Climate Adaptation from the Pacific Islands’ Climate Change Experience

The research paper “Lessons from the Pacific Islands—Adapting to Climate Change by Supporting Social and Ecological Resilience” examines the ecosystem-based adaptation strategies the Pacific Islands are using to build resilience in the face of climate change.

The paper, published by Frontiers Media on 18 June 2019, describes the challenges and vulnerability of the Pacific Islands to climate change impacts.

Because of their location, the islands are ideal “hubs of innovations” for piloting and testing adaptation strategies. The paper says the results can then be used for climate adaptation in other parts of the world.

It reveals that the Pacific Islands are facing increasing droughts and water scarcity, and some of their traditions and practices are unsustainable. Examples of these unsustainable and destructive practices are overfishing, pollution, overpopulation, mining, and overuse of natural resources.

The paper states that the locals have their own way of adapting to climate change and can differ from Western knowledge and science. Their ways of adaptation—the use of traditional methods and knowledge—can sometimes be neglected or unappreciated by the global community partly because of the bias towards Western technology and science over other methods, as cited in the paper.

However, adaptation measures can still fall short when compared to the magnitude of climate change. Because of this, some trade-offs are needed, with migration as the very last option to be considered, according to the report.

The paper focuses on Ecosystem-based Adaptation, or EBA, as a ‘sustainable climate solution and reinforcing the critical role of ecosystems in climate adaptation’ in the Pacific Islands.

The research highlights the following ecosystem-based adaptation that Pacific islanders are doing with a brief description:

Revitalizing Traditional wells

Because most Pacific islanders live along the coastlines, their freshwater sources from streams, water tanks, and aquifers are threatened by coastal flooding. They need a strategy to protect and preserve their water source from pollution and threats of saltwater intrusion. How they do this is stated in this report.

Implementing Climate-Smart Agriculture

This means managing their farms, livestock, forests, and fish in a sustainable way that increases food production and improves their livelihoods. The traditional ways of farming and fishing were replaced by new farming practices that provide them with more food security, protect the marine ecosystem, and boost their livelihoods.

Relying heavily on fishing as the main source of food and income has been the local tradition, but there is now a transition to planting gardens and raising crops for more sustainable food production and implementing low-aquaculture projects to protect their marine ecosystem.

Implementation of Protected Areas

One of the municipalities in Micronesia, called Tamil, has experienced flooding, saltwater intrusions, drought, and erosion due to climate change. To make matters worse, it is highly dependent on its watershed, has poor water management, and lacks other water sources.

Because of these problems, the community declared its first Watershed Protected Area in 2017. Protecting the watershed will provide the community with a reliable source of freshwater and make it more resilient against climate change impacts. To know more about this, read the paper.

Climate-smart development plans

In Melekeok State, on the main island of Palau, most homes and infrastructure, such as schools and the capitol building, are located along the coast, making it vulnerable to flooding and erosion. The Palau government developed a national climate change policy that ‘identifies the need for building ecosystem and community resilience’.

The Melekeok community developed a climate-smart guidance document. This document provides guidance for updating their current infrastructure, among other things, to make it resilient to climate change impacts. The report provides more details on this.

Challenges to Implementing Adaptation Strategies

According to the report, these are the challenges that pacific islanders are facing as they apply climate adaptation strategies:

               The remoteness of the Islands includes challenges to accessing materials, the high cost of transportation, and the distance from markets. However, these obstacles can also lead islanders to be more creative and innovative. Read the paper to learn more about this.

                There is a lack of technical and financial capacity. This includes financial and project management, climate modelling and spatial analysis, and infrastructure management and maintenance. Also, the Islands experience a high turnover of their talented youths and locals, who usually go abroad to seek better opportunities. This deprives the islands of the necessary skills and technical capacity that they would otherwise need. Lack of financial resources also means that instruments and equipment needed for regulations and enforcement cannot be obtained immediately unless there is funding available.

                Governance. Islanders follow traditional or tribal governance systems, which are mostly incompatible with the Western style of governance. For example, western international funding organisations usually require strict contract-based agreements like land transfers because local procedures sometimes differ from the Western way of doing things, which poses a challenge or difficulty. Pacific Island communities are doing something to bridge this gap and make funding easier to access, as explained in the report.

                Measuring impacts. Many Pacific islands have small populations and land masses, and they are reliant on their ecosystems for their food, livelihood, and traditions. Adapting to climate change really impacts their well-being and ecosystems. According to the paper, what the local government and their community are doing with the support of international funding organisations has also inspired other small island states to do the same.

What the research paper recommends

For the Pacific Islands, ecosystem-based adaptations to continue and be efficient require funding and supporting government policies. They also need regular evaluation and refinement to ensure that they continue to address local needs. Traditional ways and methods of adaptation should be acknowledged while innovations and new ways of doing things are introduced.

Strengthening and supporting the establishment of protected areas for water sources and marine ecosystems and adaptation projects is also necessary. Climate change must be incorporated into government policies and plans, ‘revising it over time to address changing conditions’.

These climate adaptation efforts do not stop here, as there is still more work to be done. To learn more about what the Pacific Island community and government need to do and how international funding institutions can support and enable them, we encourage you to read this paper.