Category Archives: Asia Oceania

Asia Oceania

Pacific Island nations will no longer stand for Australia’s inaction on climate change

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The Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tuvalu this week has ended in open division over climate change. Australia ensured its official communique watered down commitments to respond to climate change, gaining a hollow victory.

Traditionally, communiques capture the consensus reached at the meeting. In this case, the division on display between Australia and the Pacific meant the only commitment is to commission yet another report into what action needs to be taken.

The cost of Australia’s victory is likely to be great, as it questions the sincerity of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s commitment to “step up” engagement in the Pacific.

Read more: Can Scott Morrison deliver on climate change in Tuvalu – or is his Pacific ‘step up’ doomed?

Australia’s stance on climate change has become untenable in the Pacific. The inability to meet Pacific Island expectations will erode Australia’s influence and leadership credentialsin the region, and provide opportunities for other countries to grow influence in the region.

An unprecedented show of dissent

When Morrison arrived in Tuvalu, he was met with an uncompromising mood. In fact, the text of an official communique was only finished after 12 hours of pointed negotiations.

While the “need for urgent, immediate actions on the threats and challenges of climate change”, is acknowledged, the Pacific was looking for action, not words.

Morrison was met with an uncompromising mood in by leaders in Tuvalu. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

What’s more, the document reaffirmed that “strong political leadership to advance climate change action” was needed, but leadership from Australia was sorely missing. It led Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga to note:

I think we can say we should’ve done more work for our people.

Presumably, he would have hoped Australia could be convinced to take more climate action.

In an unprecedented show of dissent, smaller Pacific Island countries produced the alternative Kainaki II Declaration. It captures the mood of the Pacific in relation to the existential threat posed by climate change, and the need to act decisively now to ensure their survival.

And it details the commitments needed to effectively address the threat of climate change. It’s clear nothing short of transformational change is needed to ensure their survival, and there is rising frustration in Australia’s repeated delays to take effective action.

Australia hasn’t endorsed the alternative declaration and Canberra has signalled once and for all that compromise on climate change is not possible. This is not what Pacific leaders hoped for and will come at a diplomatic cost to Australia.

Read more: Response to rumours of a Chinese military base in Vanuatu speaks volumes about Australian foreign policy

Canberra can’t buy off the Pacific

Conflict had already begun brewing in the lead up to the Pacific Islands Forum. The Pacific Islands Development Forum – the brainchild of the Fijian government, which sought a forum to engage with Pacific Island Nations without the influence of Australia and New Zealand – released the the Nadi Bay Declaration in July this year.

This declaration called on coal producing countries like Australia to cease all production within a decade.

But it’s clear Canberra believes compromise of this sort on climate change would undermine Australia’s economic growth and this is the key stumbling block to Australia answering its Pacific critics with action.

As Sopoaga said to Morrison:

You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia […] I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu.

And a day before the meeting, Canberra announced half a billion dollars to tackle climate change in the region. But it received a lukewarm reception from the Pacific.

The message is clear: Canberra cannot buy off the Pacific. In part, this is because Pacific Island countries have new options, especially from China, which has offered Pacific island countries concessional loans.

Read more: As Australia’s soft power in the Pacific fades, China’s voice gets louder

China is becoming an attractive alternate partner

As tension built at the Pacific Island Forum meeting, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters argued there was a double standard with respect to the treatment of China on climate change.

China is the world’s largest emitter of climate change gasses, but if there is a double standard it’s of Australia’s making.

Australia purports to be part of the Pacific family that can speak and act to protect the interests of Pacific Island countries in the face of China’s “insidious” attempts to gain influence through “debt trap” diplomacy. This is where unsustainable loans are offered with the aim of gaining political advantage.

But countering Chinese influence in the Pacific is Australia’s prime security interest, and is a secondary issue for the Pacific.

But unlike Australia, China has never claimed the moral high ground and provides an attractive alternative partner, so it will likely gain ground in the battle for influence in the Pacific.

Growing confidence among Pacific leaders has changed diplomatic dynamics forever. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Growing confidence among Pacific leaders has changed diplomatic dynamics forever. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

For the Pacific Island Forum itself, open dissent is a very un-Pacific outcome. Open dissent highlights the strains in the region’s premier intergovernmental organisation.

Australia and (to a lesser extent) New Zealand’s dominance has often been a source of criticism, but growing confidence among Pacific leaders has changed diplomatic dynamics forever.

Read more: Climate change forced these Fijian communities to move – and with 80 more at risk, here’s what they learned

This new pacific diplomacy has led Pacific leaders to more steadfastly identify their security interests. And for them, the need to respond to climate change is non-negotiable.

If winning the geopolitical contest with China in Pacific is Canberra’s priority, then far greater creativity will be needed as meeting the Pacific half way on climate change is a prerequisite for success.

Source: The Conversation

Asia Oceania

Blackbirding: legacy of anger in Solomon Islands

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There is still anger in Solomon Islands over Blackbirding, an academic says.

About 60,000 Pacific Islanders were taken from their mainly Melanesian homelands to Australia in the 1800s to work on plantations. Photo: State Library of Queensland
About 60,000 Pacific Islanders were taken from their mainly Melanesian homelands to Australia in the 1800s to work on plantations. Photo: State Library of Queensland

David Gegeo, the director of research at Solomon Islands National University, said thousands of Solomon Islanders were kidnapped and later contracted to work in Australia in the 1800s, a practice known as Blackbirding.

Its legacy includes intergenerational anger that could be relieved, if the complete history of the practise were taught in schools, Dr Gegeo said.

“There was grieving over people leaving but also there was anger when people were taken. People still talk about those stories with a certain degree of pain, anger and frustration,” he said.

“‘What did we do to deserve this? We were taken away to develop someone elses country, economy’. Yes, there is still some anger.”

From listening to oral histories, Dr Gegeo said Blackbirding had disrupted social fabric in Solomon’s villagers and caused disputes.

“For example, Fiu harbour on Malaita where I come from, after young men were taken, a chief, or what we call in Kwara’ae a fata’abu, would curse the harbour because people were kidnapped from the harbour. Anybody who was seen in the harbour, even just walking along the beach would be killed. And there were bounties,” he said.

David Gegeo
David Gegeo Photo: Solomon Islands National University

“Another impact: two friends went to the beach and one of them was taken away. The parents, or the tribal group of the kid that was taken away, would be angry and would demand compensation from his people, saying ‘it was your son who took my son to the beach that day and he was kidnapped. If it hadn’t been for his friendship with your son this would not have happened’. So sometimes compensation, killing took place because of it.”

“Also, the fact that young men who are supposed to be in the village and doing tribal responsibilities were taken away. It left a gap and women suddenly had to step into men’s roles because able bodied men were taken away.”

The school curriculum in the Solomons only focuses on the so-called benefits of Blackbirding, Dr Gegeo said, the result of history being “deemphasised” by the “colonial regime” as a means of modernising the country.

“It’s taught under Social Studies. The bit about Blackbirding is very highly selective in that it emphasised mostly what you might call the benefits of blackbirding,” he said.

“People coming back with guns and knives and axes, Solomons Pidgin and Chritianity but not the other side of it which is the suffering and the agony that Blackbirded Solomon Islanders went through.

“I believe in presenting a balanced picture of the phenomenon. Painful as it may be.”

Source: https://www.rnz.co.nz

Asia Oceania

South Pacific islanders threatened by climate change and over-fishing

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Foreign tuna-fishing vessels and a changing ocean are putting pressure on small-scale fishers

James Borton July 22, 2019

Tony Yao used to fish in his outrigger canoe in the coastal waters off Tahiti in French Polynesia. But the decline in fish populations has forced his family to move in order to find less exploited fishing grounds.

His is just one story from the South Pacific that hints at a paradise being lost. The coral and volcanic archipelagos scattered across this massive expanse of ocean face a number of threats, but climate change and overfishing are arguably the most serious. In the past decade, many small-scale fishers have done the same as Tony Yao or abandoned their traditional livelihoods altogether.

Figures from the World Bank show that nearly one-third of global fish populations are overexploited. This has been driven by the rising demand for seafood across the world, but especially in China. Dwindling catches in China’s coastal waters have seen the country’s distant-water fishing fleet travel to the farthest reaches of the Pacific. There they are targeting tuna, the region’s highest-prized species.

Map of the Pacific Islands showing Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia
Source: Congressional Record Service

The Pacific tuna fishing grounds are the largest in the world, contributing more than 60% of the global tuna catch. According to the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), almost all tuna in the region are caught in one of two ways. Those to be sold in cans are mainly caught by purse seine fishing boats targeting skipjack tuna. While longline vessels catch bigeye and yellowfin destined for high-value sashimi markets.

It’s a lucrative industry where a single tuna can net US$3 million. The fees paid by foreign vessels have also become a significant source of revenue for national governments. According to a Food and Agriculture Organization study completed in 2014, South Pacific island countries received just over US$340 million in fishing licence fees that year. At the same time, tuna remains a vital source of food and employment for local people, and many are unhappy about the increasing presence of Chinese fishing vessels.

In French Polynesia, there’s been a wave of online protests and petitionsto ban Chinese tuna fishing this year. Many accuse the Chinese of fishing illegally. There is no evidence for this and the Chinese deny it. However, they are buying up the biggest share of fishing licences, which is leaving competing fishers with less.

The Western & Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) oversees an international convention that aims to ensure rules are fair for all foreign nations operating in exclusive economic zones (EEZs) – up to 200 nautical miles off shore – of the Pacific nations as well as in the high seas (international waters) area between latitude 20N to 20S. The latest WCPFC figures show that 3,239,704 metric tonnes of tuna were caught across the Pacific in 2017. Of that, 78% (nearly 2,539,950 metric tonnes) came from the area managed by the commission.

But much of the fishing for tuna takes place in the high seas, which is largely unregulated. Despite WCPFC efforts, the management of shared stocks of highly migratory species, like tuna, often fails. The presence of extensive areas of international waters among the EEZs complicates the region’s fishery management efforts. It is here that China dominates, with more than 600 vessels out of a total of 1,300 foreign-operated ships. Their fleet is enabled by government subsidies on fuel and shipbuilding, which assist new enterprises and allow others to keep operating.

James Movick, director general of the FFA, claims that management of the high seas is the biggest single threat to the sustainability of the Pacific tuna fisheries. “When fishing in our 200-mile EEZs, they are subject to regulation and a robust fishery management regime. Outside, it is pretty much a free-for-all, and tuna do not recognise the boundaries of our EEZs,” he said.

A lack of data transparency and public reporting on fisheries compounds the problem. The Pacific Islands Tuna Industry Association in Fiji maintains a registry of all fishing vessels licensed to fish in the region. John Maefiti, an executive officer with the association, indicates that there are 627 Chinese fishing vessels registered, and the majority are longliners. But he adds: “There are some Chinese-owned vessels that fly Pacific islands flags.”

Cecile Matai, responsible for offshore, coastal and lagoon fishing licence applications in Papeete, the Tahitian capital of French Polynesia, claims: “No Chinese ship has a fishing licence, but there are Chinese ships in our ports for refuelling and obtaining supplies, or with mechanical problems which are being repaired.”

A compounded crisis

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), climate change is compounding food security issues in the Pacific islands, with harvests from fisheries expected to fall between 10-30% by 2050. Rising water temperatures, lower levels of oxygen and shifting ocean currents are already having a profound impact on the four main tuna species, as well as more generally on fish habitats, food webs, fish populations and the productivity of fisheries.

Climate change is also leading to more extreme weather in the South Pacific. The 2015-2016 tropical cyclone season was one of the most disastrous on record. Cyclone Winston, which smashed into Fiji in February 2016, was the strongest ever to make landfall in the southern hemisphere. As sea surface temperatures become warmer, hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones become more powerful.

Rising sea levels are another major issue for the region’s islands. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts global sea levels could climb by as much as 83 centimetres by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions remain high. The levels are creeping up even faster in the Pacific, where at least eight low-lying islands have been submerged in recent years.

Marine scientists are now finding links between ocean acidification and a decline in tuna populations. A new study in the journal Scienceoutlines the impacts warming waters have on commercially important fish species. Changes in the ocean temperature are affecting fragile ecosystem food webs. “While tuna spend their time in open water, tuna species as well as tuna fisheries depend on healthy coastal ecosystems such as coral reefs” claims UN Environment coral expert, Jerker Tamelander.

Over the sweep of a rich history in the South Pacific, Tony Yao and his ancestors have maintained a deep connection to the marine environment. After all, the ocean has always been the provider of life itself. Having met extraordinary challenges during their evolution, island cultures are now experiencing ones they could not have imagined, including unprecedented sea levels, storm surges from tropical cyclones, ocean warming, acidification, disappearing coral reefs, and competition from registered and unregistered fishing vessels.

Source: https://chinadialogueocean.net/

Asia Oceania

Pacific leadership on climate change is necessary and inevitable

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The office of Nei Tabera Ni Kai (NTK), a film unit based in the town of Taborio, in the small island nation of Kiribati, is a small concrete building situated two metres above sea level, 30 metres from the lagoon on one side and 45 metres from the ocean on the other. Stacked under the louvred glass windows of one of its small rooms are 200 internal hard drives taken from computers over a period of 20 years. The office has no air conditioning, and the air is salty; there are regular electricity blackouts; and higher than normal wave surges, or “king tides”, threaten the town – and the whole southern end of the atoll, South Tarawa, on which it is located – more frequently than they used to.

Once a Kiribati household name, NTK has not worked on major projects for a couple of years. One of the co-founders, John Anderson, cameraman and editor, passed away in 2016. His long-time partner, producer, manager and scriptwriter Linda Uan, has been dealing with the loss and reflecting on the best way to preserve their shared legacy.

The independent film unit documented more than two decades of culture, history, creative arts practice, development, and social, heritage and environmental issues across the islands. In the absence of a national film agency or television media, NTK managed to piece together various sources of funding to work with government and communities to produce educational documentaries, feature films and “edutainment”. Their output had a significant impact on the scattered Kiribati population – people from other islands travelled to South Tarawa by boat or canoe just to pick up the latest VHS, and later DVD, of their productions.

In March 2019, Uan attended the Maoriland Film Festival in Otaki, New Zealand. During a discussion panel, she spoke passionately about NTK’s work over the years. She ended with a humble request for assistance with archiving, taking one of those rectangular hard drives containing raw footage from her handbag and unwrapping it from a lavalava (sarong), then holding it up for the audience to see. The group of New Zealand and international filmmakers gasped at the condition of the drive, and the prospective loss of decades of visual chronicles, exposed to the elements in Kiribati.Loading

All but one of the 33 islands in Kiribati are less than two metres above sea level. Large parts of the country are expected to be under water by 2050. From 2003 to 2016 Kiribati was led by President Anote Tong, who successfully raised global awareness of the climate change threats faced by his country. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn in 2017, Kiribati was described as one of the world’s most vulnerable countries.

Annual temperatures in South Tarawa have increased by roughly 0.18 degrees Celsius per decade since 1950, according to the conference’s briefing paper. This warming, coupled with increasingly ferocious tidal storms and coastal flooding, is destroying the island’s ecosystems.

Saltwater that floods the islands from storm surges devastates land and property, polluting reservoirs that capture and filter groundwater for consumption. Salt water also jeopardises resources such as coconuts, pandanus and breadfruit, which residents rely on for food and many other household needs.

In the Kiribati population, there has been a rise in waterborne diseases, among other climate-change-induced illnesses, including cholera and dengue fever. Warming oceans, combined with increased ocean acidification, disrupts sea life, which is the cornerstone of Kiribati identity and the country’s economy. Kiribati depends almost entirely on its fishing sector for food and revenue, but the catch potential is expected to decrease by 70 per cent by the 2050s.

Kiribati is one of 48 nations in the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a partnership of countries most under threat from global warming. These include Tuvalu, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Marshall Islands.

Kiribati once chaired the forum, and under Tong was a vocal proponent for limiting the temperature rise from global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Beyond this temperature, sea levels are expected to increase to a point that would make Kiribati uninhabitable. Despite global campaigns calling for “1.5 to stay alive”, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change seeks to limit the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. This is devastating for most Pacific island countries.

Anote Tong was vocal about the need for Kiribati to face climate-induced migration “with dignity”. However, the current government, led by Taneti Mamau, rejects this vision of mass migration, instead emphasising local development. The government aims to develop and increase the land area on South Tarawa by about 100 acres, and on Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island) by 767 acres. It also owns 22 square kilometres of land on Vanua Levu in Fiji, with potential for forestry, livestock farming and other activities to shore up its food and economic security as Kiribati farmland comes under threat.

Reality too much for many to fathom

The level of carbon now in the atmosphere is more than 415 parts per million. The last time the Earth experienced these levels was during the Pliocene Epoch, between 5.3 and 2.5 million years ago. Then, global temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher, and the sea levels 25 metres higher. Pollution from climate change today is on track to push the Earth towards similar conditions. To many Australian voters, this reality is too much to fathom, presumed to be a hoax, or utterly unknown.

A sea wall in the village of Tebunginako at low tide.
A sea wall in the village of Tebunginako at low tide.CREDIT:JUSTIN MCMANUS

Prime Minister Scott Morrison might support climate adaptation and mitigation programs in the Pacific through his “Pacific step-up”, but he does not support similar domestic policies, such as increased research on climate change or the introduction of a carbon price, and Australia has no renewable energy targets beyond 2030. It is the world’s second-largest exporter of coal but faces falling demand as its biggest customers – Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan and India – all shift towards cleaner energy. Burning coal is in Australia a bit like the right to bear arms in the United States: a freedom that causes major planetary harm, but the issue is severely politicised and many are not willing to imagine a future without it.

This protection of the mining industry is not new. For more than a century Australia has had a relationship with the South Pacific region that furthered its economic interests. Australian mining companies have been present in the Pacific since the beginning of the 20th century, wreaking havoc on ancient cultures and sustainable environmental practices while extracting phosphate as quickly as possible from places such as Nauru and Kiribati.

The value of phosphate, the superphosphate fertiliser it produced, and the growth effects it had on Australian farming production and exports were massive. In 1983 a monograph produced by the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies described phosphate as “the magic dust of Australian agriculture”. In the case of Banaba, an island that forms part of Kiribati, the mining infrastructure was left to rust and decay. People there live among the asbestos-riddled rubble, in a place that looks more like a post-apocalyptic lunarscape than a Pacific paradise.

When Peter Dutton made his flippant aside in 2015 in response to a quip by Tony Abbott about how islanders are not good at keeping to time (Dutton said, “Time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door”) Tony deBrum, the former foreign minister for the Marshall Islands, posted on Twitter, “Next time waves are battering my home & my grandkids are scared, I’ll ask Peter Dutton to come over, and we’ll see if he is still laughing.”

Former minister for the environment Melissa Price’s words to Tong were also offensive. When she was introduced to him in a Canberra restaurant, it was widely reported – and verified by others in the restaurant – that she said, “I know why you’re here. It is for the cash. For the Pacific it’s always about the cash. I have my chequebook here. How much do you want?”

That kind of attitude towards Pacific island leaders needs to change. Such leaders have been criticising the production and consumption of fossil fuels and their impacts on the environment for almost 30 years. The former Nauru ambassador to the United Nations, Marlene Moses, wrote in 2016, “For the people of small islands, understanding the importance of the ocean to human survival is as natural as breathing. If the ocean is healthy, we are healthy; if the future of the ocean is uncertain, so is ours.”

The Pacific islands may be smaller states demographically and geographically, but the sea in which they sit covers one-third of the planet’s surface area. Pacific leadership on climate change is necessary and inevitable.

Knowledge a source of resilience for 2000 years

Since 1997, Nei Tabera Ni Kai has produced more than 400 films in both English and the Kiribati language focused on Kiribati knowledge, lives, issues and communities. They have documented what residents call “te katei ni Kiribati” – the Kiribati way. Their work should be stored in a well-funded archive and maintained for posterity. The name of the unit comes from a female ancestral spirit belonging to Linda Uan’s clan, responsible for women’s health and success. Climate change threatens not only the lands of families and clans such as hers, but the spiritual and cultural spheres associated with these landscapes.

The knowledge inherent in these spheres has been the source of resilience for more than 2000 years in an oceanic environment with limited land, flora and fauna, allowing islanders not only to survive but to produce complex, creative societies.

Australia is now saturated with messages about the existential threat of climate change, but the impacts will cut across all dimensions of human existence – the social, the political, the cultural, the economic, the environmental, and everything else that shapes our identities and relationships.

Climate change is here today, not just in some distant future, and Pacific Islanders who cannot always crawl into air-conditioned, climate-controlled bubbles experience its effects on a daily basis. While the people of the Pacific are resilient and have survived centuries of upheaval, climate change is already at emergency levels in the region – representing some of the first and starkest signs of the greatest ecological threat to ever face humanity.

Katerina Teaiwa is an associate professor in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University. This is an edited extract of her essay “No Distant Future: Climate Change as an Existential Threat” published in Australian Foreign Affairs 6on July 15.

Asia Oceania

MSG countries on track to Implement their regional Climate Finance Strategy

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The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat in close partnership with the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) successfully hosted a Side Event on the MSG needs-based Climate Finance Strategy 2019-2021 for the MSG members (Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) on 24 June in Bonn Germany, at the margins of UNFCCC’s 50th Sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies.

The Director General of the MSG Secretariat, Ambassador Amena Yauvoli, expressed his appreciation to the MSG members for taking ownership of the Strategy and demonstrating leadership in producing their collective needs-based Climate Finance Strategy. The Climate Finance Strategy provides a sub-regional framework for national climate finance action in Melanesia.

After showcasing the Climate Finance Strategy at the side event, the MSG countries met with the representatives of potential partner organizations and implementing agencies on 25 June to discuss the best way to collaborate and implement the MSG Climate Finance Strategy in a Dialogue with Partners.

The Dialogue focused on how the partners may support the sub-region in adopting new and innovative financing instruments for climate projects, designing a regional financing vehicle and utilising carbon finance and emissions trading, among others. The Green Climate Fund (GCF), Global Environment Facility (GEF), GIZ, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Climate Action UK were among the partners who attended the event and shared their insights on the next step forward implementing the MSG Climate Finance Strategy.

The MSG Secretariat was represented by Mr. Stanley Wapot, Program Manager of Sustainable Development. Both the Side Event and the Partners’ Dialogue were closely supported by the Climate Finance team of the UNFCCC secretariat.

The events were attended by the MSG members comprising Mr. Hudson Kauhiona, (Director Climate Change, Solomon Islands Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management & Meteorology); Mr. Vineil Narayan (Climate Finance Advisor, Fiji Ministry of Economy), Mr. Jonah Auka (Adaptation Manager and Green Climate Fund, GCF Focal Point, Climate Change and Development Authority, Papua New Guinea); Mr. Mike Waiwai (Director Climate Change, Vanuatu Ministry of Climate Change), Tony Kaltong (Vanuatu Finance Ministry) engaging with an international audience including development partners.

The Climate Finance Strategy contains 6 strategic areas and actions under each strategic area having been identified by the MSG countries and partner organizations at NBF technical workshops held in August 2018 and April 2019. These reflect the result of multiple consultations with national experts from the four MSG countries over the past year.

The next phase of the Climate Finance Strategy is to engage effectively with various Partners towards the implementation of the priority adaptation and mitigation projects for the sub-region identified by the MSG countries.

The priority areas for climate finance for the sub-region include the following:

Adaptation – food security, land degradation, forests, agriculture, fisheries and marine resources, climate resilient infrastructure, water and sanitation and health; and

Mitigation – forests, agriculture, renewable energy and energy efficiency

The MSG countries, under the leadership of the MSG Secretariat, plan to take concrete steps to implement the actions contained in the Climate Finance Strategy and report on the progress made at the 25th Conference of the Parties to UNFCCC, to be held in December 2019.

news@dailypost.vu

Source: Vanuatu daily post

Asia Oceania

SREP in Thailand March 2019 9th 3R Forum in Asia and the Pacific

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The Pacific Island countries (Kiribati, FSM, RMI, Palau, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu), the Samoa Recycling and Waste Management Association, SPREP and J-PRISM made a strong presence in the recently held 9th 3R Forum in Asia and the Pacific held from the 4th to the 6th March 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. The Pacific delegation were among the 500 participants who gathered and discussed the transition to a circular economy and sufficiency economy. This year’s theme, “3R as a Way for Moving towards Sufficiency Economy – Implications for SDGs”, is very relevant considering the global issue on plastic wastes which, if not managed well, is polluting over our valuable oceans and marine resources. The challenge now is to put the circular economy and sufficiency economy philosophies in the Pacific context.

The PICs reported the developments on the implementation of the Hanoi 3R Declaration and made a strong impact on initiatives such as the Container Deposit legislations and banning single-use Plastic Products which have yet to be considered in bigger counterparts in the Asian region.

SPREP’s Waste Management and Pollution Control Programme Director, Dr. Vicki Hall, and JICA’s Global Environment Department’s Director overseeing the J-PRISM Project, Mr. Mimpei Ito, acted as resource persons in some of the plenary sessions. The PICs and our recyclers also had the opportunity to network with waste-related businesses across Asia and explored and assessed relevant technologies working well in our Asian counterparts during a roundtable dialogue to advance 3R through Public Private Partnerships in both regions.

For more information, please visit http://www.uncrd.or.jp/?page=view&nr=1174&type=13&menu=198

#JPRISM #CleanerPacific #SPREP #3R

Source: Facebook.com

Asia Oceania

The Pacific Island Food Revolution

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By Tony & Elaine Wilson – The Vanuatu Independent

PEOPLE of the Pacific need to get ready to dramatically change their eating habits because the food revolution is coming soon to a screen near them.

The region’s first genuine reality TV show will not only entertain you but it packs an ultra-serious three course punch that will not only change many lives for the better but will even save some as well.

Intrigued?

Well this worthy series, which is the brainchild of NZ celebrity chef Robert Oliver, is a cross between the highly successful reality shows My Kitchen Rules (MKR) and Masterchef – wrapped up in a smorgasbord of Pacific tastes.

He told The Vanuatu Independent Online news this week that the overriding concept of the show goes back to his first cookbook which was released in 2014.

“I really looked hard at what local cuisine meant in the Pacific, what it consisted of and how it was more than just sitting down and eating, but was a part of the lives of the Pacific islanders,” he said.

“Along the way I saw how bad NCDs had become throughout the Pacific, and in particular diabetes which is a real scourge of the region, and I thought we could do something about it.

“I was not a big fan of reality TV until I was a judge on MKR and then I realized just how potent it is.

“So the Pacific Island Food Revolution is aimed at being a real movement, a social movement using the power of reality TV, radio and social media to change people’s eating behaviour.

“The Revolution will activate local cuisine knowledge and turn a mirror on the Pacific itself that reveals that eating fresh, local, indigenous foods is the answer to good health.’’

Mr Oliver said the show covers four countries – Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa – in 12 one-hour episodes.

“The reality TV program is like My Kitchen Rules but kinder and filled with Pacific heritage and humour,” he said.

“The challenges in the TV competition will look to provide solutions that people have identified as barriers to healthy eating such as convenience, taste and affordability.

“People can become Food Warriors on social media or at www.pacificislandfoodrevolution.com. There they can share their journeys and download toolkits, lesson plans for teachers and Pacific classrooms.’’

Chef Oliver said 24 talented but untrained cooks, working in pairs, from Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa will compete in the TV competition, which he hosts.

“The show will see the cooks embrace their Pacific food heritage and use local produce to create traditional or new flavoured dishes, while competing to win,” he said.

TV hosts of the Pacific Island Food Revolution, Dr Jone Hawea (Fiji), Fololeni Curr (Tonga), Robert Oliver, Pita Taufatofua (UNICEF), Dora Rossi (Samoa), Voutausi Mackenzie-Reur (Vanuatu).
TV hosts of the Pacific Island Food Revolution, Dr Jone Hawea (Fiji), Fololeni Curr (Tonga), Robert Oliver, Pita Taufatofua (UNICEF), Dora Rossi (Samoa), Voutausi Mackenzie-Reur (Vanuatu).

Two Tongans, Fololeni Curr, and UNICEF Pacific Ambassador Pita Taufatofua, will be Robert’s co-hosts for some episodes of the show, along with Dr Jone Hawea from Fiji, Dora Rossi from Samoa, and Voutausi Mackenzie-Reur from Vanuatu.

Two winners will be taken from each episode through to the finals in Fiji.

“The entire show will be broadcast in Australia, New Zealand and throughout the Pacific for free, starting April,’’ he said.

He said it is funded jointly by the Australian and New Zealand Governments, with the pilot program costing AUD$7 million.

It was filmed last year and Robert said they are already working on a second series.

Voutausi Mackenzie-Reur and Robert Oliver.
Voutausi Mackenzie-Reur and Robert Oliver.

Vanuatu’s two episodes were filmed at Breakas Resort near Port Vila with Voutausi as co-host.

“She is really remarkable – she delivered such knowledge and is really dynamic on screen.

“She is going to be a superstar, she is so authoritative,’’ he said.

Voutausi Mackenzie-Reur is the perfect co-host for the Revolution in Vanuatu because, through her own food company, Lapida Foods, she had been preaching the same message for many years.

“It was a lot of fun for me to do the show, but it also has an important message to sell,” she said.

“We need to reactivate the younger generation so they learn the right types of food that they should be preparing and eating.

“We want them talking to their grandparents and that generation about how they use local products to create a balanced diet that is healthy but good to eat.”

Voutausi said it is important that the contestants on the show are not professional chefs, but home cooks.

“It showed what could be done with the right ingredients and some knowledge.

“I really believe that a show like this can change the lives of whole communities for the better.”

She said she was going to be a part of the second series and hoped the show would run for at least three or four series.

“It is lots of fun to be involved, you learn about your own food styles and it has a really important message.”


Asia Oceania

5,000 expected for Solomons blackbirding anniversary

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Descendants of a Malaitan man captured during the blackbirding era are preparing to welcome his Australian family members to Solomon Islands for the 150th anniversary of his capture.

John Kwailiu Fatanowna was taken from the Rakwane tribe of the Fataleka region of east Malaita to work on a sugar plantation in Queensland.

The president of the organising committee says for many of the 60 members of that branch of the family coming from Mackay at the end of the month it is the first time they have left Australia.

Enoch Mani Ilisia says local Rakwane people have been busy over the past few months putting in a new water supply, building toilets, houses and ensuring there are enough swamp taro, potatoes and cassava to feed everyone.

He told Annell Husband there will be more than 5,000 people taking part in the two-day commemoration, with presentations and opportunities to hear the chiefs tell the tribe’s history.

ENOCH MANI ILISIA: Unlike today, when we keep our documents and information in computer hard drives and whatever, back home they’ve stored it in the human brain. The chiefs there are very good at recollecting past information by word of mouth. And it’s kept only with the first borns. And the first borns are the ones who have the right to store that information and pass it orally. Due to instances we come across where people try to steal information and pass on information that is confidential to the community.

ANNELL HUSBAND: And that oral tradition, is that still alive and well, that’s still going well?

AH: That’s right. We have in our village [Indistinct]. It’s simply a house that all the men go to. The ladies are not allowed to go there. And even strangers, too, because in there, that’s where all the confidential information is passed on from our chiefs, our first borns, to the general tribesmen and the younger men, as well.

EML: I guess it could bring up a lot of emotion for people, coming together like this?

AH: A few weeks ago one of the tribal members came over from Mackay. He met with us, the committee members, in preparation for the grand event. We met and we exchanged money. It’s a moving event. [Indistinct] I was there with him. They embraced each other for a long time. It was a very moving experience.

Source: RNZ