RNZ Pacific

The United Nations climate change summit COP29 has “once again ignored” the Pacific Islands, a group of regional climate advocacy organisations say.

The Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) said today that “the richest nations turned their backs on their legal and moral obligations” as the UN meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, fell short of expectations.

“This COP was framed as the ‘finance COP’, a critical moment to address the glaring gaps in climate finance and advance other key agenda items,” the group said.

• READ MORE: COP29: Carbon credit trading scheme criticised as ‘get out of jail free card’
• Fractious COP29 lands $300bn climate finance goal, dashing hopes of the poorest
• Other COP29 climate crisis reports

“However, not only did COP29 fail to deliver adequate finance, but progress also stalled on crucial issues like fossil fuel phase-out, Loss and Damage, and the Just Transition Work Plan.

“The outcomes represent a catastrophic failure to meet the scale of the crisis, leaving vulnerable nations to face escalating risks with little support.”

The UN meeting concluded with a new climate finance goal, with rich nations pledging a US$300 billion annual target by 2035 to the global fight against climate change.

The figure was well short of what developing nations were asking for — more than US$1 trillion in assistance.

‘Failure of leadership’
Campaigners and non-governmental organisations called it a “betrayal” and “a shameful failure of leadership”, forcing climate vulnerable nations, such as the Pacific Islands, “to accept a token financial pledge to prevent the collapse of negotiations”.

PICAN said the pledged finance relied “heavily on loans rather than grants, pushing developing nations further into debt”.

“Worse, this figure represents little more than the long-promised $100 billion target adjusted for inflation. It does not address the growing costs of adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage faced by vulnerable nations.

“In fact, it explicitly ignores any substantive decision to include loss and damage just acknowledging it.”

Vanuatu Climate Action Network coordinator Trevor Williams said developed nations systematically dismantled the principles of equity enshrined in the Paris Agreement at COP29.

“Their unwillingness to contribute sufficient finance, phase out fossil fuels, or strengthen their NDCs demonstrates a deliberate attempt to evade responsibility. COP29 has taught us that if optionality exists, developed countries will exploit it to stall progress.”

Kiribati Climate Action Network’s Robert Karoro said the Baku COP was a failure on every front.

‘No meaningful phase out of fossil fuels’
“Finance fell far short, Loss and Damage was weakened, and there was no meaningful commitment to phasing out fossil fuels,” he said.

“Our communities cannot wait for empty promises to materialise-we need action that addresses the root causes of the crisis and supports our survival.”

Tuvalu Climate Action Network’s executive director Richard Gokrun said the “outcome is personal”.

“Every fraction of a degree in warming translates into lost lives, cultures and homelands. Yet, the calls of the Pacific and other vulnerable nations were silenced in Baku,” he said.

“From the weakened Loss and Damage fund to the rollback on Just Transition principles, this COP has failed to deliver justice on any front.”

PICAN’s regional director Rufino Varea described the outcome of the meeting as “a death sentence for millions”.

He said the Pacific Islands have been clear that climate finance must be grants-based and responsive to the needs of frontline communities.

“Instead, developed countries are handing us debt while dismantling the principles of equity and justice that the Paris Agreement was built on. This is a betrayal, plain and simple.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A new carbon credit trading deal reached in the final hours of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, has been criticised as a free pass for countries to slack off on efforts to reduce emissions at home.

The deal, sealed at the annual UN climate talks nearly a decade after it was first put forward, will allow countries to buy carbon credits from others to bring down their own balance sheet.

New Zealand had set its targets under the Paris Agreement on the assumption that it would be able to meet some of it through international cooperation — “so getting this up and running is really important”, Compass Climate head Christina Hood said.

• READ MORE: Fractious COP29 lands $300bn climate finance goal, dashing hopes of the poorest
• Other COP29 climate crisis reports

“It’s a tool, it’s neither good nor bad, but there’s going to have to be a lot of scrutiny on whether the government is taking a high-ambition, high-integrity path, or just trying to do the minimum possible.”

The plan had taken nine years to go through because countries determined to do it right had been holding out for a process with the right checks and balances in place, she said.

As it stood, countries would have to report yearly to the UN on their trading activities, but it was up to society and other countries to scrutinise behaviour.

Cindy Baxter, a COP veteran who has been at all but seven of the conferences, said it was in-line with the way Aotearoa New Zealand wanted to go about reducing its emissions.

‘We’re not alone, but . . .’
“We’re not alone, Switzerland is similar and Japan as well, but certainly New Zealand is aiming to meet by far the largest proportion of our climate target, [out of] anywhere in the OECD, through carbon trading.”

The new scheme fell under Article six of the Paris Agreement, and a statement from COP29 said it was expected to reduce the cost of implementing countries’ national climate plans by up to US$250 billion (NZ$428.5b) per year.

COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev said “climate change is a transnational challenge and Article six will enable transnational solutions. Because the atmosphere does not care where emissions savings are made.”

But Baxter said there was not enough transparency in the scheme, and plenty of loopholes. One of the issues was ensuring projects resulting in carbon credits continued to reduce emissions after the credits were traded.

“For example, if you’re trying to save some mangroves in Fiji, you give Fiji a whole bunch of money and say this is going to offset this amount of carbon, but what if those mangroves are destroyed by a drought, or a great big cyclone?”

Countries should be cutting emissions at home, she said.

“And that is something New Zealand is not very good at doing, has a really bad reputation for doing. We’ve either planted trees, or now we’re trying to throw money at offset.”

Greenpeace spokesperson Amanda Larsson said she, too, was concerned it would take the onus off big polluters to make reductions at home, calling it a “get out of jail free card”.

‘Lot of junk credits’
“Ultimately, we really need to see significant cuts in climate pollution,” she said. “And there’s no such thing as high-integrity voluntary carbon markets, and a history of a lot of junk credits being sold.”

Countries with the means to make meaningful change at home should not be relying on other countries stepping up, she said

The Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said there was strong potential in the proposal, but it was “imperative to ensure the framework is robust, and protects the rights of indigenous peoples at the same time as incentivising carbon sequestration”.

It should be a wake-up call to change New Zealand’s over-reliance on risky pine plantations and instead support permanent native afforestation, he said.

“This proposal emphasises how solving the climate crisis requires global collaboration on the most difficult issues. That requires building trust and confidence, by meeting commitments countries make to each other.

“Backing out of these by, for instance, restarting oil and gas exploration directly against the wishes of our Pacific relatives, is not the way do to that.”

Conference overall ‘disappointing and frustrating’
Baxter said it had been “very difficult being forced to have another COP in a petro-state”, where the host state did not have much to gain by making big progress.

“What that means is that there is not that impetus to bang heads together and get really strong agreement,” she said.

But the blame could not be placed entirely on the leadership.

“The COP process is set up to work if governments bring their A-games, and they don’t,” she said.

“People should be bringing their really strong new climate targets [and] very few are doing that.”

Another deal was clinched in overtime of the two-week conference, promising US$300 billion (NZ$514 billion) each year by 2035 for developing nations to tackle climate emissions.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Matthew Scott

The beach is vanishing, one day at a time. The sea approaches the coastal village. It will not be negotiated with.

With seawater flooding the water table, crops that have fed the islanders for centuries are losing viability. The problem is invisible, under the people’s feet. But it demands change.

Each year, the cyclones have seemed to get more volatile and less predictable. What used to be a cycle of weathering the storm and rebuilding has become a frenetic game of wits with the elements.

• READ MORE: Other Asia Pacific Report articles on climate change policy

In 2012, 3.8 percent of the total GDP of the Pacific Islands region was spent on the rebuilding efforts needed after natural disasters.

In 2016, that number had risen to 15.6 percent.

The effects of climate change are increasing the volatility and unpredictability of tropical cyclones in the Pacific.

That number has nowhere to go but up.

This story is playing out all over the Pacific, where economically vulnerable nations are some of the first to become victims to the encroaching climate crisis. Countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu, which have contributed least to the carbon emissions driving climate change, are on the brink of becoming its first casualties.

With millions of lives in the balance, this is a moral issue. New Zealand has responded according to its conscience.

Or at least it appears so.

The New Zealand Aid Programme sends 70.7 percent of its aid to countries in the Pacific. This is a higher proportion of our foreign aid budget than any other country. As such, New Zealand is inextricably entwined with funding and encouraging processes of climate adaptation and mitigation in the region.

However, recent findings from the studies of Professor Patrick D Nunn from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, suggest that the most common forms of climate aid to Pacific nations breed economic dependency and fail to help them create a sustainable and self-reliant future.

On the surface, New Zealand’s climate aid policies seem like a life preserver to its drowning neighbours. But when the programme is considered in the long-view, does that life preserver come with a dog collar?

Ruined sea walls line the beaches of the South Pacific, a visual reminder to the people of the islands that the promise of help is sometimes broken.

Why should NZ help?
New Zealand has long played a custodial role in the Pacific. A shared colonial history and geographical location has created a familial bond between New Zealand and countries like the Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga.

Employment opportunities stimulated immigration to New Zealand after World War Two, when the NZ government opened its doors to the Pacific to fill labour shortages. Soon, the industrial areas of New Zealand cities were centres of the Pacific diaspora.

Nowadays Auckland is the biggest Pasifika city in the world.

But there was always a two-faced element to New Zealand’s treatment of the Pacific. It welcomed Pacific people in on the one hand, but then punished them and sent them away with the other.

Norman Kirk’s government introduced the Dawn Raids in 1973, when crack police squads stormed homes and workplaces looking for overstayers – countless migrants from the Pacific were separated from their families, lives and livelihoods.

Between 2015 and 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade provided $200 million in climate aid to the Pacific.

Does the same flavour of double-dealing hang over New Zealand’s climate aid programme?

“People argue that aid is buying influence,” says Professor Patrick D Nunn. “I don’t think they are far off the mark.”

New Zealand’s motivations for climate aid in the Pacific are murky when the communication within the government bodies responsible is studied.

“The region is also that part of the world where our foreign policy ‘brand’ as a constructive and principled state must most obviously play out,” wrote NZ’s Ministry of Foreign  Affairs and Trade (MFAT) in its October 2017 Briefing to an Incoming Minister.

This suggests an ulterior motive to the helping hand. The MFAT website says that strengthening New Zealand’s national “brand” is in order to promote New Zealand as a “safe, sustainable and stable location to operate a business and to invest”.

So New Zealand may have self-interest at the heart of its movements in the Pacific. As a capitalist nation holding its breath through a decades-long wave of neoliberalism, this is no surprise.

Where is the money going?
But that doesn’t mean that New Zealand’s climate aid in the Pacific cannot have altruistic effects. Surely it is the outcome rather than the intention that ultimately matters.

However, it is still necessary examine where New Zealand’s money is going.

A 2020 study from Professor Nunn and a group of other academics casts doubt on whether current modes of climate adaptation can effectively promote long-term solutions for the islands.

“It’s unhelpful in the sense that it’s implicitly encouraged that Pacific Island countries don’t build their own culturally-based resilience,” Professor Nunn says. “It’s encouraged that they adopt global solutions that aren’t readily transferable to a Pacific Island context.”

One of the more visible examples is the ubiquitous sea wall. Sea walls protect coastal communities from rising sea levels throughout New Zealand, so it seems obvious that they could do the same job for Pacific neighbours.

But New Zealand invests in building its walls to stand for the long-term, and the country has access to the capital and human resources needed to maintain them.

This is not always the case in the developing countries of the South Pacific.

“Usually there’s not enough data to inform the optimal design of sea walls,” says Professor Nunn. “So the sea wall collapses after two years. Then the community struggles to find funds to fix it because they are not part of the cash economy.”

Professor Nunn blames this recurring issue on the short-sightedness of foreign aid programmes from the governments of developed countries in the region.

“You can’t uncritically transfer solutions from a developed to a developing country context – however obvious they seem.”

Academic and journalist Professor David Robie, the recently retired director of the Pacific Media Centre, sees New Zealand’s relationship with the Pacific as neocolonial.

“We build sea walls where they would plant mangroves,” he says. Mangroves, of course, don’t require upkeep, and they are a solution that people in the Pacific have used for centuries. They might not always fulfil the urgent interventions required during the climate crisis, but as New Zealand seeks to advance our “brand” in the Pacific, do we give them due consideration, or do we fall back on our own western solutions by default?

“It would have been better to not have had such a neocolonial approach,” says Professor Robie. “We could have encouraged the Pacific countries to be a lot more self-reliant.”

Short-term solutions for long-term problems
According to an MFAT Official Information Act release on climate change strategy, climate aid consists of 190 different activities across the Pacific. Of these activities, the largest focus is put on agriculture (25 percent), followed by energy generation and supply (20 percent) and disaster risk reduction (12 percent).

With the long-term projections of sea levels rising, are these areas enough to safeguard our Pacific whanau long into the future?

Professor Nunn spoke about plans by Japanese foreign aid to divert the mouth of the Nadi River in Fiji in order to stop the growingly frequent flooding of Nadi town.

“It would be far more useful for the Japanese government to develop a site for the relocation of Nadi town,” Professor Nunn said. “Somewhere inland, somewhere in the hinterland. Put in utilities and incentivize relocation of key services – because the situation is not going to improve. In 10-15 years, large parts of Nadi town are going to be underwater.”

So it goes across the Pacific.

New Zealand’s strategies of capacity building and disaster management are noble on the surface, but are we arranging deck chairs on the Titanic?

Climate change is an epoch-defining force that is inevitably going to render swathes of the globe uninhabitable. We can fund short-term adaptation to these issues and feel better about ourselves and our Pacific “brand”, but the real solutions lie in establishing humane systems of relocation around the Pacific.

Some of this comes in the form of increasing New Zealand’s own quota for climate migrants seeking asylum in New Zealand. For countries that consist of primarily low-lying atolls such as Kiribati, leaving their ancestral homeland will one day sadly be the only option.

Other nations such as Fiji and Samoa have the capacity to weather the storm if development is focused in the right direction – the gradual relocation of population centres inland, away from the risks of increasing flood frequency and rising tides.

MFAT has stated in an Official Information Act release of July 2019 that three quarters of their investment into climate aid “will go towards supporting communities to adapt in situ to the effects of climate change, which will enable them to avert and delay relocation”.

These goals are stuck in the short-term. This is procrastination on an international scale. The effects of climate change are no longer just theories, or nightmares that may or may not come true.

There is a clear road map to a future in which many areas in the Pacific are in peril. New Zealand has a moral duty to make sure that the effect of its aid helps not just the current members of Pacific whanau, but also the generations to come.

Examining NZ’s aid
In July, 2019, an inquiry was launched by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee into Aotearoa’s Pacific aid. The committee examined every facet of how the lion’s share of our foreign aid budget is spent. With Pacific aid, this means a discussion of climate change is inevitable.

Their findings were released last August.

Overall, the committee paints the picture of a considered approach to foreign aid, with New Zealand making an effort to take responsibility as the most developed economic power in our geopolitical bloc to bring about a world in which people have social mobility and human rights are protected.

Much of the report, however, centred around the committee’s recommendations as to how MFAT should proceed.

Some of these recommendations shine a light on the potential problems inherent to our regime of climate aid.

They recommended that the aid programme take steps to “more deeply engage with local communities, ensuring all voices within those communities are heard, and their viewpoints respected.” This suggests a certain level of overhanded detachment coming from New Zealand’s aid programme.

They also suggested that MFAT places a heightened emphasis on social inclusion step up efforts to make sure development is centred around locally-owned industry.
The committee also asked for public submissions.

Some of these provided perspectives that the committee themselves may have glanced over.

“Pushing New Zealand values into the Pacific—particularly when tied to monetary support—could be viewed as a renewed form of colonialism,” submitted one anonymous member of the public. Another raised that “greater engagement is needed with local communities to ascertain both their values and needs, and for aid to be appropriately tailored.”

These criticisms are not definitive proof of missteps on the part of the ministry. However, they are talking points that the ministry themselves seem unwilling to address.

When questions of neo-colonialism and unsustainable aid programmes were raised to the ministry, a spokesperson provided answers that glossed over the criticisms.

“Four principles underpin New Zealand’s international development cooperation: effectiveness, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability,” said an MFAT spokesperson when asked if there was a risk of breeding economic dependency via New Zealand forms of aid.

“Their purpose is to guide us and those we work with in our shared aim to contribute to a more peaceful world, in which all people live in dignity and safety, all countries can prosper, and our shared environment is protected.”

It sounds admirable, and it places New Zealand on the right side of history. But it doesn’t answer the specific concerns that have been levelled at the aid programme – the fact that deliberately or not, New Zealand may be guilty of building a relationship of dependency with countries in the Pacific.

Are answers like these just a further attempt to bolster the “brand” that New Zealand is trying to sell to the Pacific, and indeed the rest of the world?

Pouring money into the problem
When New Zealand signed the Paris Agreement in 2016, we were putting ourselves forward as one of the countries committed to strengthening the global response to the burgeoning climate crisis. John Key pledged to provide up to $200 million in climate aid over the next four years. Most of this was focused on the Pacific.

The Paris Agreement recognised that the Pacific was indeed one of the world’s most vulnerable regions when it comes to the effects of climate change – this is for a multitude of reasons. There are the obvious, such as the fact that countries consisting of low-lying atolls such as Kiribati and the Marshall Islands are the most at risk from rising sea levels, but the reasons are as numerous as they are insidious.

Small populations reliant on a narrow array of staple crops and food sources put the people of the Pacific in a particularly precarious position. The effects of colonisation have left these countries socio-economically deprived and in thrall to developed countries like Australia, New Zealand, the United States and China.

So the reasons why the Pacific is so vulnerable to the crisis are complex and various. It therefore follows that the solutions to the crisis are as well.

Chief among these is shifting from expensive answers to the problem to those that don’t cost anything at all. Cashless adaptation could come in the form of education or placing a greater emphasis on indigenous solutions to climate change.

Steering the ship towards cashless adaptation would reduce vulnerable countries’ reliance on their wealthier neighbours.

Another solution is the slow relocation of coastal cities into the hinterlands of the countries, such as Fiji’s Nadi, where flooding in the central business district is becoming more and more frequent.

Foreign aid can play a part in encouraging and funding such projects, but at the end of the day, it is the governments of these countries themselves that hold the reigns. The city of Nadi will not be moved without the constant efforts of the Fijian government over the course of generations.

In their 2019 paper “Foreign aid and climate change policy”, Daniel Y Kono and Gabriella R Montinola claim that while foreign aid for climate adaptation and mitigation is on the rise, the manner in which it is employed may render it toothless and unable to make changes for the people of the Pacific in the long term.

The main reason for this conclusion is that there has been little to no evidence that foreign climate aid in Pacific nations can be correlated with Pacific governments enacting policies addressing the crisis.

It is arguable whether foreign aid can be expected to affect the policies of recipient governments. However, it is undeniable that solutions to climate change require the synchronised action from both suppliers and recipients of this aid.

Help comes on NZ’s terms
In order to plant the seeds for long-term viable responses to climate aid, New Zealand’s approach must consider the worldview of people in the Pacific.

Professor Nunn sees this as another form of developed countries employing neocolonial tactics in order to build relationships of dependency with countries in need.

“You cannot take your worldviews and impose them on people who have different worldviews and expect those people to accept them,” he said.

On many of the islands of the Pacific, the scientific worldview does not hold automatic precedence over spiritual and mythological views, as it does in the secular West.

Low science literacy and a stronger connection to nature through cultural tradition and ritual such as religion mean that if the sea level rises, people in the Pacific often tend to consider it a divine act.

Practitioners of foreign aid need to show cultural competency if their approach is going to be picked up by the people of the Pacific.

“You’ve got to understand why your interventions are failing,” says Professor Nunn. “You go in there and argue on the basis of science. Nobody in rural Pacific Island communities gives a stuff about science. What they understand is God. To ignore that and pretend that it’s not important is just going to result in a continuation of failed interventions.”

Understanding is the route to developing a system of long-term and sustainable examples of climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Pacific.

“Empowering Pacific Island communities means understanding them,” says Professor Nunn. “Not just what their priorities are, but also how they’ve reached those priorities.”

With crisis comes opportunity
Prior to 2020, climate change was on its way to being a top-priority issue to governments all over the world – particularly those in highly-affected regions like the Pacific. Then 2020 happened.

Covid-19 has dominated public talk for months and there are no signs of this changing any time soon. Big ticket issues like social inequality and climate change found themselves on the back-burner during the New Zealand election, and the same could be said in societies around the world.

The virus has brought global tourism to a standstill and threatened the safety of many already vulnerable indigenous populations. Both impoverished and tourism-reliant nations in the Pacific have been placed in drastically uncertain financial straits.

Although the rates of infection have been fortunately low across the Pacific, countries like Fiji and the Cook Islands have lost their main source of income – holidaymakers seeking a sun-soaked patch of white-sand beach.

The beaches are there waiting, but the planes haven’t begun to land yet.

With the threat of economic ruin hanging over their heads, Pacific nations’ climate change options have been reduced even further.

But from the perspective of analysing the problematic elements of New Zealand’s climate aid programme, there is a silver lining.

In April, MFAT reported that almost two-thirds of their development programmes had been affected by covid-19 in some way. In the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee’s Inquiry into New Zealand’s aid to the Pacific report, it is said that recovery from this will require a range of responses, including stopping, reassessing and adapting, or re-phasing projects on an individual basis.”

Herein lies the opportunity.

The aid programme is on the verge of a massive shake-up, as MFAT reanalyses the best approach in a covid-stricken world. Now is the time for reassessment of our position as aid donors with the work of Professor Nunn in mind.

The committee’s report went on to say “the ministry pointed out that travel restrictions due to covid-19 mean that it will need to rely more heavily on local staff and expertise to provide aid. The ministry also hopes to move to a more adaptive and locally-empowered model.”

So it may be the virus that forces our hand and has the end result of more of the authority placed locally across the Pacific.

If we are indeed guilty of perpetuating a neo-colonial system of foreign aid, this could certainly be part of the remedy.

We are being given a nudge, if not a shove – an impetus to change. We can resist that or take the opportunity in our hands.

Now is the time to change, and ask the government for more equitable and sustainable forms of climate assistance in the Pacific.

Matthew Scott is an Auckland-based journalist for Newsroom who is interested in New Zealand’s place in the Pacific. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and his stories can be seen here.  Twitter: @mnscott1992

In this new covid-19 world, environmental and climate crisis defenders are developing new ways to cope and operate under the pandemic constraints.

Groups as diverse as the local branch of the global environmental campaigner Greenpeace Pacific, Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), the Green Party in French Polynesia and Greenpeace New Zealand have found solutions.

They have followed in the traditions of the Fiji-based Pacific Climate Warriors – part of the global 350 movement – who have drawn attention to environment and climate crisis issues with colourful and dramatic protests.

• READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project
• Pacific environmental defenders on Earth Journalism Network

Climate Warriors coined the phrase: “We are not drowning, we are fighting.”

The Pacific faces mounting climate change issues, environmental degradation, rapidly rising sea-levels, massive king tides with the salty sea affecting arable land, coral acidification, pollution and – just to make matters worse – wildlife poaching as the plundering of the region’s fisheries goes unabated.

“Climate change could produce 8 million refugees in the Pacific Islands alone, along with 75 million in the Asia-Pacific region within the next four decades [has] warned a report by aid agency Oxfam Australia,” wrote the Pacific Media Centre’s director Professor David Robie in Dreadlocks a decade ago signalling the dire need even then for environmental defenders to pick up the pace.

Greenpeace head of Pacific Auimatagi Joseph Sapati Moeono-Kolio realises that need and is thankful that most parts of Pacific are being largely spared from the covid-19 pandemic that has raged across the world, leaving his organisation free to pursue its green goals.

“Fortunately, many island nations in the Pacific are free of covid-19. As a result, Pacific climate leaders are able to continue our moral and ethical fight for climate justice,” says the Samoan climate change campaigner.

“We are doing so by leading the world in transitioning to renewable energy – in fact Samoa is on track for 100 percent renewables by 2025.

“So, while covid-19 has slowed several things down, the transition to renewables, as an important pillar of climate action, has stepped up.”

Climate change on back burner
The pandemic has forced leading climate change advocates of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), such as Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who was president of the 2017 Conference of the Parties COP23 to push the issue onto the back burner.

Pacific Island climate frontline states such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tokelau and Marshall Islands along with Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea (Carteret Islands) and the Federated States of Micronesia require a champion for their cause. However, the pandemic has put paid to that, as Auimatagi points out.

“Because of covid-19 our global advocacy moments to elevate the voices of Pacific leaders demanding climate action are limited,” says Auimatagi.

“We are also working on a documentary called Finding Hope: Samoa, where we will meet with people from all walks of life and share their truth of what is happening in their villages as oceans rise and warm.

“With covid-19 and climate change combined, we are seeing dual impacts such as in Vanuatu during the most recent cyclone  – Harold in April 2020.

“Communities and families were all social distancing and then the cyclone hit so they needed to decide whether to stay apart at home or take shelter in emergency refuge centres,” he says.

From that occurrence emerges the real and immediate threat of making climate change of secondary importance despite an increase in adverse climate events.

Working hard for the Pacific
“Pacific communities are among the first to feel the full impacts of climate change, and there is a threat that while the world is focused on covid-19, that climate action takes a back seat,” says Nick Young of Greenpeace New Zealand.

“Greenpeace internationally is working hard to make sure that isn’t the case.

“The covid-19 recovery also offers a unique opportunity in this regard as billions are spent to stimulate economies around the world and Greenpeace in New Zealand and elsewhere in the world is pushing for a Green Covid-19 Recovery that invests in climate resilience.”

Greenpeace initiatives and campaigns as environmental defenders are still continuing, albeit at a slower pace than usual.

“All of the core Greenpeace campaigns around transforming agriculture and energy, protecting the oceans and shifting away from single-use plastics remain active,” Young says.

However, it is more than the pollution that is a concern with the ocean. Auimatagi talks about this.

Ocean poaching problem
“Ocean poaching is ongoing, carried out by the Chinese and Japanese flagged vessels. While Samoa has one of the smallest Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), places like Micronesia and Kiribati are much harder to enforce as they have much larger EEZs.”

As Jacky Bryant, president of the Green Party in French Polynesia points out: “The 5 million km/2 of the EEZ (Exclusive and Economic Zone) are open to all kinds of abuse by foreign ships and is under surveillance by only one ship belonging to the French state.

“From time to time we have a fishing vessel that gets stranded on the reef carrying tonnes of fish, some legal, some illegal.”

Last month, the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) continued its coordination and commitment to regional fisheries surveillance operation.

The 17-nation organisation is based in Honiara, Solomon Islands and its members comprise: Australia, Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The FFA is charged with protecting Pacific fisheries from poaching among other cooperative activities.

It has recently completed its “Operation Island Chief” (August 24-September 4), conducting surveillance over the EEZs of Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu this year.

Challenging pandemic times
FFA’s Director-General Dr Manu Tupou-Roosen says: “During these challenging times with the focus of the world on the pandemic, we welcome the commitment and cooperation demonstrated across the region to deter illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in our waters.”

That concerns Greenpeace as well. Young says: “Illegal and unregulated fishing is still an issue in many places, and certainly in the Pacific.

“It threatens ocean life as well as the resilience of Pacific communities who rely on the oceans for their food and way of life.”

The FFA Regional Fisheries Surveillance Centre (RFSC) team, supported by three officers from the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF), had an increased focus on intelligence gathering and analysis, providing targeted information before and during the operation in order to support surveillance activities by member countries,” the FFA said in a statement.

Aerial surveillance of the nations of the EEZ was provided by New Zealand, Australia, USA and France, assisting the fragile small island developing states in protecting them from poaching or overfishing.

In addition to that the cooperation goes as far as working together to prevent covid-19 from being transmitted in the fisheries operations allowing them to continue contributing Pacific Island economies.

“It is crucial for fisheries to continue operating at this time, providing much-needed income to support the economic recovery as well as to enhance contribution to the food security of our people,” says Dr Manu Tupou-Roosen.

Pollution and climate change still major
Greenpeace Pacific’s Auimatagi says that other than poaching, pollution and climate change remain major issues in the Pacific.

“While marine wildlife poaching is, of course, a big issue, the biggest polluter is one of our nearest neighbours. Australia digs up, burns and exports climate destruction to the whole world in the form of coal.

“Climate change is the number one issue on all fronts, including the environment as it is a threat multiplier. The impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels and warming oceans make the impacts of cyclones and ocean wildlife poaching more severe and more difficult to manage.”

Not so in Tahiti as Bryant explains, where covid-19 has taken hold on that part of the Pacific paradise.

Covid-19 cases in French Polynesia (population 280,000) have now reached more than 2700 cases – including territorial President Edouard Fritch and 10 deaths, and Bryant say this crisis has pushed climate change and environmental issues into a secondary status.

“Attacks to our natural environment such as the exploitation of the biodiversity, our cars’ carbon emissions (Papeete has 120,000 cars but luckily, we are an island with regular easterlies) are of governmental responsibilities,” says Bryant.

“There is no clear scrutiny of the climatic effects on the town planning code for example; no compulsory measures for double glazing; using solar panels is not mandatory and the same for photovoltaic, not even for experimental purposes on
an urban area.

No environmental friendly designing
“There are no projects towards designing more environmentally friendly interisland means of transport in order to anticipate any energy crisis with petrol, for example. We carry on training our youth for the combustion engine,” he adds.

While Bryant laments the lack of action in Tahiti, the Greenpeace organisation remains committed to making a better, environmentally safer world.

“We have pushed for a green covid-19 recovery that puts people and nature first, and we are calling for the replacement of current industrial agriculture system with regenerative farming methods – where we farm in harmony with nature and don’t use synthetic nitrogen fertiliser,” says Young.

“Regenerative farming involves growing a large diversity of crops, plants and animals. Synthetic inputs like nitrogen fertiliser are replaced with practices that mimic natural systems to access nutrients, water and pest control required for growth.

“Replace unnecessary single-use products like plastic drink bottles with reusable and refillable options, including glass. Plastic bags, and bottles are just the tip of the iceberg,

“All of the core Greenpeace campaigns around transforming agriculture and energy, protecting the oceans and shifting away from single-use plastics remain active,” he says.

The last word on the issue comes from the Samoan who has been a strong activist for a greener world, Auimatagi Moeono-Kolio.

“When it comes to the environment, Pacific Islanders are always vigilant no matter what is happening in the outside world: It’s a question of means and resources and geopolitics, it’s a very complicated web.”

This is the fifth in a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

By Sri Krishnamurthi of the Pacific Media Centre

Climate change action has been “shelved” for the moment in Papua New Guinea says a postgraduate media researcher from the tourism and environmental friendly city of Madang.

“Climate change initiatives are on the shelf right now because the focus is on battling covid-19,” says Stephanie Sageo-Tapungu about the crisis facing her country.

Papua New Guinea is one of the worst hit countries by the global pandemic in a region where most Pacific countries have been able to keep the coronavirus at bay.

READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project

She has reveal to me the impact of the coronavirus and how it has derailed climate change action in her homeland.

Sageo-Tapungu is concerned that covid-19 has forced climate change into a secondary role but it still remains a serious concern, especially for her home province of Madang.

She talking with the Pacific Media Centre’s Climate Change and Covid-19 Pacific project as part of a series of interviews which the PMC’s Pacific Media Watch has taken with funding from the Internews Earth Journalism Network (EJN).

Sageo-Tapungu was in the process of returning to her home and family after completing doctoral studies at Auckland University of Technology in Aotearoa New Zealand with concerns for both during this recent interview.

In the latest Papua New Guinea covid-19 statistics today, the country had reported 517 cases of covid-19 infection and seven deaths.

This is a video in a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

• More Pacific Media Centre Climate Change and Covid-19 Pacific project stories

Six years on from being appointed head of the Pacific Community, Director-General Collin Tukuitonga, a boy born on the tiny Pacific island of Niue, has a voice louder than a schoolboy rugby captain, a voice that serves him well as a Pasifika community leader.

There is little doubt his credentials are impressive for a boy who attended Niue High School and then the University of the South Pacific for foundation years 1 and 2 before arriving in New Zealand from Fiji after the 1987 coup.

Having done his New Zealand Medical Registration exams, he began to excel in the fields he chose.

READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project

And excel he did, as his curriculum vitae reads: Director of SPC’s Public Health Division; Chief Executive Officer of the NZ Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs; Associate Professor of Public Health and Head of Pacific and International Health at the University of Auckland; Director of Public Health, NZ Ministry of Health; and Head of Surveillance and Prevention of Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases at the World Health Organisation, Switzerland.

He scoffs at the description of a little boy from Niue who has made it big in the Anglo-Saxon, neoliberal, covid-19 world of today.

“I don’t know about making it big, but it has been definitely different and professionally rewarding, and hopefully I’m making a useful contribution to the community,” he laughs heartily in the Pacific way.

But his contribution to all aspects of leadership in medicine and public service cannot be taken lightly.

‘No holds barred’
As Fijian Dr Api Talemaitoga,  a GP in South Auckland and chair of the Pasifika GP Network who is also part of the Health Ministry’s Pasifika response and who worked with Tukuitonga during the H1N1 flu epidemic in 2009, says:

“He is great because he tells you like it is, no holds barred, no sugar coating the truth,” he says of Dr Tukuitonga.

The fact that Dr Tukuitonga spoke out during the current pandemic crisis, calling for a new public health agency is evidence enough of this.

“Sars and H1N1 were epidemics but covid-19 is a much bigger threat. We can be certain there will be viruses like this in the future,” says Dr Tukuitonga.

“Even if this pandemic settles down it doesn’t protect us from something else coming along. So, it’s always going be a risk for communities right around the world.”

However, while he credits establishing Pacific public health services in West Auckland and the poorer Māori communities in Northland (Ngati Hine and the Hokianga) as deeply satisfying, it is his work as director-general of the Pacific Community (SPC) based in Noumea, New Caledonia, that is the cream of his public service to the Pacific.

But it was fraught with difficulties, which he found a surprise.

Fragile unity in the Pacific
“Being appointed Director-General of the Pacific Community (SPC) and running that organisation for six years was a highlight in my life,” he says.

But, “I learnt just how fragile unity is in the Pacific,” he says this with surprise.

“People talk about regionalism in the Pacific all the time and it is something people seek and desire but that actually is very difficult, elusive and fragile.

“Pacific regionalism and Pacific solidarity come with conditions, there is quite a level of distrust that exists and that’s holding back so many developments,” he says.

“But there are some good things going on – their collective approach to climate change has been impressive.

“Leading up to the 2015 Paris Agreement 2015 globally, nobody gave the Pacific a chance, but they banded together, and influenced some big players and got a good outcome in the form of the Paris agreement.

“The voices of the small Pacific Islands were heard at a global level that wasn’t because of chance. It came from the work of the Pacific Island leaders in communicating their concerns about climate change to the rest of the world,” he says.

Trying to push the polluters
“They were trying to push the polluters of the world to take responsibility for some of the things they had done.”

He praised the work done by Pacific leaders at a time when disunity could have been damaging.

“I do think they have done a tremendous job on climate change so that is an illustration of the Island nations having one enemy in common. Otherwise working together on regional issues is not so straight forward.

But it was considered better in the nation of his origins, he says.

“Niue is fortunate in the sense that if you talk about sea-level rise it is not an really an issue for Niue, but in term of the parts of climate change like killing coral and ocean acidification leading to coral bleaching they do affect Niue.

“They also feel the impacts of severe weather events like severe cyclones like everyone else around the Pacific.

“It is fortunate in that it is a high island and they don’t suffer from the sea-level rise parts but clearly they are vulnerable as everyone else with regards to climate change effects,” he says pensively.

Tokelau also at risk
However, Tokelau, as well as Kiribati, is also at a risk, says Dr Talemaitoga,

“When I visited there several years ago, the king tides were really something to see, the effects of climate change were starting to affect them then,” he says.

As for the heavy polluters, Dr Tukuitonga has a slightly different take on those countries,

“The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) is in fact one of the important parts of the Paris agreement.

“That is why we spent quite a lot of time setting up the office in Suva to allow and enable the members to rethink and develop and introduce meaningful contributions

“So, I see it as a very important part of the implementation of the Paris agreement. But, like a lot of things, some countries take it seriously and some don’t,” he says.

And the impacts of covid-19 on climate change?

Covid-19 ‘an aggravation’
“In a sense, covid-19 is an aggravation because it would introduce health risks, limit movement of people and their ability to do things, such as their ability to try to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

“I see covid-19 as an additional challenge for the small islands to face on of top climate change,” he says.

The Pacific environment will also be vulnerable to climate change he believes.

Coupled by pollution and various other practices such as overfishing and over-consumption has had an effect, he says.

“The combination of climate change, pollution, population growth, and the exploitation of the environment is a serious threat to the sustainability of the Pacific environment,” he expounds.

“There is a very strong drive to build more hotels in pristine places around the region because the drive for economic development is relentless and that leads to the destruction of our natural environment, so I do think it is a serious concern,” he says about the proliferation of tourist hotels in the region.

“The Pacific Ocean is increasingly polluted by actually pollution from outside the region but also the sea life is being threatened with overfishing and with ocean acidification as a result of that overfishing.

Pollution getting worse
“It will get worse; it has started already. That’s why the UN sustainable development goals are really important because one of those is dedicated to the protection of the health of the ocean.

“It’s already underway and I think we clearly need to do more within the context of climate change to protect and promote the environment around the region.

The same care should be taken when it comes to wildlife in the region.

“Sustaining wildlife goes hand-in-hand with environmental degradation so whatever we do to promote and protect biodiversity should, in fact, look to protecting the few species of wildlife that we have,” he says.

“Most of the small atoll nations in the world have very limited diversity, except the Pacific Ocean is one of the world’s largest ecosystems with quite a lot of biodiversity, some of which we don’t know about yet,” Dr Tukuitonga says.

“I have always been a fan of ecotourism and for travellers who spend a bit more money than the average person. I have never been a fan of bums on seats tourism and especially to little places. Ecotourism is a very important part of development landscape in the region,” he says.

He for one warned against the complacency that has taken hold in the Pacific with regards to covid-19. As a public health specialist, he notices how lax the testing had become in June and warned against that practice publicly.

Complacency factor
“I would have thought testing should have continued in earnest, without a doubt I think complacency is a factor and we should have done more testing,” he says in a few words.

After being 102 days covid-19 free in New Zealand, he used to be keen on the travel bubble to the covid free islands – but no longer.

“I was a keen promoter of that idea, but I would suggest to them right away not to pursue this. I would say to stop it.

“The problem is we don’t know quite what the spread is like in New Zealand and people could go to the Cooks or Niue integrating the virus there, so even if you test for it before going there’s not a guarantee that people with the virus are travelling to the destination so I would discourage it.”

And he has a passion outside his “norm of life”, a heartfelt one at that too.

“I’m very concerned about the Niue language because it is one of the realm languages that is in dire straits because very few Niueans speak it now and there is a very real chance that it will disappear completely.

“I’m part of a community effort to try to revitalise the language to have the young ones to speak the language.

Good health numbers
“It isn’t so bad around Fiji, Samoa, Tonga because there are good healthy numbers still living in those islands but the Cooks, Niue and Tokelau where the majority population are in New Zealand they don’t speak their first language it’s a real concern.

“I believe that absolutely that it is likely to affect their cultural behaviour because language is such a central and critical part of the culture and so while you can participate in your culture without speaking the language it is not the same as being able to speak the language which allow you to participate more fully,” he says.

“So, remember each generation of Cook Islanders and Niueans born in New Zealand would be further and further away from their culture so it is going to be a challenge to maintain,”

And that is likely to bring its own problems as Tonga found out recently.

“People feel disconnected from their social norms and traditional values, family connections are disturbed and of course that is almost an inevitable consequence that young people in particular would turn to drugs and crime. That is why I see languages as a protective element for our people,” he says with conviction.

He admits to being annoyed at not winning the World Health Organisation (WHO) regional director post for the Western Pacific last year when several Pacific nations showed themselves to be at the whim of foreign currencies.

“Only because I felt I had much to offer the Islands, also the Islands have never had a Pacific person in that leadership role, but life has moved on.”

Now the associate dean Pacific and associate professor at the University of Auckland, Dr Tukuitonga has been seconded to the Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) one day a week and the service does the covid-19 contact tracing.

“I am happy to come back home and get involved in this. It’s good because it gives me a lot of freedom to explore the things that matter and I’m enjoying it.”

This is the fourth of a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

“Climate change may be slower but its momentum is enormous.” – Stuart Chape, Acting Director-General, South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP).

Does anyone remember Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmentalist who caused a worldwide climate change stir – particularly among the neoliberal believers – but was voted Time magazine Person of the Year 2019 for her actions before the coronavirus pandemic struck?

It all seems so long ago now that we have a new age of covid-19, but wait, her pleas last year in front of the United Nations served as a warning as does the call from Stuart Chape, Acting Director-General of SREP, late in June 2020 that climate change is still a stark reality – especially for the Pacific.

The momentum for climate change might have slowed, but it still looms larger than life as economies open up again producing greenhouse gases.

READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project

As Stephanie Sageo-Tapungu, a doctorate candidate from the seaside town of Madang in Papua New Guinea, says:

“The sea levels are still rising, and the climate is unpredictable now, so we cannot be really sure or predict ‘like this is what is going to happen’.

“The sea levels are going really high; parts of the islands are under the sea and I’ve seen that firsthand because it is happening in my Madang province.”

Sageo-Tapungu adds: “Having a closed economy and other activities did a lot of good when it comes to climate change, but I think it put a lot of strain on people and that can lead to a lot of social problems such as the crime rate going up.”

Illegal logging
Laurens Ikinia, a West Papuan masters student, studying in Aotearoa New Zealand, says that while covid-19 has slowed climate change, his major concern is the illegal logging going on back home in his Indonesian-ruled province.

“A year ago, the governors of his province were invited to attend events held in Florencia, the capital of Caquetá department in the Colombian Amazon, for the civil society, indigenous and local communities, national governments, and international donors for the 2019 annual meeting of the Governors’ Climate and Forests (GCF) Task Force,”  Ikinia says.

“We have forests that are the second-largest producers of oxygen in the world.

“However, I would say because they have been given special autonomy to logging with regulations – and it is still happening in West Papua – so you have to say authorities are not really committed to the climate change agreements,” he says.

“In terms of covid-19 we don’t really know the outcomes or the impacts it has had on climate change because it is just too early to see any reports done on it even though you are aware that covid-19 would bring some good results of in terms of carbon dioxide sinks.

“But when it comes to the economy, from reports I’ve heard in recent days people are being affected by this pandemic and the local communities, unfortunately, cannot survive without help from the government,” he says.

However, SREP’s climate change advisor Espen Ronneberg maintains work is ongoing to address the issues which were thrashed out at the Conference of Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) in Bonn, Germany.

Pledge to phase out coal
Countries pledged to phase out the use of coal and bring global temperatures down by 1.5 degrees centigrade.

Chaired by Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, the summit offered high hopes of gaining solutions and agreements.

However, the Nationally Determined Contributions (countries) (NDCs) continued working against the smaller fragile nations.

Ronneberg says work is still needed, and is going at present in spite of no face-to-face meetings, and technical support is being done remotely – or in some cases where there is in-country expertise (like consultants) they are able to assist SPREP which also faced  challenges to get equipment shipped.

He adds that covid-19 has demonstrated a new global phenomenon which has impacted not just on climate change but on social and environmental structures.

“Dramatically so – this has impacted on economic, social, and environmental scales/levels, and is what we have been saying about climate change for decades,” he says.

“Even though the most conservative estimates anticipate historic declines in carbon emissions this year because of the pandemic, the atmosphere continues to be loading up on too much carbon,” he says.

Claims backed up by lab reports
Ronneberg backs up his claims from lab reports such as that in Hawai’i.

“Atmospheric observations and measurements from labs such as that in Hawaii are observing that we are not seeing dramatic reductions in road transport emissions, nor from electricity generation, only flights and some maritime. Recall, the atmosphere takes quite some time to react to emissions – it’s a fairly turbid system, and gases can linger for many years as well,” he says.

Andrea Ma’ahanua, a Solomon Islander and the education chairperson at the University of the South Pacific (USP) Students Association in Fiji, says she personally believes that covid-19 has impacted on climate change initiatives in her country in various ways.

“Climate change initiative proposals would have to be put on hold due to the current COVID-19 situation.  Due to travel restrictions, expatriates with technical knowledge in this area cannot travel into the country to help facilitate climate change initiatives,” she says.

“Furthermore, movement of locals has been restricted due to the imposed lockdown and in addition, funding initially allocated to climate change initiatives would most likely be diverted to covid-19 related initiatives and activities,

“That is evidently a priority under current circumstances. Therefore, this would result in the decline in climate change initiatives within the country.”

The world’s dependency on each other had greatly impacted on people she went on to say.

Rapid covid-19 spread
“The rapid spread of covid-19 around the world and its impact on our way of life, social structures and economies indicate how globalisation has created interdependency between world states,” she says.

“This global phenomenon has altered our way of life in terms of loss of jobs, a decline in economic activities and restrictions on people’s freedom of movement.

“All activities have ultimately come to a standstill or been changed accordingly to align with current covid-19 regulations.

“This is apparent in the Solomon Islands, where government revenue has substantially decreased as a result of the decline in economic activities.  Furthermore, locals struggle to support their families under the current situation and there has been a noticeable movement of people from urban areas to rural villages in face of this economic hardships,” she says.

“In regard to the re-opening of borders to keep climate change down, I personally believe governments should continue to impose movement restrictions.”

In order to keep the Solomon Islands economy afloat, the government must allow technical staff specialised in the field of climate change or other key economic areas to enter the country, she believes.

And, yes, she thinks climate change has been pushed into the background by covid-19.

Less focus on climate
“I personally observed less focus on climate change initiatives in the Solomon Islands under the of covid-19 situation.  More and more stories being published in the Solomon Islands in previous months have been centred on covid-19 regulations and the state of emergency [SOE].

“In previous meetings, climate change was regarded as the utmost priority on the discussion table.  However, given the covid-19 phenomenon, there has been a major shift of government attention toward covid-19 preventative measures.  This means that climate change would be viewed as the last item of priority on the discussion table,” she says.

However, Richard Clark, who is the Special Assistant to the President (David Panuelo) and Public Information Officer for the Federated States of Micronesia, says climate change initiatives have continued to grow but at a slower pace.

“An example of continuing accomplishments is that in July 2020, President David Panuelo signed Public Law 21-76 which formally prohibited the importation of styrofoam and one-time-use plastic bags,” he says.

“However, the nations’ Blue Prosperity Micronesia programme – which intends to protect 30 percent of the nation’s marine resources – has delayed its scientific expedition until 2021.”

The Federated States of Micronesia is less dependent on air travel and therefore affected less in climate change pollution from that source, as they are from shipping, he says.

“The short answer is that air travel makes up an an incredibly small footprint in global greenhouse emissions. The global shipping industry – on which the FSM is reliant – and the energy sector at large make up the overwhelming majority of emissions,” he says.

Covid-free daily life remains
“As the FSM remains covid-19 free, daily life and structures remain largely the same. However, the pandemic has crippled the tourism sector with approximately 70 percent of formal employees in the sector either unemployed or at significantly reduced hours,” he says of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic globally on daily life.

“The FSM’s largest sources of revenue are through fisheries and through the Compact of Free Association, so from a purely government perspective the economic impacts have not been felt as hard – yet,” he says

“The price of tuna has decreased substantially, which will affect the Pacific region’s fisheries revenues in the next fiscal year. The nation projects a substantial economic decline,” he says.

However, Clark has an opinion too to offer those who would weigh up re-opening the economy as opposed to staying covid-19 safe as a way to keep climate change down?

“The covid-19 pandemic doesn’t play a significant role in fixing the world’s issues with climate change.

“President Panuelo is of the view that economies can die and be revived but human beings cannot be.

“The broader public opinion in the FSM is that the nation ought to keep its borders closed until a vaccine is prepared, but the focus there is on human health. environmental health, by contrast, has not yet arrived in the discussions in either the National Covid-19 Task Force or in the president’s meetings with his Cabinet,” he says.

Backward step? – yes and no
And has he seen evidence of climate change initiatives taking a backward step in the face of covid-19?

“In some respects, yes – and in some respects, no,” he says.

“In the answer of yes: covid-19 has delayed the construction and implementation of the integrated coconut processing facility in Tonoas, Chuuk, which beyond adding significant economic growth to the nation as arguably its most promising development opportunity, would also power Tonoas with sustainable energy,” he says.

“In the answer no: in July 2020 the nation prohibited the importation of styrofoam and one-time-use plastic bags; other climate change related initiatives remain ongoing.”

So, while Pacific countries remained constrained by covid-19, their ambitions to curb climate change remains a very large factor at the back of their minds.

This is the third of a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

The day began with a video, showing a disparate collection of arresting images – the drowned Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, camera in hand and a huge smile on his face.

Mugshots of two captured French DGSE secret agents – a fake honeymooning pair jailed for manslaughter, but later spirited off to Hao atoll and freedom.

Sun-drenched tropical beaches and a ship with a gaping hull, sinking into the frigid Auckland Harbour on a winter’s night.

READ MORE: 35 years on, Tahiti’s Oscar Temaru guest in Rainbow Warrior rewind

Newspaper headlines expressing disbelief that something like this could happen in peaceful New Zealand.

It is fitting that the discussion began with such an array of images. The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior on 10 July 1985 is one episode in a large and complex geopolitical story – a story that isn’t over yet.

A panel of academics, journalists and activists, each with a connection to the bombing, met via webinar this morning to discuss and mark the 35th anniversary this month.

Suing French government
Organised by H-France, the panel featured figured such as Oscar Temaru, five times president of French Polynesia who is in the process of suing the French government, and Dr David Robie, a New Zealand journalist who was on board the Rainbow Warrior on its final 11 week Pacific voyage to the Marshall Islands and then to New Zealand.

Other speakers were Ena Manuireva, an Auckland University of Technology academic and PhD candidate who is from Mangareva, one of the French Polynesian islands most affected by the French nuclear tests where the Rainbow Warrior intended to protest before its sinking; Stephanie Mills, a former Greenpeace Pacific nuclear test ban campaigner and NZ board chair; and Rebecca Priestley, a history associate professor from Victoria University in Wellington who has specialised in New Zealand’s relationship to nuclear issues.

The webinar was moderated by Dr Roxanne Panchasi, an associate history professor from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, who specialises in French studies.

The event was preceded by a mihi in Te Reo Māori by Dr Hirini Kaa of the University of Auckland, and a karakia in Tahitian by Ena Manuireva.

In keeping with the discussion’s examination of the effects of colonialism, moderator Dr Panchasi acknowledged the colonised nature of British Columbia, where she was speaking from.

“I am a settler and an uninvited guest on this territory,” she said.

The relevance of the Rainbow Warrior and its connected issues to the current age was a common touchstone among the speakers. Although the sinking of the ship occurred 35 years ago, it still represents issues that have significant impacts on the peoples and nations of the Pacific.

Not least of these are the effects of nuclear testing in French Polynesia.

Nuclear health troubles
Oscar Temaru spoke on how French testing of atomic weapons in his country doesn’t feel so long ago.

“That was 35 years ago?” he said, speaking from his office in Faa’a. “Time flies!”

France conducted 193 tests in French Polynesia between 1966 and 1996, resulting in the contamination of the food and water sources of many people across the islands. Birth defects were common and families were forced to move islands in the hope of providing a healthier future for their children.

To this day, rates of thyroid cancer are disproportionately high, and the disfiguring scars of thyroid removal surgery can be seen on many women.

“I bury people nearly every day, dying from different types of cancer,” Temaru said. “I just wonder sometimes what sin we did to the French.”

Temaru said that nuclear issues and those of French Polynesian sovereignty are interlinked. “The two issues are tied – nuclear testing and our freedom.”

In 2018, he took the French government to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, seeking justice for “all the people who died from the consequences of nuclear colonialism”.

Legal troubles
Since then, he has been embroiled in a number of legal troubles leveled at him by the French government, such as a six-month suspended jail sentence and a US$50,000 fine for alleged corruption.

Last month, he embarked on a two-week hunger strike after a French prosecutor ordered the seizure of US$108,000 from him.

Despite these difficulties, Temaru remained upbeat about the future during the webinar. “We need the new generation to take up the flag and go forward,” he said. “Māohi lives matter!”

When the Rainbow Warrior, a 40m trawler owned by Greenpeace, was bombed by French DGSE agents in Auckland Harbour, causing the death of photographer Fernando Pereira, it had set its sights on French Polynesia.

The crew were planning to sail to Moruroa Atoll to protest continued tests.

“The campaign against nuclear testing was in Greenpeace’s DNA,” said former Greenpeace campaigner Stephanie Mills. At the time of the attack, Mills was a reporter for The New Zealand Herald.

But she stressed that the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior was not a discrete, encapsulated event. “People are still dying. They need assistance. There’s still a job to do.”

Birth defects, cancers
Auckland-based researcher Ena Manuireva was born on Mangareva, one of the islands most affected by French testing on Moruroa Atoll. He spoke about how his family was affected by the tests, with a sister born with birth defects and other relatives developing cancer. His mother saw the mushroom cloud from the first blast, in 1967.

“My mum was poisoned,” said Manuireva. “She had her lips bleeding from the fallout.”

Manuireva said that the story was not over for the people of Mangareva, and that they needed to be aware of the ongoing effects of the nuclear blasts.

“People are still dying,” he said. “You see a lot of babies in the cemetery. Mothers and grandmothers feel the effects of chemo and having to take their pills.”

Manuireva said that the people of his island were unwilling to recognise the effects of the tests.

“They feel like they were duped,” he said. Authorities on the island such as the Catholic Church and the French administration assured the locals that the tests would be clean and that there was nothing to worry about, and Manuireva believes that the shame of believing the lies dissuades Mangarevans from talking about these issues.

“We need to make them aware of what’s happened because it’s their history.”

Humanitarian story
New Zealand journalist and academic Dr David Robie, a journalism professor and director of the Pacific Media Centre at AUT, said that media coverage of the attack in New Zealand often neglected to mention the broader issues at play, focusing instead on the espionage intrigue of the DGSE agents.

“I wanted to tell the story from a humanitarian view,” he told the panel.

Dr Robie was onboard the Rainbow Warrior for 11 weeks prior to the bombing, accompanying the crew as they helped residents of the US nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands find refuge on Mejato and travelling to New Zealand via Kiribati and Vanuatu.

Helping move the Rongelap refugees was “one of the most momentous and moving experiences I’ve had in my life as a journalist”, he said. He wrote about the experience in his environmental book Eyes of Fire, published in several countries.

Victoria University of Wellington history professor Dr Rebecca Priestley spoke of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior as confirming New Zealand’s nuclear-free stance.

“The bombing was really the last straw,” she said. In 1984, the Lange-lead Labour government had won on a platform of establishing a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific.

After tensions with the United States for barring entry of potentially nuclear warships to New Zealand harbours, New Zealand was already in a tense position. The attack caused public outrage and people doubled down on the decision to back nuclear-free.

Evidence-based approach
Priestley spoke about how New Zealand led the world by using an evidence-based decision making approach, and that 2020 and the world-changing crises of covid-19 may ask a similar commitment.

“It was a crazy time in New Zealand and the Pacific’s history,” she said, “and it’s a crazy time now.”

French testing on Moruroa Atoll ended in 1996. Stephanie Mills was at the island with Greenpeace during some of the last tests in 1995. She said that she felt no fear because she knew she had public support behind her, evidenced by a recent petition against the tests that had gathered five million signatures.

“We were tear gassed and boarded. A few of us were taken and disappeared for several days. I wasn’t afraid, because I knew about the five million signatures.”

The change to the regime of nuclear tests in the Pacific was a victory for the people of the region, and Mills said that Greenpeace did not claim credit.

“It was a million acts of courage – an example of change from the bottom up.” She said that remembering the Rainbow Warrior was not just about nuclear issues – “It’s about people having the agency to make change.”

However, new issues assail the Pacific as people living on low-lying islands are some of the first to be affected by the ever-increasing effects of global climate change. This, along with the fact that thousands of people in the Pacific are still affected by the effects of the fallout, means that the Rainbow Warrior remains an important symbol.

Independence a fundamental issue
“The fundamental issue is the self-determination of indigenous peoples across the Pacific,” said Dr Robie. The Rainbow Warrior and its Greenpeace crew, along with their solidarity with independence movements across the Pacific, are inextricable from the issue of indigenous sovereignty.

He invoked the memory of Vanuatu’s founding prime minister Father Walter Lini who said the Pacific could not be truly free until the Māohi people of Tahiti, Kanaks of New Caledonia and West Papuans were also free.

Dr Robie reported that he had noticed a “gap in history” in his students in a “living history” journalism project in 2015, wherein they were not aware of the geopolitical backdrop of the Rainbow Warrior attack. He and Manuireva expressed the desire that this retrospective is the beginning of a series to discuss and raise awareness of related Pacific issues.

While the webinar was concerned with how the event will be remembered into the future, there was also an air of memorial to it. Several of the speakers paid tribute to fallen figures connected to the Rainbow Warrior story.

Chief among these was Fernando Pereira, the sole casualty of the 1985 bombing. “I’d like to acknowledge Fernando Pereira,” said Mills. “He wasn’t just a crew member and photographer. He was a friend to many people.”

Steve Sawyer, the Greenpeace campaigner for the Rongelap mission, was also remembered. Sawyer died almost exactly a year ago, on July 31, 2019, of lung cancer.

Matthew Scott is a student journalist on the Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies programme at Auckland University of Technology. He also reports at Te Waha Nui.

This is the second of a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

• Nuclear-free New Zealand resources
• Eyes of Fire resource page for Rainbow Warrior
• Earth Journalism Network Infonews

By Sri Krishnamurthi, reporting for the Pacific Media Centre

“Our journey to a bluer Pacific as we navigate through covid-19, we’ve all experienced the impact of covid-19 one way or another, our region has not been spared the adverse effects of covid-19. The focus here is to look at how are we maintaining the collective momentum in terms of protecting and conserving our ocean, emphasise ocean because our ocean speaks of who we are in this region, our ocean speaks of our joint identity, our entity, our shared ecosystem, our shared resources in the Pacific” – Kosi Latu, Director-General, South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SREP)

Unspoilt beaches, palm trees swaying in a zephyr of a breeze and the gentle sunlight dancing on the turquoise blue sea as the lapping waves shimmer on the breakwater make one imagine a Pacific paradise unspoiled.

But, that is until the best sounds come screeching like a broken record as it grates and gnaws away at the once-booming $4.2 billion Pacific tourism industry.

Tourism throughout the Pacific has been brought to its knees by the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, throwing thousands out of work and fearful about the future.

READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project

While Fiji and the Cook Islands have been desperately trying get their economies going with a Pacific bubble with New Zealand and Australia that has not come into fruition – and isn’t likely to any time soon.

Neighbouring New Zealand and Australia are concerned about the pandemic taking hold in the Big Blue that is the Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific Islands experienced a 6.6 percent increase of tourists in 2019 and the region welcomed 2.2 million visitors to the end of the year. Before covid struck, a boom year was predicted for 2020.

Over the short to medium term, visitor arrivals by air to the Pacific islands countries are predicted to grow by an average of 3.3 percent and expected to reach 2.7 million in 2024, according to the South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO).

Established in 1983 as the Tourism Council of the South Pacific, the SPTO is the mandated organisation representing tourism in the region. Its 20 government members are American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Rapa Nui, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, and Taiwan.

In addition to government members, the South Pacific Tourism Organisation enlists a private sector membership base.

Pacific quick to close borders
However, the tourism markets of Cook Islands, Fiji, Palau, Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu were quick to close their borders to prevent covid-19 entering their countries.

Emerging tourism markets such as Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tonga are also closed to mass arrivals.

The lockdown has had a major effect with job losses, right throughout and in its March, Pacific Insight the ANZ predicted that Fiji now stands to lose nearly 602,000 visitors by air this year (a whopping drop of 67 percent). This translates into a F$1.4 billion loss in tourism receipts.

Vanuatu’s economy is expected to decline (down by 13.5 percent), as are Samoa (-18.7 percent), Cook Islands (-60.4 percent) and Tonga (-7.9 percent)

When you consider that tourism contributes to almost 46 percent to Fiji’s gross domestic product – about F$2.1 billion (A$1.4 billion) according to the June ANZ Pacific Insight – and it employs more than 150,000 people in various industries it is devastating.

Last year alone, Fiji had 894,000 visitors. The bulk of its tourists came from nearby Australia (41 percent) and New Zealand (23 percent), which like many countries around the world have banned international travel.

Asian Development Bank estimates for this year are that Cook Islands, Fiji, Palau, Samoa and Vanuatu will experience negative or no economic growth.

Heavily dependent on tourism
“Economies such as Fiji, the Maldives and Tonga are heavily dependent on tourism, with shares of tourism in total exports reaching 52 percent, 84 percent or 47 percent respectively,” the ADB report says.

“In many Asia and Pacific countries, more than three in four workers in the tourism sector are informal jobs, leaving them especially vulnerable to the negative impacts of the covid-19 crisis.

“Informal sector jobs are characterised by a lack of basic protection, including social protection coverage.”

Economic growth in the Solomon Islands is expected to slow by 1.5 percent in 2020, and Vanuatu’s economy to contract from 2.8 percent in 2019 to minus 1.0 percent in 2020, according to the ADB.

“The COVID-19 pandemic will severely hit tourism, with the South Pacific economies the most affected. Growth and fiscal outcomes will be undermined in the Cook Islands, Samoa, and Tonga,” says the ADB.

“The Cook Islands’ economy is expected to contract from 5.3 percent in 2019 to -2.2 percent in 2020 due to a collapse in tourist arrivals. Growth is forecast to recover in 2021 to 1.0 percent. Samoa’s economy is expected to contract from 3.5 percent in 2019 to -3.0 percent, before slightly rebounding to 0.8 percent in 2021.

“Tonga, where economic growth was 3.0 percent in 2019, will see zero growth in 2020 due partly to a plunge in visitor arrivals. Growth will likely reach 2.5 percent in 2021, buoyed by tourism,” the same dire predictions state according to the report.

Regional unity is needed
“The ocean is our shared resource and our shared responsibility, a regional unity is required, covid-19 has exacerbated our vulnerabilities as individual economies and as a region where timely health public and border protections have protected our people from the worst of covid-19,” says Dame Meg Taylor, current secretary-general of the Pacific Forum and Ocean Pacific and Ocean Pacific Commissioner.

“Today the focus of all national economies is to revive their economy activity and production in our Island nations with many already facing the grim reality of recession.

“Covid-19 has also presented with us with a valuable opportunity, an opportunity to link global recovery efforts with the goals of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development we must act differently,” she says.

She adds that with collaboration and co-operation, things could be achieved in the Pacific both in terms of tackling climate change and sustainable eco-tourism.

“With strong regional co-operation and collaboration, we can and will achieve our priorities an example of this is the Pacific regional human pathway and forum leaders priorities particularly those of those of climate action and ocean governance.

“It allows the forum to strengthen its hand by acting differently, strengthen its strategic approach, and coherence and collective approach across three separate but related multilateral action such as the COP-26, the second United Nations conference and COP-15 on diversity,” she says.

It is up to the forum nations to find solutions.

‘We must act differently’
“It is time to act differently and innovatively, we must act differently, creatively and constructively to make our Ocean bluer,” Dame Meg says.

Meanwhile, Umiich Sengibau, Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Tourism of Palau, and a past chairman of SREP who will chair Our Ocean 2020 conference in December has spoken about the difficulties that his country has faced in the starkness of the pandemic.

“Palau has been fortunate to be one of the few countries in the world to be free of coronavirus global lockdowns that have helped keep our people safe,” he says.

“As in many other places in the world, commercial flights have been suspended and borders are closed but it has also reduced our tourism revenue, over 40 percent of our GDP to zero.”

He was not sugar-coating the truth about his country’s economic plight.

“This matters because our tourism economy and ocean protection go hand-in-hand,” he says.

“When life under our pristine waters thrive that is how we attract visitors to dive in and see it for themselves. Tourism and protection are part of the same sustainable economy, and one is undermined then so is the other.”

Imperative to protect the ocean
Truer words could not be said.

“Palau recognises the importance of sustainable eco-tourism to support employment, livelihoods and ultimately sustainable development. This is why it is imperative that we protect the ocean.

And he spoke about the exclusive zone surrounding the island state.

“This year we began the implementation phase of the Palau, 80 percent of our exclusive zone some 500 sq km is now a “no-take” area. We know such protected areas foster great marine diversity, strengthen resilience to climate impact and provide respite to fish stocks.

“Everyone benefits from a healthy ocean.”

But not so in Fiji which has seen its tourism industry collapse with locals returning to subsistence farming as seen on the reports that proclaim the demise of the tourist industry.

Tourism accounts for 46 percent of GDP and many who work within the sector and associated industries are now jobless.

Key industy shut down
“Tourism in Fiji contributes 46 percent to GDP directly and was the highest foreign exchange earner at $2 billion plus a year,” says Fantasha Lockington, chief executive officer for the Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association (FHTA) based in Suva.

“It is also the key industry with the biggest multiplier effects throughout the 333 islands that make up the Fiji Islands. The closing of the borders therefore effectively shut down the country’s biggest employment sector.

“We estimate that around 110,000 tourism employed staff (directly) have been put on leave without pay, terminated (with little or no benefits) or made redundant (with payouts per contractual requirements),” she says.

“Fiji has no backstop for wage earner or salary support mechanisms. Instead, the government allows workers to access small amounts of their superannuation funds.

“Many of the larger resorts provided food support or a living allowance to assist their workers – the large majority of whom come directly from the communities and villages the hotels and resorts are located near and from whom the land is leased,” she explains.

“Fijian workers need their jobs back – the next three months will be the most challenging for them as they do their best to return to their communities and villages and get into subsistence farming to ensure they can feed their families,” she says.

Whether it is time for Fiji to invest in eco-tourism has grown along with concerns around climate change and the environment?

Great record of ‘being concerned’
“Fiji has had a great record of being more concerned about climate change and the environment.

“But we do not do enough to walk this talk. Large numbers of tourism operators practice environmental sustainability, implement recycling and energy renewal practices out of necessity and cost-consciousness (being off the main island grids and trying to ensure they protect their untouched and serene isolated locations).

“These are not recognised by the government in any way or often enough. Instead, the tourism industry is the only industry that is charged the Environment Climate Adaptation Levy (ECAL) – which is 10 percent.

“We have consistently requested that ECAL be reduced and spread to other industries that impact on the environment (mining, excavations and extractions of any kind, transport) or to allow environmental sustainability practitioners to get a credit back to both incentivise and change behaviour for the long term,” she sums up.

Then there is the vexed question of the Cook Islands which has tried desperately to twist New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s arm.

Businessman Tata Crocombe who had shut his three resorts in the Cook Islands, losing 200 staff, was a little more pragmatic when he said “New Zealand produces 70 percent of the visitors to the Cook Islands and so it is our call and major market – and vital that we reopen to New Zealand visitors.

“More and more tourism operators are becoming involved in ecotourism and I expect this trend to continue into the future.

Making properties more eco-friendly
“There are a number of initiatives that the various hotels, resorts and accommodated is have taken to make their properties more eco-friendly. There are a number of tours that have focused on ecotourism such as lagoon cruises, turtle snorkelling tours, cycling tours et cetera. In addition, more and more restaurants are incorporating organic fresh Island produce in their menus.

“The growth in eco-tourism reflects the growth in ecologically thinking in the population more generally because human beings as a species need to learn to live in harmony with our environment in nature.

“We have been instrumental in the creation and preservation of marine sanctuaries in front of all of our three resorts which of become major visitor attractions,” he says.

Of importance to the Cook Islands is the economy, as well as safety of the people, says Jonathan Milne, editor of the Cook Islands News.

“At present, the New Zealand government is effectively blockading the Cook Islands, it’s economy and its people. It’s painful for people here to realise that the country regarded as our closest friend, our closest relative, would do that to us – and we pray they reconsider very soon before the economy of this proud little Pacific paradise collapses entirely,” he says.

“Tourism is 10 percent of the NZ economy. In the Cook Islands, with all the multipliers spreading its impact through retail and hospitality, it’s nearly 90 percent of our GDP. But equally important, the connected heritage of our nations, the shared constitutional history, the fact that we remain a realm country and our people are New Zealand citizens – these are ties that New Zealand leaders cannot in good conscience ignore.

“The Cook Islands is not competing with Queensland and Rotorua; some people want to go skiing, some want to go to the beach – they are complementary. We need to work together to strengthen the New Zealand dollar through strengthening our intrinsically inter-linked economies,” Milne adds.

Both economy and safety needed
The Cook Islands needs both the economy and the safety of the people, he says.

“We need both; they can’t be separated. With New Zealand’s assistance, our health and community systems are well-prepared to deal with covid. But we also need the support of our Pacific family, especially in New Zealand, to help reopen our economy.

“It’s all very well-staying safe from covid, the greater danger now is that we can’t pay for food and electricity. And the answer isn’t aid – it’s trade, it’s tourism, it’s getting our resorts and restaurants running.

“You know what they say – teach a man to fish. Well, we know how to fish, but we need tourists to enjoy what we have to offer. I can vouch for the yellowfin tuna, fresh off the boat,” Milne says.

It was a similar scenario in Vanuatu with 10,000 jobs lost.

“Tourism has been decimated here,” Liz Pechan from The Havannah Vanuatu, a five-star resort on the island of Efate, told the ABC.

“I was shocked for a little while, I think I was a bit dumbfounded: like how can this happen, how can the world just stop?”

Majority of hotels have no bookings
Like the vast majority of hotels, Pechan currently has no bookings, and more than 30 staff have already been let go.

Rising sea levels and climate change underscore the problems covid-19 has brought to the blue Pacific Ocean shores.

And while the economy is predicted to come right in a year or two, it will be mainly through sustainable eco-tourism that does not do anything to allay the fears of climate change.

This is the first of a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

The covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has brought numerous challenges to the way journalists report and has limited the stories they’re able to tell, forcing many of them to drop coverage of issues like the environment in order to focus on the public health crisis.

But for Jakarta-based Kantor Berita Radio (KBR), the first independent national radio news agency in Indonesia, the pandemic was an opportunity to make its climate change coverage more relevant.

Using a mix of live radio talk shows and videos, innovative outreach and personal stories, KBR is helping raise awareness about climate change by looking at how it intersects with covid-19.

READ MORE: Radio story telling and community empowerment in the Philippines

Before the coronavirus outbreak, the station had developed a project called “What’s In It For Me?” Supported by a grant from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, the project was designed to explore the different ways climate change affects people’s daily lives.

The goal was to build public engagement through storytelling, in the hope of triggering a wider debate about climate issues between the public and policy-makers.

That plan could have been derailed when covid-19 took center stage, but KBR quickly moved to explore how concerns about the virus also related to climate change, producing content on topics such as energy use and forest fires that were both timely and relevant.

Three talk shows
Between May and June, the station produced three talk shows.

• “How to use energy wisely during the covid-19 pandemic.” (May 15) This show explored the links between energy consumption and climate change and discussed ways in which people could use energy more wisely at home to keep electricity bills down.
• “Anticipating a water crisis in Indonesia.” (May 22) With all the hand washing required during a pandemic, water use has gone up, but access to clean and adequate water supplies remains a huge problem in many parts of the country. The discussion during this show revolved around the reasons for the scarcity as well as environmental justice issues, and allowed speakers to share solutions.
• “Forest fires and the dry season in the midst of covid-19” (June 12) The third talk show, looked at how covid-19 heightens the challenge of combating Indonesia’s perennial land and forest fires and could exacerbate health problems related to the blazes. Speakers outlined the public health links between covid-19 and forest fires and discussed what’s being done and what more is needed to address the problem.

The key challenge for KBR has been ensuring the content is relevant to its audience. But Ardhi Rosyadi, an editor and producer at KBR, says they’ve tried to overcome this by bringing in diverse speakers – including experts, government officials, activists and community leaders – who can clearly explain the issues at both a national and local level.

“We believe that diversity of speakers is crucial because our audience is also diverse,” said Rosyadi. “Our radio talkshow is broadcasting in 34 provinces and each area is experiencing climate change in different ways. And for us, it’s important to make our audience feel connected with the topic, because we want them to feel that it’s also important and eventually take part and do something.”

Expanding to video, growing engagement
The talk shows have all been broadcast live as part of KBR’s flagship program Ruang Publik, which means Public Space in Bahasa Indonesia. To reach new and younger audiences they have  also converted them to podcasts that can be shared online and through mobile apps, such as Spotify.

KBR also worked to grow its audience by recording videos of its talk shows and streaming them live on Facebook. The pandemic has now motivated KBR to carry out its shows primarily through online videos, said Citra Parstuti, KBR’s editor-in-chief.

Content is prerecorded and rebroadcast on YouTube and other social media platforms, with most newsroom teams able to broadcast from home and production carried out in the studio.

Transition to YouTube
KBR has already seen the fruits of its efforts. During a typical one-hour radio talk show they might get between three and six questions (sent through call-ins or text messages). The transition to YouTube has seen this number jump, with 30 questions/comments offered in the third show on June 12, said Parstuti.

“What can we do as society? Because last year, we experienced land burning for five months and it was devastating for us. It will be harder for us in the middle of [the] corona pandemic like now,” read a comment from a viewer on YouTube during that June 12 show.

“From the comments and questions that we received throughout the talk show, we have a sense that the audience understands that we are living in the midst of climate crisis, by looking at their own backyards,” Prastuti wrote in a recent report on the project.

“We believe that this is a good start to inform and educate public to understand climate crisis. Through our talk shows, we are showing that the impacts are real and happening now.”

In coordination with the talk shows, KBR also invites bloggers to listen to the live shows and then write blog posts as part of a writing competition drawing on insights and data shared during the discussion.

Prastuti said they have chosen to target the blogger community because bloggers have the ability to continue the conversation and share information in a more practical way on their own platforms and among their audience. The three winners selected have all been women.

“Our radio talk shows play an important role to give ‘ammunition’ to their writings and also lights further curiosity to dig out for more information,” Prastuti wrote in her report. “The writing competition is a way to find new champions who care, understand and can campaign on climate change issues.”

Short audio spots
As a final effort to extend its content as widely as possible, KBR has taken some of the best quotes from speakers and created short audio spots that it broadcasts up to five times a day in the week following the talk shows.

KBR says it is an attempt to reach listeners after the broadcast is over in a shorter, more straightforward way.

The station’s creative new approaches are already brightening up climate change coverage, and it intends to broadcast more YouTube videos and plans to mainstream environmental topics into the station’s regular shows.

Eventually, KBR plans to host talks shows outside of the studio with live audiences, one that it hopes will have grown bigger despite, or perhaps because of, the pandemic.

The Pacific Media Centre is a partner of Internews’ Earth Environment Network.

In an innovative new development, Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) will partner with the Pacific Media Centre on a “climate and covid” project to help improve and enhance the quality of environmental and reporting in the Pacific region.

In a move that could signal future partnerships with New Zealand Pasifika groups, the 12,000-member organisation working in 180 countries is fast growing in response to the need for more in-depth sustainable development and environmental reporting.

“Building on EJN’s work in the Asia and the Pacific Region, the EJN Asia-Pacific project aims to improve the quantity and quality of environmental coverage in the region, thereby contributing to the capacity among local and regional actors to promote greater accountability and sustainable development in relation to the environment and climate in Asia and the Pacific,” says Imelda Abaño, who is content coordinator Philippines and Pacific content coordinator for EJN’s Asia-Pacific project.

READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project

“We wanted to build and achieve this with the Pacific Media Centre and the Pacific Media Watch freedom project.

“Under the remit of our EJN Asia-Pacific project, we’re open to partnership with New Zealand-Pacific groups and any media and journalists network groups that provide environmental news and information to communities in the Pacific Island and Asian countries,” she says.

Significant step forward
Professor David Robie, director of Auckland University of Technology’s PMC, welcomes the NZ$10,000 partnership grant, saying: “This joint ‘Climate and Covid-19’ project is a significant step forward in our Asia-Pacific collaboration projects.

“The Pacific Media Centre has had long-standing initiatives with journalists and journalism schools, especially at the University of the South Pacific, such as the Bearing Witness climate change project and Pacific Media Watch.

“But now we’re delighted to be teaming up with Internews-Earth Journalism Network (EJN), one of the leaders in environmental and climate justice reportage to provide some well-researched articles and multimedia for our diverse Pacific communities across the region.

“We will gain much too from their expertise and experience,” he says.

With many media companies across the globe the impact on climate change reporting, environmental reporting, and covid-19 coronavirus pandemic reporting is being heavily felt.

“In our present situation, media outlets have fewer resources and less time to report on environmental issues,” Abaño says.

“The editors are not assigning journalists to travel and report directly from the communities who are facing the brunt of sea level rise or displaced due to hydropower development and are reliant on press releases and politicians’ speeches for their stories.”

Worldwide attention on wet market risks
However, if there is a silver lining to the covid-19 pandemic, it is that it has drawn worldwide attention to the Chinese wet markets.

“It has helped to draw worldwide attention to wildlife trade and prompted China to ban wildlife markets and use of pangolin in medicines,” Abaño says.

“It has also generated media coverage that examines the tight links between human, animal and environmental health, such as the clean air many cities are experiencing during the lockdown period, how countries can ‘build back better’ and adopt more sustainable development measures, and covid-19’s implications on the world’s struggle with climate change,” the award-winning journalist says.

She was asked by Pacific Media Watch for her opinion on what was perceived to be the predominant threats to climate change, environmental, and covid-19 reportage in the Asia-Pacific region.

“The Internews’ tagline is ‘Information Saves Lives’ and at EJN we believe that timely, accurate and actionable information from trusted sources is crucial for people making important life decisions to address climate change and other environmental threats as well as covid-19,” she says.

“Environmental threats like climate change, biodiversity loss, energy transition, are often considered “slow moving” crises (unlike the covid-19 pandemic) that do not generate as much public interest until they lead to a disaster,” says Abaño.

Abaño has been covering climate change, energy, agriculture, biodiversity and other environmental issues for more than 18 years. She is also founding president of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists says.

Among Pacific journalists involved in EJN is Priestley Habru, content coordinator for the Solomon Islands. He is responsible for helping implement EJN activities and projects in the region.

Habru also currently writes and edits news with specific interests on the environment, health and gender issues.

Disinformation an environmental threat
“Environmental issues are also often technical by nature and the knowledge on these issues is still evolving,” says Amy Sim, EJN Asia-Pacific programme manager.

“Disinformation and misinformation is another threat to environmental reporting. With rumours and falsehood being peddled so casually and widely on social media as well as mainstream news, it is critical for science-based environmental reporting to find ways to rise above the noise and distractions and reach the general public.

“There is always a need for more, higher-quality reporting about the environment, more so during a pandemic,” she says.

EJN for its part is working on developing those much-needed skills sets and training for data journalists and investigative reporting.

“We have webinars focused on coronavirus and climate change; tools to help fact-check and combat misinformation; tools to report remotely and reach new audiences, for instance through engagement or podcasting; financial support, both for individual journalists and media outlets as a whole; safety tips and psychological support; and access to new research and experts,” Sim says.

“It has always been Internews-Earth Journalism Network’s goal to empower and support journalists from developing countries, including those in the Pacific Region, to cover the environment effectively.”

EJN started working in the Pacific in 2017. In that year, climate change and oceans reporting training began with Pacific journalists and the Pacific Environmental Geo-journalism website, Infopacific, was launched.

Pacific environmental network
In 2018, EJN helped establish the Pacific Environment Journalists Network through a sub-grant, and organised a training workshop with local journalists and experts at the Pacific Media Summit in Tonga.

Then last year to the present day, EJN has partnered with the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) on several climate change workshops for journalists in the Pacific.

EJN has also supported the Climate Change Reporting Project of journalism students of the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji.

“Through this project, selected journalist students travelled to the Solomon Islands to interact with climate vulnerable communities and report first hand on how they are coping with and adapting to climate change. Their stories have been published as a special report by Wansolwara and other Pacific media,” says Abaño.

“This project will bring another batch of students to the Cook Islands later this year to do another round of climate change reporting,” she says.

EJN has also delivered a mobile journalism training to more than 200 journalism students of the USP and this year, they looking to intensify their work in the Pacific region.

“We will partner with USP again on an environmental journalism training workshop for journalism students,” she says.

EJN story grants
EJN has also awarded story grants to six journalists following a competitive call for story pitches opened to Pacific journalists.

Those six Pacific Journalists are Stanley Simpson, Sheldon Chanel, Luke Rawalai (Fiji), Benjamin Kedoga (PNG), Alfred Evapitu and Charles Piringi (Solomon Islands).

They are also looking at partnering with PINA this year for a biodiversity reporting workshop for journalists in the Pacific as well as for the management and content production for the Infopacific website.

These projects are in addition to the annual region-wide story grants, organisation grants and fellowship opportunities available to individual or group of journalists across the Asia and Pacific region.

• Watch for PMC’s Climate and Covid-19 Pacific Project stories

Six South Pacific journalists have been awarded grants by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) to strengthen environmental reporting in the region, reports Internews.

The awardees include three Fiji journalists – Mai TV journalist and chief executive Stanley Simpson, who hosts the investigative current affairs programme Simpson@Eight, Sheldon Chanel and Luke Rawalai.

Both Simpson, founding editor of Wansolwara and who has hosted three Fiji television programmes and has wide media experience, and Chanel are past graduates of the University of the South Pacific journalism programme.

READ MORE: The PMC’s Bearing Witness climate project

Charley Piringy and Alfred Evapitu of the Solomon Islands and Benjamin Kedoga make up the six.

They have received story grants to explore the importance of mangrove ecosystems for bay conservation, the impacts of logging on biodiversity, the problems with capturing undersized fish, the displacement of marine life due to sea level rise, challenges faced by climate migrants, and the illegal export of endangered and protected tree species.

Eleven other grants have been awarded as part of EJN’s Asia-Pacific project and will cover reporting projects in Bhutan, China, Indonesia, India and Vietnam.

Their investigations are wide-ranging, seeking to expose issues such as the environmental impacts of mega hydropower projects, the pollution and resultant health risks posed by reckless disposal of hazardous industrial waste, and how a lack of regulation and transparency combined with geopolitics are undermining efforts to tackle air pollution and its health consequences.

Second batch of grants
This is EJN Asia-Pacific’s second batch of investigative story grantees in 2020, and follows a round of grants awarded to a further five journalists from India, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Cook Islands.

Those grants were awarded at the beginning of this year and the reporters are currently working on their stories, despite travel restrictions during the covid-19 pandemic.

As a result, some grantees have not been able to conduct field reporting as planned, and have been focusing on online research and phone interviews instead. EJN staff are working closely with them to provide the flexibility and support they need.

The Pacific grantees:

The Asia-Pacific grantees:

Reported as part of the Pacific Media Centre’s partnership with the Earth Journalism Network.