMay 1, 2025

    French President Macron announces €3 billion plan to ‘rebuild’ cyclone-hit Mayotte

    Photo: © Mayotte Civil Security / EFE/EPA – Editorial use only, no sales. French President Emmanuel Macron announced a three-billion-euro package over six years to finance a plan to “rebuild” Mayotte, France’s poorest department, which was devastated by a cyclone in December. The most destructive cyclone to hit the Indian Ocean archipelago in 90 years caused colossal damage in mid-December, killing 40 people and causing 3.5 billion euros ($4 billion) in damage. Four months after the disaster, Macron visited Mayotte to “take stock of what is being done well, what is not being done well enough”, he said as he got off the plane. He was accompanied by his wife Brigitte, and the ministers of overseas territories, agriculture and health.

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    Tiwi Islanders eager to have their say in the federal election
    Policy & GovernanceMay 1, 2025

    Tiwi Islanders eager to have their say in the federal election

    **Photo:** [ABC News](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-22/early-voting-starts-in-remote-communities-tiwi-islands-aec/105201318): Isabella Tolhurst It’s approaching 35 degrees on Tuesday morning in Pirlangimpi on Melville Island, north of Darwin, as people begin to wander down to the local council building. A line winds out the door, and Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) staff offer instructions as they pass out ballot papers. It’s the first day of early voting for the federal election, and this small, remote community on the Tiwi Islands is the AEC’s first stop. Home to about 250 registered voters, Pirlangimpi is one of the northernmost communities in the massive Northern Territory electorate of Lingiari. The seat is currently held by Labor’s Marion Scrymgour, but it is expected to go to a close race this election with Country Liberal Party (CLP) candidate Lisa Siebert looking to clinch it for her party for the first time.

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    Two centuries later: the economic impact of Haiti’s historical debt burden
    Policy & GovernanceMay 1, 2025

    Two centuries later: the economic impact of Haiti’s historical debt burden

    On April 17, 1825, twenty years after the independence of its former colony, France demanded that Haiti pay 150 million gold francs. A debt that many researchers now describe as a “ransom.” A debt that plunged the newly formed country into an unprecedented economic crisis. A debt that still affects Haiti 200 years later. “It’s either sign or war.” In April 1825, a royal mission led by Baron de Mackau came to demand 150 million gold francs from Haiti, which had been independent for 20 years. A sum “accepted by the Haitian government” according to the Journal du Commerce published on September 3, 1825. “There had already been ten years of negotiations before this. Since the Restoration of the monarchy in France in 1814, there was a desire to reestablish control over the island,” explains Mathilde Ackermann, a doctoral researcher on postcolonial relations between France and Haiti at EHESS, the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences. An Indemnity for Independence What Mathilde Ackermann calls an “indemnity” but which Haitian academic Jean-Marie Théodat describes as a “ransom” would amount to 150 million gold francs. “Haiti accepted because it wasn’t recognised worldwide,” continues Mathilde Ackermann. “England didn’t want to trade with Haiti, neither did the United States, which prevented Haitian diplomatic development.”

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    More housing coming to Mallorca
    Policy & GovernanceApril 23, 2025

    More housing coming to Mallorca

    **In a major move to address housing shortages, opposition parties in the Balearic Islands have agreed to support a bill allowing the reclassification of rural land for residential development.** The agreement, finalised by conservative and ultra-conservative groups, has been validated in Parliament and refined through amendments. The bill permits transitional rural land in towns with over 20,000 residents to be reclassified as urbanisable for housing projects. In Mallorca, seven municipalities qualify: Palma, Calvià, Marratxí, Llucmajor, Alcúdia, Inca, and Manacor. Local councils will decide on what land will be set aside for development through plenary agreements, giving them control over the process. As well, the bill expands construction possibilities on already developable land to all Balearic municipalities with populations exceeding 10,000. In Mallorca, this includes 17 towns: Palma, Alcúdia, Andratx, Calvià, Campos, Capdepera, Felanitx, Inca, Llucmajor, Manacor, Marratxí, Sa Pobla, Pollença, Santa Margalida, Santanyí, Sóller, and Son Servera.

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    Geopolitics of islands: The importance of Tiran and Sanafir
    Policy & GovernanceApril 23, 2025

    Geopolitics of islands: The importance of Tiran and Sanafir

    The islands of Tiran and Sanafir, at the center of historical disputes, remain strategic for trade and security in the Red Sea today, as well as a symbol of new regional balances. Long a subject of contention between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Tiran and Sanafir islands have significant geopolitical importance for many countries in the region. Geographically, their location is strategic: they lie at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, a crucial passage connecting the ports of Eilat, Israel, and Aqaba, Jordan, to the Red Sea. Thus, one can already understand their importance for the first two parties: for the Jordanian kingdom, in fact, Aqaba is the only port it owns, the country being largely landlocked; for Israel, on the other hand, control of the islands has been of strategic importance, especially during the conflicts with the Arab states. However, the signing of peace agreements with Egypt and the subsequent beginning normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia transformed the area into one surrounded by countries now considered allies or at least not hostile.

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