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

Thirty five years ago today the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland’s Waitematā Harbour by French secret agents in a blatant act of state terrorism, killing a photojournalist.

People’s campaigns have moved on since then from nuclear tests and refugees to climate justice – and future Pacific refugees.

The environmental campaign flagship was bombed on 10 July 1985 just weeks after it had been in the Marshall Islands carrying out four humanitarian voyages to rescue more than 320 Rongelap atoll villagers from the ravages of US nuclear tests and take them to a new home, Mejato island on Kwajalein atoll.

READ MORE: Eyes of Fire – Thirty Years On
LISTEN: David Robie reflects on the Rainbow Warrior on RNZ’s Crimes NZ programme

They were nuclear refugees seeking justice, relief and a healthy life far from the dangerous legacy left from 105 tests on Bikini and nearby atolls.

Ironically, the bombing in Auckland and mounting Pacific opposition led to a massive wave of New Zealand and Pacific anti-nuclear solidarity and ultimately to the halt of French nuclear testing at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in 1996 after 193 blasts.

The bombed ship’s pioneering environmental work has since been carried on by Rainbow Warrior II and the state-of-the-art eco campaign ship Rainbow Warrior III.

Today the focus is on climate refugees, the lack of adequate health compensation for the Polynesians who suffered radiation and failure to provide proper clean-up of the French nuclear testing zones that are still off-limits after almost a quarter century. Tests were carried out by balloon, derrick, in the lagoon and in a series of underground shafts which have threatened the stability of the 60 km long atoll, leaving it fractured “like Swiss cheese”.

Landmark ruling
In January this year, in a landmark United Nations ruling, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, governments have been told not to return people to countries where their lives might be threatened by climate change.

Climate action activists have greeted this ruling as a potential game changer for both climate refugees, or migrants, and for advocates for global climate action.

The UN Human Rights Committee ruled in the covenant that “without robust national and international efforts, the effects of climate change in receiving states may expose individuals to violations of their rights”.

The ruling applied to a humble New Zealand vegetable farm foreman, Ioane Teitiota, from the island nation of Kiribati, who had become a poster boy for climate refugee legal advocates even though he had little understanding of this concept.

Five years earlier, his lawyers had applied for protection for him in New Zealand after presenting a legal argument that he and his family’s lives were at risk from the impact of climate change and rising Pacific Ocean level in Kiribati as one of the “frontline states” facing global warming.

Although Teitiota and his lawyers lost the case because the threat to Kiribati was not deemed to be an imminent risk, the ruling opened the door to recognition of the existence of climate refugees and the possibility of legal refugee protection.

Climate change will force tens of millions of people to leave their homes in the next decade, according to a report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). And this would include many on low-lying atolls in the South Pacific.

‘Humanitarian visa’
In October 2017, New Zealand’s Climate Minister James Shaw announced that the incoming government was planning an “experimental humanitarian visa” category for Pacific Islanders forced to leave their homes. Partially inspired by the Teitiota case, it was envisaged that up to 100 people a year might settle in New Zealand under this scheme.

However, this humanitarian plan was quietly shelved because Pacific Islanders generally do not want to leave their homes. They prefer support for adaptation and mitigation for their continuing lives on ancestral land with refugee status as merely a last resort.

The Rainbow Warrior had visited Kiribati and Vanuatu on the voyage to New Zealand after the Marshall Islands mission. Crew members saw at first hand some of the climate pressures already apparent back then.

Cancer sufferers seeking nuclear compensation from the French government under the controversial Morin law received a boost last month when a man who had developed bladder cancer as a result of the nuclear tests was awarded almost US$180,000 by the administrative court.

This news was welcomed by both health advocates and activists.

According to the local news service Tahiti-Infos,  an earlier application for compensation had been turned down by the authority dealing with the case.

The compensation law has been tightened up again after being earlier relaxed with most claims being rejected between 2010 and 2017.

Uproar in Tahiti
In May, there was an uproar in Tahiti when the French National Assembly attempted to include a clause about compensation over nuclear weapons testing into generic covid-19 legislation while the French Polynesian representatives were absent from the chamber because of the pandemic travel bans.

Tahiti’s Moetai Brotherson, one of the two French Polynesian representatives, described this move as a “scandal” and two nuclear test veteran advocacy groups, Moruroa e Tatou and Association 193, were also angry, reports RNZ Pacific.

During the three decades of French tests, the early atmospheric explosions had dusted atolls and islets with radioactive fallout.

Brotherson expressed disappointment that the French state had demonstrated yet again that it “detested” the Tahitian people. Moruroa e Tatou’s Hiro Tefaarere said he was “outraged” but not surprised because all French presidents from de Gaulle to Macron “couldn’t care less” about Polynesians.

During 2019, the French Polynesian social security agency CPS reported that it had spent US$770 million on health care costs for radiation-induced illnesses. The CPS, responsible for medical expenses and pension payments, has struggled with its budgets and wants France to take responsibility for compensation.

However, French authorities do not accept liability for test-related illnesses, claiming the nuclear blasts were “clean” unlike the earlier US and British tests in the Pacific.

The nuclear tests have rarely been an issue outside French Polynesia and independent Pacific nations. But some consciences are occasionally pricked.

A French Watergate?
Five years ago, the unmasked French bomber who sank the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 made some revealing comments during his interviews with the investigative website Mediapart and TVNZ’s Sunday programme, none more telling than that “the first bomb was too powerful, it should have ended as a Watergate” for French President François Mitterrand.

Mitterrand stayed in office for 14 years – a decade after the bombing and before he finally stepped down when his second presidential term ended in May 1995, the year before nuclear tests ended.

The bomber, retired colonel Jean-Luc Kister, added that had Operation Satanique – the sabotage plot – involved the United States, “more heads would have rolled”.

However, while the “innocent death” of Portuguese-born Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira has clearly played on his conscience for all these years, Kister’s sincere apology wasn’t without a hint of trying to rewrite history.

The claim that the secret sabotage operation never meant to kill anybody is unconvincing for anybody on board the Rainbow Warrior on that tragic night when New Zealand lost its political innocence and the crew lost a dear friend.

In 2005, two decades after the bombing and nine years after Mitterrand’s death, Le Monde published a leaked document revealing that the late president had personally approved the sinking of the ship.

The newspaper obtained a handwritten account of the operation, written in 1986 by Pierre Lacoste, who was sacked as head of the secret services.

The Democracy Now! report – Rainbow Warrior and President François Mitterrand. Video: Democracy Now!

‘Neutralise’ the Warrior
He had testified that he had asked President Mitterrand for permission to “neutralise” the Rainbow Warrior at a meeting two months before the attack and would never have gone ahead without the president’s authorisation. 

The so-called nuclear “war” in the Pacific dates back to the US bombing of Hiroshima and

Nagasaki in 1945. The bombing was followed by  atmospheric nuclear testing by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, arguably the “dirtiest” nuclear testing.

The first so-called nuclear refugees in the Pacific were the Bikini atoll islanders who were relocated into “exile” for the first US weapons tests in 1946.

Then came the British tests at Christmas Island (now Kiribati) and in the Australian outback; the start of the French testing at Moruroa in 1966; more US tests at Johnston Atoll in the early 1960s; flight testing of ICBMs, anti-satellite weapons; and more recently “Star Wars” technology at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands.

As the late Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace campaign coordinator on board the Rainbow Warrior and whose birthday was being celebrated on board the night of the bombing, noted, “the displacement of local populations and adverse health effects as a result of these programmes has not been without opposition.

“But that opposition has been so scattered and unorganised until recently that it has been little felt in Washington and Paris.”

And the Rainbow Warrior Pacific voyage was planned to make a global difference. It did, but one that shook the world and ended in tragedy.

Greenpeace executive director Russel Norman praised the “people power” that gained an important victory in the “oil war” when the Rainbow Warrior docked in Auckland yesterday for a week-long visit.

The Greenpeace environmental flagship was welcomed by about 200 people – including some original crew members – on the first leg of its seven-week “Making Oil History” tour of New Zealand after arriving at Matauri Bay on Sunday.

“It brings a tingle down the spine to see the Rainbow Warrior return to the port of Auckland” where the original Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French secret agents on July 10, 1985, killing photographer Fernando Pereira,” Dr Norman said.

READ MORE: The Rainbow Warrior itinerary in NZ

“It’s about celebrating the people power movement in Aotearoa which was able successfully to put pressure and build a movement to support a government that wanted to end issuing new exploration permits for oil and gas,” Dr Norman told the crowd.

“And that’s a very, very important victory, and it’s a victory that was only possible because of people power.”

New Zealanders from north to south had come out to rally and protest against offshore exploration for oil and gas.

“Iwi and hapu came out to the beaches and in front of seismic testing vessels to stop and confront the oil industry,” he said.

‘Epic struggle’
“That was an epic struggle, mostly successful in ending new offshore exploration permits for oil and gas”.

But it was not yet entirely finished business, said Dr Norman.

The struggle needed to go on.

Musician Don McGlashan sang his Rainbow Warrior dedicated tribute “Anchor Me” at the welcome.

The crowd included two original Rainbow Warrior crew members, Hilari Anderson and Susi Newborn, relief cook Margaret Mills on the ship at the time of the bombing and author and journalist David Robie, who travelled on board for the Rongelap Atoll voyage and wrote Eyes Of Fire.

The tour was “not only remembering about the past and the great victory in terms of nuclear testing in the Pacific and nuclear-free New Zealand”, it was about the continuing people power struggle, said Dr Norman.

Public viewing
The Rainbow Warrior will be open for public viewing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Amanda Larsson said events would be hosted on board the ship to inform the public about what New Zealand’s energy transition might look like.

After Auckland, the Rainbow Warrior will sail to Whangaparaoa Bay in the eastern Bay of Plenty and to the East Coast to pay respects for the work the community has done.

Larsson said the ship would then go to Wellington for another event with politicians exploring the future of energy in New Zealand.

After Wellington, the ship will sail to Kaikoura where it will document wildlife.

The campaign ship will also visit Lyttelton and Dunedin.

The last leg will be to Stewart Island before heading for Australia to protest against oil companies’ offshore exploration plans in the Great Australian Bight.

• Rainbow Warrior returns to NZ for ‘oil free’ future and activist doco
• Gallery: From fighting nukes to stopping oil – Rainbow Warrior

Don McGlashan singing “Anchor Me” at the welcome for the Rainbow Warrior yesterday. Video clip: Del Abcede/PMC

With the date for this year’s second Fiji general election since the 2006 coup yet to be announced, one of the questions is will there be a free media for the campaign? Sri Krishnamurthi in Suva talks to some media commentators who are not optimistic.

The frenzy of the forthcoming elections is just starting to hit Fiji, even though the date has yet to be announced, but the elephant in the room is whether the media is going to be free of government interference.

“No, definitely not. The combination of threats [such as those faced by Hank Art – who as publisher of The Fiji Times recently beat sedition charges] and self-censorship have become
severe,” says New Zealand journalist Michael Field, a veteran of 30 years reporting on the Pacific.

“I believe the Fiji media is fearful of the [Voreqe] Bainimarama government and its ability to hit at media in ways that are expensive and worrying. This ranges from the simple banning of government ads in The Fiji Times to the various sedition issues.

READ MORE: Coups, globalisation and Fiji’s reset structures of ‘democracy’

“Being free and independent is too expensive for what are small companies compared with the size of the state.”

Dr Shailendra Singh, coordinator of journalism at the University of the South Pacific, questions whether Fiji is ready for a free media.

“Whether Western notions of free, unrestrained media are suitable for a developing, fragile, ethnically-tense country is a moot point,” he says.

“Media have been known to inflame situations, just as governments have been known to use stability and security as pretexts to curtail media scrutiny and criticism. Finding the right balance can be elusive,“ Dr Singh says.

‘Power of the pen’
When Sitiveni Rabuka staged the first two coups in 1987, he admittedly was unaware of the “power of the pen”.

“Personally, I had nothing to hide from the media” he said on reflection in 2005 about his coups.

However, subsequent governments did not see the media as a poodle to be toyed with; instead the perception of the industry was that of a rottweiler itching to bite.

“I think it is more likely that the media regulations arose from those who saw the influence of the media, particularly in the [Mahendra] Chaudhry government [overthrown in the third coup in 2000] – and earlier in the lively free-ranging days when the media really was free and independent,” says Field, who was banned from Fiji in 2007.

“The Bainimarama government is clever enough to realise that they might not last with a free media.”

Fiji has flirted with having both a regulated media and self-censorship since the first of its four coups in 1987.

“True. But the government baulked, fearful of the public reaction and international fallout,” says Dr Singh.

‘Media always fragile’
“What that tells us is that media freedom in Fiji has always been fragile. It was only a matter of time.

“Media in Fiji are free to report as they see fit but serious mistakes are punishable by various existing laws such as defamation and contempt which are sufficient, so journalists are quite cautious.

“No one wants to be dragged through the courts like in the recent Fiji Times sedition case. The three-year lawsuit would have been financially, physically, psychologically draining. The Fiji Times escaped by the skin of its teeth.

“Free media is in the beholder’s eyes in some respects. Government feels media is free enough. Media, on the other hand, feel caged. Finding the right balance can be elusive.”

Ricardo Morris, a former journalist and current affairs magazine editor in Fiji, explains the impact of the Media Industry Development Decree (MIDD) which was imposed in 2010 and five years later became law.

“The decree became an act in 2015. The Media Authority (MIDA) doesn’t have to do much anymore because [chairman – Ashwin] Raj simply has to make comment or criticise a media company for some perceived slight and everyone retreats,” says Morris.

Morris researched and authored a 2017 report on self-censorship in Fiji on a Reuters Foundation scholarship.

“There is talk regionally and internationally about how the media Act is hanging over the media’s head. However, Raj usually says, ‘we have never brought prosecution against a media company under the media decree’ and he is right.

‘Always that danger’
“But there is always that danger.

“They’ll usually issue statements, and in the past there has been public shaming, so now you don’t really need to bring cases against the media because they are too afraid to do something that might jeopardise their position or if they do get charged they will get charged under some other criminal law as in the case of The Fiji Times now – they are charged under the Crimes Act, a case that has now gone to appeal. That’s a distinction.”

Dr Singh says it is for that reason he does not see a relaxation of the media laws.

“The media situation is not going to change – that I can say with some confidence. The laws are going to remain the same for some time yet.

“Government, which has the power to change the legislation, has not said anything. One assumes the government is happy with the way things are, so why change? If this government is returned with a strong mandate, it may feel confident enough to change the laws.

“Or it may see a stronger mandate as a vindication of its media law. The opposition National Federation Party (NFP) has said it will abolish the decree if it forms government. “

Which provisions of MIDD do those involved find most objectionable and would like to see removed?

‘Protect their own backs’
“Fines and jail terms against reporters/journalists were removed but this is meaningless unless the same is done for publishers/editors, obviously because the latter have control over journalists and will censor them to protect their own backs.

“Clear definition of what constitutes inciting communal antagonism,” says Dr Singh.

As Field says, it is simple case of economies of scale when it come to the media.

“This ranges from the simple banning of government ads in The Fiji Times, to the various sedition issues. Being free and independent is too expensive for what are small companies compared with the size of the state,” he says.

Hence the media has become a cowered and beaten animal in Fiji.

“It has become tame and fearful, it is under the control of the government and its handlers. Many journalists in Fiji, with an eye to junkets and scholarships, prefer to follow the Information Ministry line and just write up press statements,” says Field.

“I don’t think there has been a true debate in Fiji over what a free media should be … the debate has always been defined by the men with the guns.”

Sedition charges
Sedition charges were filed against The Fiji Times, three of its executives, and one opinion columnist. The columnist (Josaia Waqabaca) accused Muslims of historic crimes including invading foreign lands, rape, and murder.

“Sedition is not a crime in most countries, it’s called free speech. The content of the letter with its anti-Muslim sentiment is widely held by many. By suppressing it you do not make it go away,” says Field.

“I believe the final verdict was reached because the open absurdity of the charge, and its contents, could not be sustained, and even the imported judge did not want to be seen signing on to it.”

As Morris puts it: “We haven’t really heard the debate about the sedition law, a lot of the countries with similar histories have abandoned the sedition law because there is a fine line between freedom of expression and sedition.

“But now because of The Fiji Times, my perception is the general public err on the side of caution and will not say anything that will be deemed seditious.”

MIDD sits above the media like an axe waiting to fall, and the threat of it falling is why the media cannot expect freedom in the 2018 general elections or anytime soon.

• Fiji is ranked 57th on the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index with an RSF verdict: “Little desire to restore media freedom”.

Sri Krishnamurthi is a journalist and Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology student contributing to the Pacific Media Centre‘s Asia Pacific Report.

• Relief that the Fiji sedition case is over
• David Robie’s verdict on the media in the 2014 election

Sri Krishnamurthi’s interview with former MIDA chief executive Matai Akaoula, now a FijiFirst MP.

By Hele Ikimotu

The president of the Samoa Voyaging Society (SVS), Schannel van Dijken, says humans cannot thrive without looking after our landscapes and seascapes.

As part of his work with the SVS, van Dijken and his team of volunteers sail across the Pacific on their waka, the Gaualofa – promoting the old tradition of navigating.

“Our mission is to revive the lost art of traditional navigation and voyaging but also to take this knowledge and stewardship responsibilities that we used to have – take these to the communities,” he says.

He also speaks of the challenges around climate change and the need to raise awareness about the issue.

This 4 minute video was produced by Hele Ikimotu and Blessen Tom as part of the Pacific Media Centre’s Bearing Witness climate assignment under the postgraduate International Journalism Project with Te Ara Motuhenga at Auckland University of Technology.

By Hele Ikimotu with visuals by Blessen Tom in Suva

This year, the University of the South Pacific is celebrating 50 years since its opening in Fiji in  1968.

The university’s first campus was established in Suva, with a student count of 200 – it now accommodates over 30,000 students across the different campuses within the Pacific region.

USP has campuses in 12 different Pacific nations – Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Chandra said USP has made a positive contribution to the Pacific region, including contributions in human resources, policy change and research.

He described the university as being “owned by the Pacific and serves the Pacific”. Professor Chandra emphasised the need for these Pacific countries to work together in advocating for Pacific issues.

“As small countries, we need to work together. One is simply too small to be playing in the big world out there. We need to put all of our voices together. We need to co-operate, work together and integrate,” he said.

Professor Chandra also spoke highly of USP’s efforts in tackling the issue of climate change.

Leading stand
Over the years, the university has become one of the leading tertiary institutions to make a stand against the issue.

“The university has played this role of researching, advocating, supporting policies and disseminating knowledge around climate change,” said Professor Chandra.

The USP journalism school for example is consistently producing stories on climate change issues in their student newspaper Wansolwara. They have also partnered with AUT’s Pacific Media Centre to host two students every year for the Bearing Witness climate change journalism project.

This has seen significant stories about the effect climate change has had on communities in Fiji such as the award-winning multimedia story produced by Kendall Hutt and Julie Cleaver last year about Tukuraki village.

“I am also proud of the USP students. They have gone to the various COPs and have supported their own countries and have become senior advisers to their governments.

“I am quite proud and happy because the climate is central to the survival and prosperity of our country.”

The university’s 1999 strategic plan also saw the establishment of the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD).

Raising awareness
The centre was opened to implement more research of the region’s environment and has continued to raise awareness about climate change and sustainable development in the Pacific.

PaCE-SD offers a postgraduate programme in climate change, with currently 200 students across the Pacific enrolled in the programme.

The centre also implements community projects around climate resilience in the Pacific and has been involved in major projects such as the Community Coastal Adaptation Project (C-CAP) and the Future Climate Leaders Programme (FCLP1).

Since the centre has been established, it has been recognised as a strong part of the university’s fight against climate change and environment research in the Pacific.

PaCE-SD director Professor Elisabeth Holland said it was important to be on the ground making a difference in the Pacific region and local communities.

Deputy director of the centre Dr Morgan Wairiu echoed Professor Holland and said the focus of PaCE-SD was helping communities adapt to the changes in the environment because of climate change.

He said it was also important to provide students with the right skills to help them in their areas of research so they could come up with effective solutions to help communities affected by climate change.

Community projects
Professor Holland said: “We run community development projects. We have a locally managed climate change adaptation network that extends to more than 100 communities in 15 countries across the Pacific.”

She said that by listening to how communities were affected by climate change, it had taught their team to listen better and develop a more participatory approach in decision making.

“We have the opportunity to learn from one another and if we’re learning from one another, we’re in a partnership to serve whatever problem is in front of us.”

Professor Holland encourages anyone who is interested in learning about climate change to keep an open mind and said: “Don’t assume you know what the answer is.

“The strongest solutions are those developed together. The fundamental values of participatory listening and respect help solve most of the challenges that come up.”

Hele Ikimotu and Blessen Tom are in Fiji as part of the Pacific Media Centre’s Bearing Witness 2018 climate change project. They are collaborating with the University of the South Pacific.

• More Bearing Witness stories
• USP’s ’50 Years’ website
• Wansolwara News

By Julie Cleaver and Kendall Hutt in Suva

Pacific journalism students in Fiji say reporting climate change is crucial for the survival of the region.

The University of the South Pacific students say educating people about the issue throughout the region and the world is a key factor when it comes to “saving” the Pacific.

“Covering climate change is important for me because my country’s life and my country’s peoples’ lives are at stake, so I need to let institutions outside my country know that we are facing the effects of climate change, and its severe effects that we’re facing,” says Shivika Mala, a third-year Fiji journalism student who is also majoring in politics.

Mala also says it is time for the global media to pay more attention to the Pacific’s current situation and not just focus on natural disasters.

“Climate change is happening. This is the reality and it’s about time journalists and other people who don’t necessarily believe in climate change to start doing their research and start understanding the challenges, the implications, and the impact it has on not only the Pacific countries, but other countries as well,” says Mala.

She says this is because the homes and lives of herself and her peers have already been affected.

Climate change ‘something personal’
“Climate change for me is something personal. It’s something that effects my country and the Pacific and the world as well. Climate change for me means loss of life, and loss of loved ones.”

For Vilimaina Naqelevuki, a 20-year-old journalism and politics student, her village, Narikoso, on Ono Island in the Kadavu group, has already suffered great loss.

Nariko has been suffering from the impacts of climate change and therefore believes the island’s younger generation will lose their sense of culture, Naqelevuki says.

“I was fortunate enough to have met my great-grandmother, she passed away six years ago. She tried to talk and teach us as much as she possibly could about what was left of the island.

“It’s a little bit emotional and every time I talk about it I get really sad, because I know for a fact that within the years to come I won’t have an island left to go back to, and that just saddens me a lot.”

For Semi Malaki, who is studying a double-major in journalism and politics, climate change has also already become a reality in his home country, Tuvalu.

“For us in Tuvalu it’s more to do with the security and survival of our people, because we all know climate change causes the sea level to rise.”

Changed food lifestyle
He also says climate change has changed the lifestyle of people in Tuvalu, particularly regarding food. This is because the rising sea level makes it difficult to grow food as salt water contaminates crops.

“People now are now less dependent on root crops and more dependent on imported foods from overseas, and that’s had a lot of impact on our diets.

“This has health impacts on non-communicable diseases, like lots of Tuvaluans have suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure due to the change in their diets.”

He also says people are migrating away from Tuvalu because of the fear that the country might sink one day.

Due to forced migration, culture and traditional ways of life is also at stake for Pacific people.

Loss of culture
“What climate change does is remove these people from their traditional and everyday lives and completely sends them somewhere else. They have to restart their lives again,” says Mala.

For Vanuatu, where the population largely relies on subsistence farming, losing culture is already a fact of life, says Telstar Jimmy, a mother of three who is completing a double major in journalism and language and literature.

“Sixty-five percent of our population relies on subsistence farming. That’s naturally their way of life. All they know is how to grow crops and also how to fish.

“That’s been a major part of their lives and changing weather patterns is affecting that because our ancestors used to know when to go fishing or which places to do their fishing. But now, because of changing weather patterns it affects that cultural knowledge we used to have.”

Additionally, Jimmy says one of Vanuatu’s 100 plus languages has already been lost as a result of climate change migration.

“In some places where we had different dialects, when we had to relocate them to another place and in order to adapt to the particular environment, they have to use the bigger languages to communicate with the people there.

“As they use more of the bigger languages, they lose the smaller languages that were originally there and that is why some of our languages have already begun to be lost.”

For Jimmy, Mala, Malaki, and Naqelevuki, their message for the world is clear: climate change is real.

“Climate change is happening to us. We’re going to lose our land, we’re going to lose our culture and our identity if we don’t do anything about it.”

Julie Cleaver and Kendall Hutt are in Fiji for the Bearing Witness project. A collaborative venture between the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme, the Pacific Centre for the Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), the Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre and documentary collective Te Ara Motuhenga, Bearing Witness seeks to provide an alternative framing of climate change, focusing on resilience and human rights.

Student protests at the University of Papua New Guinea that led to police opening fire on a peaceful crowd last year, Australian journalism training in the Solomon Islands, “cyberbullying” in Fiji, independent campus media, and Radio New Zealand International’s reporting of the Pacific are among topics featured in the latest edition of Pacific Journalism Review.

The journal was published online today on the new Tuwhera research platform at Auckland University of Technology with a special edition on journalism education in the Pacific.

Peer-reviewed papers have been drawn from the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) and the Pacific Media Centre Preconference and the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC16) conference at AUT last July.

Thirteen Asia-Pacific educators and journalists were funded to attend the conferences by the recently created NZ Institute for Pacific Research, Asia New Zealand Foundation, Transparency International New Zealand and UNESCO.

The University of Auckland’s Associate Professor Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa, who opened the JERAA-PMC preconference, says in the editorial journalism is central to the public interest in the Pacific.

Dr Salesa, director of the new institute, says journalism protects culture and especially language. However, a fast-changing world is “making it difficult for journalists to keep up with the scale of some of the issues affecting the Pacific” – such as climate change.

The editorial also features his comments about the challenges to journalism educators.

Edition acting editor Dr Philip Cass writes about Wansolwara, the longest-running journalism school newspaper in the Asia-Pacific region – last year it celebrated 20 years of publishing in Fiji.

Dr Shailendra Singh and Eliki Drugunalevu assess three case studies of cyberbullying against truth-seeking student journalists in Fiji.

Managing editor Professor David Robie, on sabbatical last year, offers an analysis of the transformation of Pacific Scoop into Asia Pacific Report, the campus-based digital publication with the widest reach in the region.

Dr Alexandra Wake reports on her research into Australian post-conflict journalism training initiatives in Solomon Islands while Emily Matasororo reflects on the national university upheaval in Papua New Guinea last year climaxing in police shootings that left at least 23 people wounded.

Dr Matt Mollgaard examines the role of Radio New Zealand International as a source of information and a tool for “soft power” in the region.

Tongan publisher, broadcaster and media freedom campaigner Kalafi Moala’s closing address at WJEC rounds off the Pacific section.

PJR also features a major research report on the state of New Zealand journalism, conducted as part of the Worlds of Journalism Study; a Frontline “journalism as research” report on indigenous collaboration in Western Australia; capstone units; a NZ mayoral celebrity scandal; and covering police corruption in Indonesia.

Other WJEC Asia-Pacific papers will be published in two future editions of PJR later this year.

• PJR table of contents

It was a weekend filled with Fijian culture and tradition as the community gathered at the Auckland Museum this week to open celebrations for Fijian language week.

On Saturday morning Fijian leaders from all around the country came together for the first time to address issues that are affecting the community living in New Zealand.

With the community’s population growing fast in Auckland, the leaders were concerned that approximately seven percent of New Zealand-born Fijians cannot speak the language.

The President of the Fiji Community Association of Auckland (FCAA), Naca Yalimaiwai, said it is important for Fijian youth to grow-up surrounded by their language so they can identify with their culture and who they are.

“It’s important to maintain that reputation of who we are when we come away from Fiji,” he said.

In the afternoon, the community turned out in big numbers for the launch of the Fijian collection at the museum.

‘Fijian treasures’

The collection of ancient Fijian artefacts was officially named: ‘Nai Yau Vakaviti: Na Ka Marequiti’ which translates into: ‘Our Fijian Treasures: That are treasured’.

The community said a special blessing for the items, acknowledging the culture, tradition and skill of their ancestors.

The exhibition is a part of the Pacific Collection Access Project at the Auckland Museum. It has, for the very time, allowed communities to view an extensive look into the Pacific collections they store.

The collection will continuing viewing until July 2017.

Watch the full video story here.

Fiji Language Week runs from October 3-9, 2016. This years theme is:Noqu vosa, me’u bula take, which means my language, learn it, speak it, live it!

Hosted annually by the Pacific Cooperation Foundation, this year’s Pacific Wave event was held at Aotea Square, Auckland, where guests spoke about the importance of Pacific youth playing an innovative role in technology.

A significant keynote speaker was Dr Michelle Dickinson, director of the science and technology organisation Nanogirl and a senior University of Auckland lecturer.

Dr Dickinson, who describes herself as a “passionate engineer who wants to make a difference in the world”, stressed the importance of having diversity in science and engineering industries.

A call for diversity
“We need to talk more openly about having more female and especially Pacific and Māori students in this industry,” Dr Dickinson said.

“I get students to draw what they think a scientist looks like and it’s always a guy,” she said during her presentation.

“I’ve probably had over a thousand kids draw a picture of a scientist and I’ve never had one of them draw a women and I’ve never had one of them draw a picture of someone from a minority group… we need to change that.”

Speaking to Asia Pacific Report, Dickinson explained: “Diversity in science and engineering is really important because what we do is solve problems. The best way to solve problems is to have teams and if you have a team of people that are just like you and think like you, you probably are not going to problem solve as well as if you had a diverse team.”

Diverse teams ensure people are coming with different experiences and backgrounds, which help create the best science solution or engineering product, she said.

Also a co-founder of OMG Tech! A programme that is focused on state of the art technology, allows children in primary and intermediate schools across the nation to take part in workshops, learning aspects of 3D printing, coding and building robots.

Passionate about her cause, Dr Dickinson said she did not run a workshop unless the class was 50 percent female and 50 percent low decile Māori and Pasifika students.

“Because I want to create a technical space of education where the minority become the majority,” she said.

Pacific innovation
Pacific high school students who attended the conference were encouraged to be creative and to think of innovative ways of using technology to add value to society.

Mike Usmar, the chief executive for High Tech Youth, an organisation which allows young people to use technology to change economic environments, said technology creates room for groundbreaking ideas.

“There is amazing innovation in the Pacific community and they’re utilising technologies in ways probably the designers didn’t think. That is just a hallmark of where our future is with our young people.”

New Zealander and global entrepreneur Jamie Beaton also spoke at the event.

The Kings College graduate is the chief executive of Crimson Consulting, a company that has made almost $90 million within three years.

The institution helps young professionals gain the mentoring and assistance they need to study at world-class universities.

“Basically after high school I had applied to all these universities around the world. After I gained admission to them I realised there was this massive need in New Zealand to help students with the resources necessary to break these geographical boundaries – that was the starting block,” he told Asia Pacific Report.

More Pacific needed
The 21-year-old reinforced the theme of empowering youth with technology.

Beaton explained he is particularly focused on helping universities which are actively trying to recruit students from the Pacific.

“But there isn’t enough representation right now from Pasifika, so we need more applicants.”

“I want to help inspire more of these students by providing the tools necessary to get into these places.”

He said it was important for young people to remember that their potential is not bound by their community, but instead bound by the world.

Pacific Wave speakers

Name: Jale Samuwai Curuki

Age: 30

Occupation: PhD candidate, University of the South Pacific

Passion: Accounting, climate financing

Country: Fiji

Climate change activist, Jale Samuwai Curuki, sends a powerful message from Fiji to the sceptics of climate change.

“I come from the second largest island in Fiji, Vanua Levu,” says the 30-year-old.

“There’s a village there called Vunidogoloa and [this is] the first village in the world to be relocated due to climate change.

“I’ve been to Vunidogoloa and seen the consequences. The entire village is gone and it’s not habitable anymore, they have had to shift so that in itself is a testament that climate change is real.”

“We’re not making this up,” he says. “If you are still a climate denier, I feel sorry for you.”

Currently completing his PhD in climate financing at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Curuki can often be found clicking away at the keyboard, getting stuck into his thesis.

Climate financing is one of the issues that affect small island countries in their effort to combat climate change, Curuki explains.

Climate financing
“The issue of climate financing is new. No matter how you spin it, no matter how many fancy words you apply to it, all comes down to money.”

Curuki followed the climate finance track at the 2015 COP21 conference in Paris, which he attended as apart of a selected delegation for Fiji.

“To actually live and experience how agreements and how treaties are made on the highest level is something else, it’s totally mind-blowing,” he says.

He recalls busily running from meetings to negotiations that would sometimes finish in the early hours of the morning.

“We can really appreciate the effort all these diplomats and negotiators do on our behalf,” he says.

Curuki encourages all Pacific communities especially those in New Zealand and Australia to mobilise and take action against climate change.

He makes it clear that if you’re still not convinced, the Pacific isn’t far away for people to come and see the effects for themselves.

“[We are all linked and] for now we might be crying, tomorrow it might be you.”

• Pacific profile: Jenny Jiva

A group of New Zealand-born Samoans meet every Tuesday night at Newton Pacific Island Church (PIC) to connect with the Samoan language and their culture.

The 10-week Fa’amatai Bilingual class, run by the Pasifika Education Centre (PEC), is a first step for those wanting to learn Samoan rituals and protocols.

The tutor of the class and also PEC Pasifika cultural adviser, Alaelua Taulapapa Leasoiloaifaleupolu Malesala, says the class was important as it allows the community to stay connected through language and culture.

“Many of our New Zealand-born Samoans and even some people that were born in Samoa travelled to Aotearoa at a very young age,” he says.

“They are now in positions of leadership in the New Zealand community which works with a lot of our Samoan community but they don’t have the ability to communicate with our Samoan people in the times that they do come together.”

This class ensures Samoan knowledge is imparted to those that reside in New Zealand, he says.

For many of the students, the class has come to represent a revitalised connection to their language, culture and ultimately embracing their Samoan roots.

Passing on to grandchildren
Class member Peter Ah Kuoi says it is not only a “reconnection” for him, but learning Samoan language allows him to pass what he has learned on to his grandchildren.

“In our class today we learned about a legend, and it was a beautiful story, I think I could tell it to grand kids.

“I kind of missed the boat with [teaching] my children [Samoan] but I now have five grandchildren who I think at this age would be sponges for all these myths and legends of who we are and where we come from.

PIC church member in Newton Theresea Miller says the class will help her connect and better communicate with members of the Samoan community.

“We go on visitations [for church] and it’s good when we go Samoan families that we know the [cultural] processes.”

Mary Anne Copeland says she is taking the class to learn about the formal protocols and Samoan speeches.

“I’m really good with street talk I guess, talking within my own family. But being able to stand up and say a lauga (speech) and to stand up and be able to do a lot of the formal protocols, which normally I wouldn’t do, that’s what the extension of this programme has been able to help me with.”

Staying informed
Alaelua Taulapapa Leasoiloaifaleupolu Malesala encourages all Pasifika people to attend the language classes to stay informed and connected with one another.

“We must always make that connection with home,” he says.

“This is your opportunity to be exposed, be supported and gain some learning for yourselves so you can continue on with your role and responsibly within your aiga (family).”

This story is in celebration of 2016 Samoan Language Week (29 May-4 June 2016)

The theme for this year is:“E felelei manu, ae ma’au i o latou ofaga: Birds migrate to environments where they survive and thrive.”

As global response to an online petition continues to grow, can the death of one elephant change attitudes on Southeast Asia’s animal tourism industry? Dominic Pink investigates for Asia Pacific Report.

More than 150,000 people have signed a petition to end elephant riding at Angkor in Cambodia, a UNESCO World Heritage site where tourists converge to marvel at the immense Khmer Empire ruins.

“There is no such thing as cruelty-free elephant rides,” says the Change.org petition, which asks that APSARA (Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap) ban elephant riding at the archaeological park.

The catalyst was the death last month of Sambo, a female elephant aged between 40 and 45, who collapsed and died of a presumed heart attack after carrying tourists between temples in oppressively hot temperatures — nearby Siem Reap recorded a high of 40 degrees C on April 22.

Cambodia has just 70 captive and 500 wild elephants remaining, according to Jack Highwood, founder of the Mondulkiri-based NGO Elephant Valley Project, “so to lose another is a sad loss for Cambodia’s increasingly rare elephant population.”

The World Wildlife Fund lists Asian elephants as an endangered species, with the total population estimated somewhere between 30,000 to 50,000 and on the decline.

“Cambodia owes much of its rich history to the strength of the elephant,” says Highwood.

“Now that Cambodia is prospering, it should take advantage of its new-found wealth to protect this important species.”

International support
International animal welfare organisations such as the Elephant Asia Rescue and Survival Foundation (EARS) and World Animal Protection (WAP) have voiced their support for the petition, and are challenging travel companies to get on board.

“It has been really heartwarming to see the global response to Sambo’s death,” says Carmel de Bedin, EARS Asia’s Hong Kong director.

“There has been incredible support for the petition, both locally and internationally, and we feel that this is really indicative of the changing attitudes around the world to elephant tourism.”

Nicola Beynon, head of campaigns for WAP Australia and New Zealand, says their research has found that when people are made aware of the cruelty involved in wildlife attractions such as elephant rides, “they consider it unacceptable.”

“The problem is that a lot of the cruelty is hidden and goes on behind the scenes,” she says.

“For instance, most people wouldn’t know that elephants go through a process called ‘the crush’ … When they are young, they get taken from their mothers, kept in isolation, chained up, deprived of food, and beaten.

“It’s a horrific process, designed to break the elephant’s spirit so that it submits to human will and is safe to interact with tourists. And that’s just the start of their life in captivity.”

Decreasing demand
WAP are focussed on decreasing tourist demand for exploitative wildlife attractions, and more than 100 travel companies have committed to their pledge to no longer sell elephant rides in packages, including Contiki, Intrepid Travel and World Expedition.

The organisation is now taking aim at TripAdvisor with a petition that accuses the popular online travel company of profiting from animal cruelty, and demands that they stop promoting and selling tickets — through their subsidiary Viator — to “cruel wildlife tourist attractions”.

This strategy proved successful earlier this year when travel company Thomas Cook removed sales of elephant rides and shows following a WAP petition signed by almost 175,000 people.

According to the WAP petition, the University of Oxford reviewed 188 wildlife venues featured on TripAdvisor last year and found that 75 percent of the attractions involved wildlife cruelty.

“We’re targeting TripAdvisor because they are the biggest online travel company and they are hugely influential in terms of how tourists spend their dollars,” says Beynon.

“If TripAdvisor came on board with this campaign they could be a tremendous force for good.”

WAP is asking TripAdvisor to put in place a “positive programme” called “Wildlife Leaders”, inspired by their existing eco-friendly programme “Green Leaders”, where venues that treat animals responsibly would be rewarded.

TripAdvisor Inc. representatives declined to be interviewed for this article, responding to Asia Pacific Report’s request with a statement saying:

“We believe these petitions are well-intentioned and we appreciate their ability to shine a bright light on animal cruelty.

“We believe, however, that these efforts would be better served directed at national governments and local regulatory bodies to ensure that businesses are operating within the legal requirements of that country or region, or better yet, to improve local standards and regulation regarding animal welfare.”

The statement also highlighed that establishments listed on TripAdvisor did not represent their endorsement, and all tickets sold through Viator were subject to a Code of Conduct ensuring that no animal-related experiences that were known to be prohibited by respective governments were offered.

But Beynon believes that this response is “passing the buck”.

“Just because it’s legal, that doesn’t mean it’s not cruel, and big global companies have a responsibility to set their own standards and their own ethics about what they consider acceptable.”

De Bedin concurs, saying TripAdvisor has a “moral duty” when it comes to the sites they choose to promote.

“Suggesting that organisations work directly with the governments is side-stepping the issue and is derogatory to the work of organisations such as EARS Asia, who already do challenge the bodies ‘in charge’ as it were.”

When it comes to advice for prospective Southeast Asia tourists, de Bedin says: “Don’t leave your morals at home.”

Suffering cruelty
“Our rule of thumb,” says Beynon, “If you can hug it, if you can ride it, if you can take a selfie with it, or if it’s performing for you, then there is a very good chance that that animal has suffered cruelty and you should avoid it.”

De Bedin points out that while elephant riding is a growing industry in Southeast Asia, so is ethical elephant tourism.

Last week saw the announcement of a new Elephant Nature Park in Phuket, the second elephant rescue and rehabilitation centre under this banner — considered to be one of the most reputable sanctuaries in Thailand — and the first in collaboration with EARS Asia.

Asia Pacific Report asked the APSARA Authority, the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism, and the Royal Embassy of Cambodia in Canberra for comment, all of whom were unresponsive.

All these more ethical developments have come too late for Angkor’s Samba.

Dominic Pink is an Auckland-based student journalist reporting on AUT’s Asia-Pacific Journalism course.

Do changes to climate change reporting need to happen? Does the media itself need structural change to face the new challenge? Kendall Hutt seeks some answers to the debate for Asia Pacific Report.

A worldwide call has gone out by academics and journalists for news media to change its approach on reporting climate change.

Current coverage of climate change leaves the public ill-informed on the issue and largely cynical, say some academics.

Also of concern is a tendency for media to frame climate change as an international rather than local issue, which leads it to be defined as a problem for others and not one of national sovereignty.

The need for improvement was highlighted at a public talk delivered at Auckland University of Technology last month, in which Professor Robert Hackett of Simon Fraser University discussed whether certain “touchstones” of journalism, such as objectivity and the public sphere, apply in covering what he dubbed a “climate crisis”.

The topic of a forthcoming book with several colleagues titled Journalisms for Climate Crisis, Hackett proposes several alternative reporting models that could potentially allow greater, more in-depth coverage of the climate change issue.

However, Dr Hackett concluded his talk by stating structured media reform was needed for climate crisis journalism to flourish. He stressed that the industry needs space to discuss such reform in order to foster change in defiance of a lack of political will.

Speaking with Asia Pacific Report, Dr Hackett has expanded on this conclusion, saying such structural media reform would “encourage and expand better journalism practices and coverage to the scale that is needed in a situation of global crisis”.

He added media reform would also reduce commercial pressures on journalists to generate clickbait and reduce concentrated corporate ownership.

But this is not a view shared by others.

Oxfam New Zealand’s senior campaigns and communications specialist Jason Garman rejects the idea of media reform.

“I think passing the buck that media should be solving this problem by doing better is not the way to go,” he says.

I think everyone needs to come to the reality that climate change is affecting all of us and we all should be playing a constructive part in making sure we have a world that’s liveable for everyone.”

Garman believes improvements to the way climate change is reported needs to come from – and return to – journalism’s fundamental role in educating and informing the public.

This is a view shared by science communication specialist and former journalist, Dr Jan Sinclair.

Dr Sinclair says it is mainly the media’s responsibility to inform the public of the extent and reality of the risks of climate change.

“It’s the journalist’s responsibility to tell people whether their lives or property are at risk.”

Like Garman, Dr Sinclair rejects Dr Hackett’s idea of media reform being the way for media to improve its climate change coverage moving forward.

Dr Sinclair is wary of reform due to the vested interests of fossil fuel industries and “sceptical lobby” which have plagued, and continue to plague, coverage of climate change.

She says such well-funded and powerful lobbying has promoted a culture of climate change being framed as “uncertain”, both within the media and social world.

Evidence of such lobbying can be seen by looking at ExxonMobil, one of the leading opponents of climate change science, which also once happened to be one of its leading proponents.

A video by AJ+ recently revealed that ExxonMobil spent US$61 million between 1998 and 2005 challenging scientific consensus surrounding climate change.

ExxonMobil has also been largely responsible for creating the uncertainty Dr Sinclair describes, with the oil company spending US$30 million on a network of think tanks and researchers who have challenged climate change science.

Dr Sinclair says any improvements to current reportage are a question of ethics and should be seen as a matter of integrity for journalists.

Question of ethics
“If journalists could perhaps have a discussion on which ethics are important, and then link speaking truth to power to the problem of interpreting scientific results… I think that might be beneficial.”

The journalistic adage of “speak truth to power” does not do climate change reporting any favours, she adds, as this “political” focus is detrimental.

This is something Dr Sinclair has also noted in her research into comparisons of what information the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported and what The New York Times reported across a 17-year period from 1990 to 2007.

Dr Sinclair noted: “Journalists are encouraged to privilege political discourses over scientific advice”, in direct correlation with the adage.

In contrast, Taberannang Korauaba, a doctoral candidate with the Pacific Media Centre and editor of the Kiribati Independent, believes stories on climate change need to focus more on the positive and calls attention to the Pacific.

Positivity needed
“The same message is repeated, sea is rising, people will be displaced, sea encroaching land, temperature is getting hotter these days on the islands.”

Yes, Pacific people are victims of climate change, he says, but stories should focus on adaptation and media attention shift to investigate the distribution of adaptation funding.

“What is happening now on the ground, I think the focus should be there. How much money given to these islands to help build their resilience, how it is spent, who is getting what?”

Korauaba says the media needs to adopt strategies to better report climate change and one of those is deliberative journalism, journalism that is acknowledged as empowering local people and leading to greater, popular decision-making.

In his research, he regards deliberative journalism – what he terms in the i-Kiribati-language as Te Karoronga – as allowing the community to be part of climate change adaptation and raising understanding and awareness of actions, so the people themselves can take action to help save their islands.

Despite such varied calls for the media to reframe its coverage of climate change, such as by Pacific Journalism Review in a special edition in 2014 on “failed states” and the environment, not all coverage is, or has been, inherently bad, Garman and Hackett stress.

Not inherently bad
Professor Hackett says some media organisations have been doing “remarkably good work” and “exercising a sense of agency”.

One such organisation is the Desert Sun, he adds, Palm Spring’s daily in southern California due to the host of feature articles it has produced.

Garman, however, highlights the media’s growth and acknowledgement in framing climate change as a human rights issue.

“If you’d asked me that question [growth] ten years ago I would have said, ‘No, absolutely, people see climate change as an environmental issue only, something that’s happening to polar bears and may affect humans at a long-off point in the future’.

“Whereas now I do think people understand that climate change is happening now, it’s affecting people now, it’s a human rights issue.”

Although no consensus exists as to what form reframing should take, Korauaba has noted it will take time for any changes to come into effect.

“The world can’t change overnight, at least we do something, and keep doing it regularly in our coverage.”

Kendall Hutt is a graduate journalist from AUT University, currently completing her Honours year in Communication Studies. She is on the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Journalism course.

By TJ Aumua in Daku, Fiji Islands

Rising sea levels are a major threat to coastal villages in the Pacific.

Daku village in the Rewa delta area in Tailevu, Fiji, is one village that faces the challenge every day.

Biu Naitasi, Daku’s headman, says that despite the village receiving a floodgate funded by USAid to help drain water, the sea level is still rising and the strength of waves is increasing.

Naitasi told Asia Pacific Report that sea water flooding in their village can reach up to their ankles, forcing some children in the village to relocate to another school.

The salt water has damaged their food plantations and eroded the wooden and concrete support beams on their homes.

While they wait for another floodgate to stop seawater flowing into their crops, they continue to be proactive, using people power to build higher seawalls and filling the flooded land with soil.

• Thanks to the people of Daku village and the University of the South Pacific’s Pacific Centre for the Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), USAid and the Pacific Community in Fiji for support in making this video.

By TJ Aumua in Suva

Hydrothermal vents have been compared as the ocean equivalent of the earth’s volcanoes. They are a treasure trove of precious minerals and home to unique ocean life.

The rich ecosystems in the vents have scientists eager to gain more knowledge about them, as they face threats of disruption from deep-sea mining interests.

Hydrothermal vents are formed when the movement of the Earth’s plates split open, releasing chemically enriched water, forcing emerged peaks in the ocean’s surface.

Marine species that are developed to live in each vent’s specific ecosystem also face the danger of industrial mining.

Marine researcher and Schmidt Ocean Institute communications manager Carlie Wiener spoke to Asia-Pacific Report in Suva where she was a guest speaker as part of a series of seminars hosted by the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) at the University of the South Pacific.

She says hydrothermal vent communities are still largely unexplored.

“Because the deep ocean is so dark, the species use hydrogen-sulfide and the process of chemosynthesis to produce energy,” Wiener says. “This is unlike land animals where they use sunlight and photosynthesis to produce energy.”

The Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) is currently on a 28-day expedition researching hydrothermal vent sites between Fiji and Tonga.

The SOI team will use a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that is able to travel up to 3000m to the seafloor to photograph species and take environmental measurements of the vents.

Scientists are hoping the research will provide new insights into volcanic and tectonic activity in the Pacific basin, the ecology of hydrothermal vent species, and data on the impact of deep-sea mining to establish policies and protocols for the future.

Weiner said there is need for more research to happen in the Pacific with the institute receiving many proposals addressing oceanography exploration in the region.

Earlier this year, SOI researchers studied the effect of greenhouse emissions and its link with low oxygen zones in the Pacific Ocean.

Communities in the region are encouraged to get involved in the explorations.

Students and researchers can send in proposals for future expeditions to the SOI website.

“Our diving explorations are also livestreamed,” says Weiner.

“So someone here in Fiji who will never get to see 2000m below the surface, can watch it – it’s right in their backyard, happening in real time.”

Ami Dhabuwala and Pacific Media Watch contributing editor TJ Aumua are in Fiji on a two-week “Bearing Witness” climate change journalism project with the University of the South Pacific.

• The hole in the ocean – the Mariana Trench

Video and photos by Del Abcede in Auckland

Māori protesters at the forefront of a massive people’s protest for democracy in Auckland today against the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

Trade ministers from the 12 countries involved in this agreement signed the biggest trade deal in history. But a growing groundswell of opposition has shaken politicians in the government.

Many Māori and other New Zealanders believe the pact will erode democracy and undermine the country’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
#TPPabuse

TPPA: It’s our future

More Del Abcede pictures

—

She said the pact would “tilt the playing field even more in favour of the big multinationals and against working families”.

Senator Warren (D-Mass.), the most vocal critic of the TPPA in Congress, issued a report last year detailing decades of failed trade enforcement by American presidents, including Barack Obama, as part of an ongoing public feud between Warren and Obama over the partnership.

Pasifika Renaissance, an NGO dedicated to Pacific oral histories, has appealed to groups documenting traditional knowledge to upload stories to their YouTube channel.

Among recent collaborators are Papua New Guinean journalist and community worker Milton Tyotam Kwaipo, from Rabaul, who runs a multimedia studio in Madang Province.

After earning a BA majoring music, journalism and public relations at the University of Papua New Guinea in 2006, he later worked for NGO World Vision International in PNG, Timor Leste and Vanuatu from 2009 to 2015.

He also earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Community Development in 2014.

In 2015, he started Milate Multimedia Produxion that focuses on using multimedia (music, audio, radio programs, video and photography) for social empowerment through sharing of ‘positive stories’, focusing on local communities developing themselves rather than waiting for outside sources to aid them.

He is also a musician, playing a flute, saxophone and other instruments.

Pasifika Renaissance’s appeal said:

Since many interested and motivated people have asked us about possible participation in our NGO’s activities, we decided to invite you to document oral traditions from knowledgeable elders in your village or island by a video/digital camera, tablet or cellphone to upload your videos on our YouTube page.

The topics of your elders’ narrations include legends, folktales, colonial histories, experiences of WWII and dying cultural practices.

Narrators can speak in their languages or English in your videos, since the target of your videos is younger people on your island.

This project will primarily enable you to record disappearing oral traditions of your home island and share them with your people.

Furthermore, through this project, we seek your active involvement in revitalising your island’s traditional culture and creating a larger “renaissance” movement in a wider Pacific region.

In addition, if you have an opportunity to take videos of cultural practices (e.g. fishing, festivals, rituals, dances) on your island, please share them with us to upload them on our YouTube page.

If you are interested in this project, please send us a message on FB or at pasifika.renaissance@gmail.com, so we’ll send you more detailed info. We are very looking forward to your participation in our endeavor!

We are very keen to collaborate with a researcher, government official, and interested community member of the Pacific islands to pursue our common goals. Please contact us to discuss possible collaboration. Thank you!

The latest upload to the channel has been a “Western-style” dance “Kahlek Dil” from Pohnpei.

In addition to earlier Western influence in island music in the 19th century, Pohnpeian people learned several forms of foreign dances during the German administration (1899-1914).

One of them is marching dances, which were created through interactions with foreigners in the Marshall Islands and spread throughout Micronesia in the early 1900s.

Reporters Without Borders has unveiled its new video campaign, War Reporters. Its release coincides with the publication of RSF’s 50th book in the “100 photos for press freedom” series – this one dedicated to the work of Robert Capa.

Created by the advertising agency BETC (Production Stink and director Owen Trevor), this video highlights the urgency of supporting photoreporters, without whom we would never know the realities of war.

Let’s support those who risk their lives every day to keep us informed and provide us with independent images that are very different from the official ones served up by governments.

As the photoreporter James Nachtwey said: “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.”

There are the official images. And there is the reality. Photoreporters are heroes. They are men and women who put their life on the line every day.

The craft has lost 40 percent of its personnel in the past 15 years. Supporting them is really urgent.

Thanks to them, newspapers manage to publish reportage photos of great quality. New festivals enable photoreporters to continue working independently and to experience the public’s interest, which proves that the demand is there.

Let’s support photoreporters, so that they are able to work in way that provides a vision of the world that is nuanced, human and complex, one that makes a debate possible.

Let’s support those who show us what the official images don’t show.

Without independent reporters, war would be a pretty show….

From the Pacific Media Centre

A short documentary by Alistar Kata

In 2009, a short video was made by AUT television students John Pulu and Sophie Johnson about the work of the Pacific Media Centre.

Now a new programme, a 15min documentary by Pacific Media Watch project contributing editor Alistar Kata has been made.

Dubbed The PMC Project, it is a compelling video about the student journalists and staff involved and their research and media reports.

Among the people interviewed are founding PMC director Dr David Robie; award-winning documentary maker Jim Marbrook; graduating postgraduate student KP Lew, who was in internship in Fiji last year; and Alistar herself – and many others are featured.

The people tell their inspiring story themselves. Quote:

“The centre is quite unique in that it was actually founded as both a research unit and media producer. We have the PMC online itself, which has a range of news and current affairs resources, but then we also have an industry partnership with Pacific Scoop and we’re also about to start a new one called Asia Pacific Report. We also do research publications, we publish PJR… plus we have internships, we send our students from the centre around the Pacific, and also in the Asian region as well to work for media internships and so on. We run a very good monitoring service, the Pacific Media Watch service.”

Reporter/Editor: Alistar Kata, contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch project.

Special thanks to:
Pacific Media Centre
School of Communication Studies, AUT
Dr David Robie
Jim Marbrook
KP Lew

Credits include:
Asia Pacific Report
Cap Bocage documentary
Del Abcede
Florent Erisouké
Mads Anneberg
Niklas Pedersen
Pacific Scoop
Selwyn Manning
Te Waha Nui
Victor Mambor and Tabloid Jubi
Wansolwara

Asia Pacific Report Gallery – Pictures and video clip by David Robie

“It has been my decision alone to retire as my health has deteriorated rapidly in the last three years.

“I have been lucky. I came to Vanuatu only 4 years after cyclone Uma had destroyed the place. I came here in 1989 with $8000 and one of those small early Macintosh computers and the first Apple laser printer. Nowadays I would not have been allowed in with only Vt800,000!

“I screwed up when I first arrived by putting girls in mini dresses wrapped around tamtams on a wall calendar and was fined by paramount chief Willie Bongmatur, but I was lucky and my little business started growing.

“Our PM around 1993 was Maxime Carlot Korman, and it was he who gave me the approval to launch a newspaper when I was a foreigner.”

– From the Vanuatu Daily Post last month.

Report by Pacific Media Watch

A team of Auckland University of Technology student journalists has won the 2015 Ossie Award for Best Innovation for a series of video reports about the Rainbow Warrior bombing and the environment.

The student team entry, coordinated by Kendall Hutt, is featured on the Eyes of Fire microsite published by Little Island Press in collaboration with AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and Greenpeace New Zealand.

The Rainbow Warrior project involved interviews with crew members on board the sabotaged Greenpeace campaign ship 30 years on, stories on contemporary environmental issues, and profiles of photojournalists who covered the anti-nuclear struggle.

The project was inspired by a new 2015 edition of David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior. Dr Robie, director of the PMC, was an independent journalist on board ship for 10 weeks until the bombing by French secret agents on 10 July 1985.

The Ossie Award, presented at the annual conference of the Journalism Education and Research Association (JERAA) at Bathurst this week, was warmly welcomed by AUT staff and students and microsite publisher Tony Murrow.

‘Multimedia-rich’
“The Eyes of Fire project used the online medium well, through a clear, easy-to-navigate and multimedia-rich website, but also contained significant amounts of more traditional video and print reporting, which was tightly edited and interesting,” said the judge’s citation.

“The two were combined well to both entertain and impart information. Looking through it was an education in the Rainbow Warrior and its significance.”

The teaching team leading the project were Gilly Tyler, Danni Mulrennan and Dr Robie. Television lecturer Mulrennan coordinated the student news reporting team.

The list of students involved in the project is here.

The Ossie Awards are named after Australian foreign correspondent Osmar S. White.

Pacific Media Watch project editor Alistar Kata also reported a series of in-depth stories on the Rainbow Warrior and environmental activism.

The latest edition of the Pen Sydney freedom of expression magazine has published a four-page article by Dr Robie about Eyes of Fire and the Rainbow Warrior experience.

Eyes of Fire microsite

“HOT AIR – Climate Change Politics In NZ” – the award-winning feature length documentary which reveals how big business stopped NZ Government action on climate change – is being launched for on-demand free viewing today.

The film’s on-demand release is being promoted via an advertising campaign on the leading NZ political news website Scoop.co.nz.

After a sellout Wellington premiere at the International Film Festival, and nomination as finalist in NZ Film Awards Best Documentary and Best Editing, HOT AIR won the 2013 Bruce Jesson Senior Journalism Award.

Describing its strong use of dramatic news archive and interviews as ‘riveting and compelling’ judges and critics praised its detailed coverage of conflict and intrigue between Government and powerful business players.

HOT AIR chronicles the expensive campaigns mounted by business leaders to delay and obstruct the efforts of National and Labour governments to slow down global warming.

Fearful that carbon tax and similar proposals would cut their profits, the men in charge of some of New Zealand’s biggest businesses hired local and foreign propagandists and climate-change deniers to discredit scientific reports and reverse growing popular and political support for action to reduce global warming.

Their corrosive undermining of the work of three Cabinet Ministers (National’s Simon Upton & Labour’s Pete Hodgson and David Parker) and scientific advisers has proved effective.

Since 2008 the Key government has taken no new action to curb climate change.

HOT AIR tells the full and alarming story of this contest between elected governments and wealthy business and it is now available for free on-demand viewing via Youtube.

Disappointed by the apparent official failure to engage the public on climate change issues, producer and co-director Alister Barry hopes free Youtube access to HOT AIR will help New Zealanders understand how lobbying by business interests have inhibited positive action by successive New Zealand Governments to address climate change,

Barry also hopes his decision to release the film for free viewing will promote discussion about practical steps to deal with the most urgent issue of our times.

“The December 2015 UN conference on climate change in Paris is very important; our Government said it would set a target for reduced greenhouse gas emissions in preparation for the conference, but that has not yet happened.

“Once again, our country is being very slow to act and it seems most likely that our national target will be decided behind closed doors after consultation with the big industrial emitters. Who is in charge here ?”

“Yesterday the Government launched a consultation round on the target that New Zealand ought to take to the Paris Climate Change meeting. Public Meetings begin next Wednesday and run for a week – submissions can be made till June 3rd.

“I hope that by releasing this documentary now for free public access via Youtube (it has been screened twice by Maori TV) it will provide useful context for the discussion around what NZ’s target ought to be for reducing its emissions.”

The free on-demand on-line launch of HOT AIR is something of an experiment. With DVDs predicted soon to go the way of VHS, and more and more use of mobile devices to view films and video, putting a feature documentary online is logical.

Barry’s last production, The Hollow Men, has had over 170,000 You Tube visits over two years – but Barry stresses this doesn’t mean everyone watched the documentary right through. He hopes free viewing will simplify and maximise access to HOT AIR and above all he wants young people to watch the film because,“It’s about their future more than mine”.

His recent approach to TVNZ asking if they would be interested in screening the film has had no response.

“Thankfully, Maori Television has once again stepped in as our default public broadcaster and screened HOT AIR twice. When I was young, a documentary like this would have been made and aired by our state owned broadcaster as a matter of course. Perhaps this on-line experiment will help prove to NZ On Air that there are other ways for them to support local documentary makers”.

Watch the film at at www.hotairfilm.co.nz

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Documentary: Morality of Argument – sustaining a state of being nuclear free

Duration: 1:39 Director/Producer: Selwyn Manning

Produced in association: with Dr David Robie and the Pacific Media Centre.

Copyright 2010: Selwyn Manning and Multimedia Investments Ltd.

In his documentary Morality of Argument, journalist Selwyn Manning analyses what remains of New Zealand’s nuclear free policy that was so central to the Labour Party of the 1980s, and indeed whether the policy’s ethos and application is as relevant today and into the millennium as it was on its ascendancy into law as the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987.

The documentary conveys its discoveries by structuring argument emanating from four key interviewees who choose to stand apart from political party influence and seek value in subscribing to an independent position when analysing the nuclear free issue.

Interviewees include:

Bunny McDiarmid, Commander Robert Green, Dr Kate Dewes, Dr Paul Buchanan.

Footage includes previously unreleased recordings of an interview between Selwyn Manning and former New Zealand prime minister David Lange on the nuclear free policy and the Pacific.

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AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): Most audiences are used to seeing Wairere Tame Iti as the Māori activist, who most notably shot the Australian flag at a 2005 Waitangi Tribunal hearing, and recently when he was arrested as part of the 2007 anti-terrorism raids in Te Urewera.

But a new documentary entitled The Price of Peace goes beyond the surface into the world of Tame Iti, and takes a different approach to telling the story of the Tūhoe raids.

Award-winning director and co-producer Kim Webby says she wanted to show all sides of Tame Iti.

“I knew him differently. I knew him as a grandfather and as a father, as a marae committee chairman, you know, a leader in his community.”

The flag-shooting incident in 2005 … but this intimate documentary provides a wider context for race-relations in New Zealand. Image: ConbrioMedia

The film also addresses the themes of how the media portrayed Tame Iti himself, his court case and the painful impact on the wider Ngāi Tūhoe community.

One of three co-producers on the film, AUT University television lecturer Christina Milligan, says the commercialisation of our media industry is a major issue.

“Our mainstream media is getting whiter and whiter by the day and it’s almost like because we have Māori Television, we can now put all the Māori stories, indigenous stories over in that box and its taken care of and the government’s ticked that one off.”

On a wider scope, the film points towards the importance of reconciliation and the state of race relations in the country.

The film screens once more at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland, then tours around the country before airing on Māori Television on October 13.

 Creative Commons Licence: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.