Last week, the UN’s highest court issued a stinging ruling that countries have a legal obligation to limit climate change and provide restitution for harm caused, giving legal force to an idea that was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila. This is how a group of young students from Vanuatu changed the face of international law.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Jamie Tahana for RNZ Pacific

Vishal Prasad admitted to being nervous as he stood outside the imposing palace in the Hague, with its towering brick facade, marble interiors and crystal chandeliers.

It had taken more than six years of work to get here, where he was about to hear a decision he said could throw a “lifeline” to his home islands.

The Peace Palace, the home of the International Court of Justice, could not feel further from the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Other climate justice reports

Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.

“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”

What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.

“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”

And they won.

The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.

“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.

“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.

“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.

A classroom exercise
It was 2019 when a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific’s campus in Port Vila, the harbourside capital of Vanuatu, were set a challenge in their tutorial. They had been learning about international law and, in groups, were tasked with finding ways it could address climate change.

It was a particularly acute question in Vanuatu, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Many of the students’ teenage years had been defined by Cyclone Pam, the category five storm that ripped through much of the country in 2015 with winds in excess of 250km/h.

It destroyed entire villages, wiped out swathes of infrastructure and crippled the country’s crops and water supplies. The storm was so significant that thousands of kilometres away, in Tuvalu, the waves it whipped up displaced 45 percent of the country’s population and washed away an entire islet.

Cyclone Pam was meant to be a once-in-a-generation storm, but Vanuatu has been struck by five more category five cyclones since then.

Among many of the students, there was a frustration that no one beyond their borders seemed to care particularly much, recalled Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands who was at USP in 2019. She saw it as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.

Each year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was releasing a new avalanche of data that painted an increasingly grim prognosis for the Pacific. But, Rikimani said, the people didn’t need reams of paper to tell them that, for they were already acutely aware.

On her home island of Malaita, coastal villages were being inundated with every storm, the schools of fish on which they relied were migrating further away, and crops were increasingly failing.

“We would go by the sea shore and see people’s graves had been taken out,” Rikimani recalled. “The ground they use to garden their food in, it is no longer as fertile as it has once been because of the changes in weather.”

The mechanism used by the world to address climate change is largely based around a UN framework of voluntary agreements and summits — known as COP — where countries thrash out goals they often fail to meet. But it was seen as impotent by small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, who accused the system of being hijacked by vested interests set on hindering any drastic cuts to emissions.

So, the students argued, what if there was a way to push back? To add some teeth to the international process and move the climate discussion beyond agreements and adaptation to those of equity and justice? To give small countries a means to nudge those seen to be dragging their heels.

“From the beginning we were aware of the failure of the climate system or climate regime and how it works,” Prasad, who in 2019 was studying at the USP campus in Fiji’s capital, Suva, told me.

“This was known to us. Obviously there needs to be something else. Why should the law be silent on this?”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the main court for international law. It adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big cross-border legal issues. So, the students wondered, could an advisory opinion help? What did international law have to say about climate change?

Unlike most students, who would leave such discussions in the classroom, they decided to find out. But the ICJ does not hear cases from groups or individuals; they would have to convince a government to pursue the challenge.

Together, they wrote to various Pacific governments hoping to discuss the idea. It was ambitious, they conceded, but in one of the regions most threatened by rising seas and intensifying storms, they hoped there would at least be some interest.

But rallying enough students to join their cause was the first hurdle.

“There was a lot of doubts from the beginning,” Rikimani said. “We were trying to get the students who could, you know, be a part of the movement. And it was hard, it was too big, too grand.”

In the end, 27 people gathered to form the genesis of a new organisation: Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

A couple of weeks went by before a response popped up in their inboxes. The government of Vanuatu was intrigued. Ralph Regenvanu, who was at that time the foreign minister, asked the students if they would like to swing by for a meeting.

“I still remember when [the] group came into my office to discuss this. And I felt solidarity with them,” Regenvanu recalled last week.

“I could empathise with where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. So it was almost like the time had come to actually, okay, let’s do something about it.”

The students — “dressed to the nines,” as Regenvanu recalled — gave a presentation on what they hoped to achieve. Regenvanu was convinced. Not long after the wider Vanuatu government was, too. Now it was time for them to convince other countries.

“It was just a matter of the huge diplomatic effort that needed to be done,” Regenvanu said. “We had Odi Tevi, our ambassador in New York, who did a remarkable job with his team. And the strategy we employed to get a core group of countries from all over the world to be with us.

“It’s interesting that, you know, some of the most important achievements of the international community originated in the Pacific,” Regenvanu said, citing efforts in the 20th century to ban nuclear testing, or support decolonisation.

“We have this unique geographic and historic position that makes us able to, as small states, have a voice that’s much louder, I think. And you saw that again in this case, that it’s the Pacific once again taking the lead to do something that is of benefit to the whole world.”

What Vanuatu needed to take the case to the ICJ was to garner a majority of the UN General Assembly — that is, a majority of every country in the world — to vote to ask the court to answer a question.

To rally support, they decided to start close to home.

Hope and disappointment
The students set their sights on the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s pre-eminent political group, which that year was holding its annual leaders’ summit in Tuvalu. A smattering of atolls along the equator which, in recent years, has become a reluctant poster child for the perils of climate change.

Tuvalu had hoped world leaders on Funafuti would see a coastline being eaten by the ocean, evidence of where the sea washes across the entire island at king tide, or saltwater bubbles up into gardens to kill crops, and that it would convince the world that time was running out.

But the 2019 Forum was a disaster. Pacific countries had pushed for a strong commitment from the region’s leaders at their retreat, but it nearly broke down when Australia’s government refused to budge on certain red lines. The then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, accused Australia and New Zealand of neo-colonialism, questioning their very role in the Forum.

“That was disappointing,” Prasad said. “The first push was, okay, let’s put it at the forum and ask leaders to endorse this idea and then they take it forward. It was put on the agenda but the leaders did not endorse it; they ‘noted’ it. The language is ‘noted’, so it didn’t go ahead.”

Another disappointment came a few months later, when Rikimani and another of the students, Solomon Yeo, travelled to Spain for the annual COP meeting, the UN process where the world’s countries agree their next targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But small island countries left angry after a small bloc derailed any progress, despite massive protests.

That was an eye-opening two weeks in Madrid for Rikimani, whose initial scepticism of the system had been validated.

“It was disappointing when there’s nothing that’s been done. There is very little outcome that actually, you know, safeguards the future of the Pacific,” she said.

“But for us, it was the COP where there was interest being showed by various young leaders from around the world, seeing that this campaign could actually bring light to these climate negotiations.”

By now, Regenvanu said, that frustration was boiling over and more countries were siding with their campaign. By the end of 2019, that included some major countries from Europe and Asia, which brought financial and diplomatic heft. Other small-island countries from Africa and the Caribbean had also joined.

“Many of the Pacific states had never appeared before the ICJ before. So [we were] doing write shops with legal teams from different countries,” he said.

“We did write shops in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa, getting people just to be there at the court to present their stories, and then of course trying to coordinate.”

Meanwhile, Prasad was trying to spread word elsewhere. The hardest part, he said, was making it relevant to the people.

International law, The Hague, the Paris Agreement and other bureaucratic frameworks were nebulous and tedious. How could this possibly help the fisherman on Banaba struggling to haul in a catch?

They spent time travelling to villages and islands, sipping kava shells and sharing meals, weaving a testimony of Indigenous stories and knowledge.

In Fiji, he said, the word for land is vanua, which is also the word for life.

“It’s the source of your identity, the source of your culture. It’s this connection that the land provides the connection with the past, with the ancestors, and with a way of life and a way of doing things.”

He travelled to the village of Vunidologa where, in 2014, its people faced the rupture of having to leave their ancestral lands, as the sea had marched in too far. In the months leading up to the relocation, they held prayer circles and fasted. When the day came, the elders wailed as they made an about two kilometre move inland.

“That’s the element of injustice there. It touches on this whole idea of self-determination that was argued very strongly at the ICJ, that people’s right to self-determination is completely taken away from them because of climate change,” Prasad said.

“Some have even called it a new face of colonialism. And that’s not fair and that cannot stand in 2025.”

Preparing the case
If 2019 was the year of building momentum, then a significant hurdle came in 2020, when the coronavirus shuttered much of the world. COP summits were delayed and the Pacific Islands Forum postponed. The borders of the Pacific were sealed for as long as two years.

But the students kept finding ways to gather their body of evidence.

“Everything went online, we gathered young people who would be able to take this idea forward in their own countries,” Prasad said.

On the diplomatic front, Vanuatu kept plugging away to rally countries so that by the time the Forum leaders met again — in 2022 — they were ready to ask for support again.

“It was in Fiji and we were so worried about the Australia and New Zealand presence at the Forum because we wanted an endorsement so that it would send a signal to all the other countries: ‘the Pacific’s on board, let’s get the others’,” Prasad recalled.

“We were very worried about Australia, but it was more like if Australia declines to support then the whole process falls, and we thought New Zealand might also follow.”

They didn’t. In an about-turn, Australia was now fully behind the campaign for an advisory opinion, and the New Zealand government was by now helping out too. By the end of 2022, several European powers were also involved.

Attention now turned to developing what question they wanted to actually ask the international court. And how would they write it in such a way that the majority of the world’s governments would back it.

“That was the process where it was make and break really to get the best outcome we could,” said Regenvanu.

“In the end we got a question that was like 90 percent as good as we wanted and that was very important to get that and that was a very difficult process.”

By December 2022, Vanuatu announced that it would ask the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to weigh what, exactly, international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

More lobbying followed and then, in March 2023, it came to a vote and the result was unanimous. The UN assembly in New York erupted in cheers at a rare sign of consensus.

“All countries were on board,” said Regenvanu. “Even those countries that opposed it [we] were able to talk to them so they didn’t oppose it publicly.”

They were off to The Hague.

A tense wait
Late last year, the court held two weeks of hearings in which countries put forth their arguments. Julian Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer from Guam who was one of the lead counsel, told the court that “these testimonies unequivocally demonstrate that climate change has already caused grievous violations of the right to self-determination of peoples across the subregion.”

Over its deliberations, the court heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history. That included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls, which were hoping the court would provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

They argued that climate change threatened fundamental human rights — such as life, liberty, health, and a clean environment — as well as other international laws like those of the sea, and those of self-determination.

In their testimonies, high-emitting Western countries, including Australia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia maintained that the current system was enough.

It’s been a tense and nervous wait for the court’s answer, but they finally got it last Wednesday.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the decision,” Regenvanu said. “The fact that it was unanimous, we weren’t expecting that.”

The court said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions. It also said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change, and that countries had a right to pursue restitution for loss and damage.

The opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, it carries legal and political weight.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the ICJ to hold each other to account, something Regenvanu said Vanuatu wasn’t ruling out. But, ultimately, he hoped it wouldn’t reach that point, and the advisory opinion would be seen as a wake-up call.

“We can call upon this advisory opinion in all our negotiations, particularly when countries say they can only do so much,” Regenvanu said. “They have said very clearly [that] all states have an obligation to do everything within their means according to the best available science.

“It’s really up to all countries of the world — in good faith — to take this on, realise that these are the legal obligations under custom law. That’s very clear. There’s no denying that anymore.

“And then discharge your legal obligations. If you are in breach, fix the breach, acknowledge that you have caused harm. Help to set it right. And also don’t do it again.”

Vishal Prasad still hadn’t quite processed the whole thing by the time we met again the next morning. In shorts, t-shirt, and jandals, he cut a much more relaxed figure as he reclined on a couch sipping a mug of coffee. His phone had been buzzing non-stop with messages from around the world.

“Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in,” he said. “I got, like, a flood of messages, well wishes. People say, ‘you guys have changed the world’. I think it’s gonna take a while.”

He was under no illusions that there was a long road ahead. The court’s advisory came at a time when international law and multilateralism was under particular strain.

When the urgency of the climate debate from a few years ago appears to have given way to a new enthusiasm for fossil fuel in some countries. He had no doubt the Pacific would continue to lead those battles.

“People have been messaging me that across the group chats they’re in, there’s this renewed sense of courage, strength and determination to do something because of what the ICJ has said,” he said.

“I’ve just been responding to messages and just saying thanks to people and just talking to them and I think it’s amazing to see that it’s been able to cause such a shift in the climate movement.”

Watching the advisory opinion being read out at 3am in Honiara was Belyndar Rikimani, hunched over a live stream in the dead of the night.

“What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.

“And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.”

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

People in Vanuatu remain optimistic about their future after two destructive cyclones in two days left parts of the Pacific nation in ruins.

Authorities are yet to determine the full scale of the damage caused by the back-to-back severe tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin.

But those who had to endure the worst of the natural disasters last week believe demonstrating resilience is their only option.

“To have had two category four cyclones in less than a week is history in itself,” Vanuatu’s only female Member of Parliament, Gloria Julia King, told RNZ Pacific.

“[It’s] something that even the elders in our families haven’t seen before.”

She said her island nation has had its fair share of severe weather events, highlighting the destruction caused by Cyclone Pam in 2015 from which the country has still not fully recovered.

“A lot of our schools are still in makeshift classrooms, [children] still sitting on the floor without desks and chairs.”

Hopeful over challenges
But she is hopeful that the ni-Vanuatu people will get through the challenges in front of them.

“I have seen Vanuatu come back from Pam, I’ve seen Vanuatu come back from Harold, and I am positive Vanuatu will be able to bounce back from Kevin,” King said.

The country was hit by a category 4 TC Judy first on March 3, but just as people started to pick up the pieces, they had to rush to evacuation centres the following day as Kevin arrived as a category 3, intensifying to a category 4 and then reaching 5 over open water.

“People [were] carrying people with disabilities on their back to an evacuation building,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s advisor Shiva Gounden, who is in the capital Port Vila, said.

He said three to four families huddled in homes while properties around them were being wiped out.

“Roads are completely blocked or flooded. There’s no access for anyone to leave the village for any type of emergencies.”

‘No power, no water’
“There’s no power. There’s no water,” he added.

Gounden was in a village on Efate island helping people prepare for TC Kevin when it hit with a force much more violent than anyone was prepared for, he told RNZ Pacific.

He had to hold the doors of the house he was residing in for almost 10 hours in shin high water to remain safe.

“It was extremely strong,” he said, describing Kevin’s ferocity.

“I’ve seen and responded to several cyclones in my life and I felt Kevin was as strong as Cyclone Winston which wiped out Fiji.”

“I was trying to hold my door from 5pm till about 3am. I was using all my [strength] with my hands and my back and my legs to try and hold the door because if I didn’t, it would snap. There was water everywhere,” he said.

‘It’s a tough go for many’, says Vanuatu journalist
Vanuatu journalist Dan McGarry, who has been on the frontlines documenting the disaster, visited vulnerable communities in the aftermath.

Taila Moses and her son Tom stand in front of what was once their home of 16 years. Countless houses in informal communities such as hers were damaged or destroyed. Cyclones dole put their damage indiscriminately, but society’s most vulnerable feel it more than anyone else. pic.twitter.com/cXBDuznMTz

— Dan McGarry (@dailypostdan) March 5, 2023

He said people were living in “impromptu housing” in various parts of Port Vila.

“What I found was quite disturbing,” he said.

“It’s becoming obvious that the increasing reliance on a cash economy is creating inequalities in terms of people’s ability to cope with this kind of disaster cycle.”

McGarry said informal settlements up on the hillside in the capital were covered with clothing lines because everything had been soaked.

“There were tarpaulins pulled across roofs to provide some sort of temporary shelter.”

He has spoken with several residents and shared the story of one woman who has lost everything.

“She has no livelihood at the moment because her employer, of course, isn’t calling her into work,” he said.

“She’s lost everything and she is without the means to return it. It’s a tough, tough go for a great many people here in Port Vila,” he explained.

Climate crisis issue
Climate crisis is front of mind for Ni-Vanuatu residents as they start to rebuild.

“[Climate change] turns what used to be sort of periodical issues for Pacific island nations into chronic ones,” he said.

“In this case, we’ve had two severe cyclones in the course of a week an as New Zealanders have seen these weather systems are moving further south.”

He believes development partners of the Pacific cannot afford to walk away; a sentiment echoed by Gounden.

“We have the most resilient people, but there is a deep hurt that is within us,” Gounden said.

He said the “the hurt” stems from fossil fuels being burned across the world which exacerbates climate change.

“The people of the Pacific contribute the least to climate change, yet we face the greatest consequences of it all.”

“The biggest thing we can do is pressure world leaders right now to phase out [the use of fossil fuels.”

Meanwhile, Australia, France and New Zealand have been the first to send support to assist with emergency response.

“We will appreciate any help we can get,” King said.

“The biggest challenge now is just getting power and water back into full circuit around the country.”

Taking off for Vanuatu with assistance following TC Judy & TC Kevin. Australia has a rapid assessment team in Vanuatu & is delivering shelters & other items for communities.

We stand with the Pacific family #YugetaYumiStrong pic.twitter.com/IGYVrchew9

— Pat Conroy MP (@PatConroy1) March 5, 2023

Tropical Cyclone Pam brought wide-spread devastation to Vanuatu nearly two years ago.

It also brought an outpouring of aid – including 70 shipping containers of unrequested goods from well-intentioned donors who hoped their collections of food, used clothes and household items would reach people in need.

“Massive amounts of cargo started arriving after the cyclone hit and even though my teams were working around the clock, we were inundated,” recalls Benjamin Malas, Vanuatau’s Customs Director.

He was speaking recently in Geneva at a conference of humanitarian aid and government representatives on managing and reducing unsolicited donations during disasters.

“Huge containers were arriving fully loaded with random, poorly packaged and unlabeled items that no one claimed, but still had to be inspected, cleared and stored,” Malas said.

“Some of these donations were put to good use, but much of it never left the wharf.”

An influx of unsolicited donations or gifts-in-kind from well-meaning individuals, community and diaspora groups is a common occurrence in the aftermath of big disasters. In Vanuatu, the items often arrived unannounced, unrequested, without proper paperwork and lacking a defined consignee.

‘Inappropriate for response’
“All too often, these unsolicited donations are inappropriate for the response and don’t meet the needs of the affected populations,” explained Anna Young, who researched and authored a recent report on unsolicited bilateral donations, commissioned by the Australian Red Cross.

“Without a clear plan for getting the goods out to people or funding to process and distribute them, they end up clogging supply chains, disrupting local markets, incurring local costs for handling and storage and diverting valuable time and resources from the response and recovery operations,” Young told the gathering.

In Vanuatu, 20 containers, each containing up to 22 tonnes of donated goods, went uncollected. A year later, they had accumulated more than $2 million in storage fees.

More than half of the donated food, including flour, noodles, juice and tinned fish, had expired and had to be dumped.

Communicating ‘cash is best’
Whenever a disaster hits, first responders like the Red Cross and Red Crescent get swamped with queries from generous people who want to donate supplies, and have limited success in convincing callers that cash is best.

According to the Australian Red Cross report, most relief agencies attempt to do the same, using a similar rationale.

It costs far more to ship and process goods than it would to buy them locally.

Buying locally supports local economies, reduces logistical problems and costs and gets supplies to affected communities quickly.

Cash is fast and flexible and allows responders to provide vital support, based on what affected communities need and want.

“Still, it’s a difficult conversation to have with people who want to help, and it’s a conversation that should start before emergencies happen,” said Young.

Among the key findings of the Australian Red Cross report, Young noted, is that preparedness messaging about effective and responsible giving has been successful in reducing unsolicited donations.

“We found that cash is best messages are received far more favorably in advance of disasters as opposed to after they strike when emotions run high,” Young added.

Regulating relief
It is also critical that governments have clearly articulated laws, policies and procedures in place to facilitate and regulate incoming international assistance, including unsolicited bilateral donations, Lucia Cipullo told the gathering.

She is the senior legislative advocacy officer for the IFRC’s Disaster Law programme, which helps governments strengthen legal frameworks for international disaster relief.

“When countries do not have the right laws and policies, it hampers the response, making aid slower, more expensive, less effective and sometimes counter-productive,” Cipullo said.

Vanuatu did not have the necessary procedures in place to handle the influx of incoming aid and unwanted goods before Cyclone Pam, but the storm and its aftermath served as a catalyst.

The Vanuatu Red Cross and IFRC’s Disaster Law programme have been working with the government of Vanuatu to strengthen their national disaster management laws and procedures, including systems to reduce unsolicited donations in future disasters.

Benjamin Malas said it was the local communities in Vanuatu who were at the heart of every response when disasters happened, but he believes that improved communication, coordination, systems and procedures would make a big difference the next time around, particularly when it comes controlling unsolicited donations.

Way forward
Recommendations offered in the Australian Red Cross report were largely echoed by participants at the conference. They include:

• Enhanced investment and coordination by the humanitarian community and government partners in educating the public, business sector and media on how to effectively and responsibly help in disasters, before, during and after they happen.
• Broader dissemination and adaptation of well-developed messaging, media toolkits, public engagement strategies and other resources on unsolicited donations, produced by agencies like the US Center for Disaster Information (CIDI).
• Development of a centralized information hub and platform for would be donors to harness people’s generosity, provide practical information on best donation practices and specific information on needs, requested assistance and country-specific policies and regulations on aid during emergencies.
• Increased support to governements to strengthen disaster laws, policies and standard operating procedures for international relief operations.
• Greater transparency on how monetary contributions are used to build trust.

It happens every time disaster strikes in the developing world. The inhabitants of the place become background players in a drama about selfless aid workers saving lives in the furthest corners of the globe.

To be fair, most aid workers reject that narrative. I should know. I’ve been one. When category 5 cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu, I helped the UNICEF communications team deliver some of the first reports from the storm-ravaged country.

The image of the intrepid white person (let’s not dance around it) saving dark people’s lives is an inevitable and apparently unavoidable product of people’s need to understand. For you millions sitting at home, in the car or on the train, reading or listening to the news, all you’ll ever know — all you can know — about these far-flung localities is what you get in the 90-120 seconds that the media can give you before you move on.

If the scene contains familiar faces, it’s easier for you to relate. If it’s spoken in your language, it’s easier still. It’s all about making you care. And your care saves lives.

But we have to find a way to remember that the people in this story speak their own language. They have their own culture, their own values, their own sense of what is right.

Forced into exile
The defining aspect of the Manaro volcano story is how quickly and effectively people all across this country mobilised to support Ambae’s population after the volcano forced them into exile.

Goods were being collected from the moment people began to filter down from the hilltop villages that were the first affected by ash and acid rain. Nobody waited for authorities to tell them what to do.

Family comes first in Vanuatu, and we are all one family when faced with adversity such as this.

The islands of Ambae and Maewo have always enjoyed close ties, and nowhere was this more evident than in their warm and well-organised reception for the evacuees. One by one, chiefs from north to south designated which groups would be their respective wards.

Villagers throughout Maewo stepped up, establishing spaces for them in their villages, digging latrine pits, designating cooking areas, building shelters and providing food, water and other necessities.

People from end to end of the island of Pentecost have turned out and done everything within their power, not just to accommodate, but to welcome Ambae’s exiles. Pangi village in the south is famous for its land-diving.

Chiefs there gathered evacuees together and welcomed them with a feast, literally slaughtering a fatted calf for them.

No scenes of pandemonium
Nowhere has the effort been greater than in Luganville, Santo, which is hosting over 5300 evacuees. As the ships began arriving, some carrying as many as 1000 at a time, there were no scenes of pandemonium so commonly associated with mass migrations.

An eyewitness wrote, “People everywhere, trucks and cars everywhere, but everyone [was] calm, no panic, no one upset as the community welcomed them.”

This is the Ambae story: The amazing and inspiring willingness of the people of Vanuatu to do everything—and give everything—necessary to look after their own.

Only one person—an elderly man—has reportedly died so far, and he died of a broken heart at being uprooted from his land.

Vanuatu’s government is not absent in this picture; it is an inseparable part of it. The grassroots Ambae Manaro Organising Committee has worked hand in glove with the National Disaster Management Office to ship donated relied supplies, first to the island of Ambae itself, and now to Santo, for distribution to the large evacuee population there.

The foreign donors, aid organisations and NGOs who know us best will be doing the same: integrating their efforts into local endeavours.

Evacuees to be employed
The Ambae Manaro committee yesterday reported that they would be seeking to employ people within the evacuee population itself to provide essential services to their companions. The Santo Ambae Support Community echoes these sentiments.

“It’s so important for the evacuees were welcomed and cared by the community from Ambae, they can talk [the] same language and still feel [at] home.”

Those NGOs with a permanent presence here in Vanuatu know the value of fitting in, employing Ni Vanuatu staff and consultants in key positions in order to ensure that they operate effectively and with sensitivity to local concerns.

In spite of all this, millions of people who know nothing of Vanuatu but its suffering will only see images of military planes, bales of supplies, ships and expat workers doing what they can to help.

On TV screens, tablets and phones, the people of Vanuatu will be reduced to the backdrop against which the soap opera of disaster relief unfolds its all too predictable melodrama.

Swamped news feed
It doesn’t have to be that way, but sadly, it probably will be.

So today, at least, before our news feed gets swamped with images of Hercules planes, Black Hawk helicopters and crisply uniformed military officers, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves: This is Vanuatu’s story. It’s a story about fellowship, about buddies in bad times, about pulling together, and about helping at all costs.

Can we get through this without international help? Not a chance. We know it’s offered in the spirit of camaraderie and friendship.

We’re grateful, too. But when you talk to the international media, please don’t forget who was there first, and who will remain when you’ve gone back home.

Dan McGarry is media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post. Asia Pacific Report republishes VDP articles with permission.

• More Vanuatu volcano stories

Kava export returns in 2015 after Tropical Cyclone Pam devastated parts of Vanuatu as it trekked through the country on March 12-14 reached Vt180 million (NZ$2.4 million).

One year later — in 2016 — the figure jumped to Vt800 million (NZ$10.4 million), according to the Director of Biosecurity Vanuatu, Timothy Tumukon.

Responding to questions from Kizzy Kalsakau host of 96 BuzzFM’s Vanuatu Nightly News programme if government was helping farmers grow more kava after Cyclone Pam, Tumukon responded: “Most definitely.”

Tumukon added: “In 2015, when the cyclone struck us 2 years ago exactly [Monday] you’re exactly right, our export data was that Vanuatu then earned Vt180 million from its export after Cyclone Pam destroyed most of our kava.

“Last year’s figures stood at Vt800 million that was earned from kava.

“Now that gives us a lot of comfort that kava has recovered since Cyclone Pam,” he said.

Tumukon said that to maintain the momentum, the government right now was looking at strengthening its assistance to rural communities along with the PHAMA programme to establish testing facilities and also to establish kava nurseries so that it can distribute planting material to areas where you don’t have enough planting materials for farmers to plant.

Tumukon said government was discussing this with the Department of Agriculture for the Government to provide additional funding to establish nurseries on islands where farmers would like to increase their production of kava.

There were also awareness materials being sent out to farmers about what kava varieties they should be planting, and also how they should be preparing their products for their market.

Jonas Cullwick, former general manager of the Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation (VBTC), is now a senior journalist with the Daily Post.

By Dan McGarry in Port Vila

A group of 16 New Zealand-based travel agents, tourism industry representatives and media professionals were welcomed “back” to Vanuatu last weekend.

The purpose of the trip, organised by the Vanuatu Tourism Office (VTO), was to raise awareness about Air Vanuatu’s new Boeing 737-800 aircraft, the completion of emergency runway repairs and simply to remind New Zealanders of the country’s many charms.

The visit is part of a campaign to revive tourism from Vanuatu’s nearest neighbours.

Air arrival numbers fell drastically following January’s suspension of service to Port Vila by Air New Zealand and Virgin airlines, and the cancellation of code shares with Qantas.

The group visited a number of sites on Efate and Espiritu Santo islands, and were treated to a special preview of the nearly-ready Iririki Island resort.

The official grand opening is scheduled for next week but resort management didn’t want to miss the chance to offer the group a sneak peek at the rejuvenated and renovated island resort.

Arriving Saturday via Air Vanuatu, the contingent was welcomed by VTO staff.

Briefing update
Airports Vanuatu Ltd chief executive Jason Rakau provided the representatives with a briefing update on airport runway repair.

In a brief question and answer session after the briefing, one visiting tourism representative asked Rakau whether he felt the Air New Zealand move had been indeed motivated by safety concerns, or whether it had in fact used the runway debacle as an excuse to stop serving a route that, in the wake of cyclone Pam, was only marginally profitable.

“I don’t want to speculate,” replied Rakau, who went to to draw the attention to a Vanuatu Daily Post news story concerning the Civil Aviation Authority’s recent decision to deny Air New Zealand permission to operate a charter flight in the absence of a decision to resume commercial operations to Bauerfield airport.

Another tourism professional asked about the potential for disruption to travel schedules in the future as works progress on the second stage of repairs and upgrades to the airport.

Rakau reminded those present that the first round of repairs had been completed with minimal delays and on-budget without any disruptions to arrival and departure schedules.

He reassured them that there was no reason to expect delays or unnecessary disruptions as upgrades continue.

The contingent departed Vanuatu yesterday.

Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu on 13 March 2015, devastating the country.

In the days following, UNICEF asked 100 children to share their stories.

A year later, UNICEF went back and asked the same children to say what has changed, what challenges remain and their hopes for the future.

In this video, Brennan, 13, tells of his fears and hopes.

Jojo, 9, tells his story
Joanna, 11 – her story
Tamanu, 5 – his story
Joanna Kawenu – her story

Tonnes of relief supplies donated to the people of Vanuatu in the aftermath of the category 5 cyclone Pam which hit Vanuatu in March last year have been dumped at the Etas landfill.

Last week, the Vanuatu National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) authorised the dumping of tonnes of food aid because they had expired.

The supplies – including cartons of cans, beans and tomatoes, tin fish, noodles, flour and juice –  have been kept in storage at the Vanuatu Mobile Force (VMF) Camp for almost a year after cyclone Pam battered the country on March 13.

“These donations were expired when they reached Vanuatu,” NDMO Director Shadrack Welegtabit told the Daily Post.

“Some of the foreign donations towards recovery were delivered by ship. Due to the long distance, some of the relief supplies were expired or on the verge of their expiry dates when they reached Vanuatu, thus cannot be distributed.

“It is proper for NDMO to dump the expired items instead of distributing them to disaster areas.”

The NDMO director urged all donor agencies to support response efforts through cash donations rather than solicited goods.

Cash donations
He said an effective way to help next time when disaster struck was through cash donations as it would allow relief supplies to be purchased near the disaster site, avoiding delays, steep transportation and logistical costs.

Member of Parliament from Pentecost Francois Chani has raised concerns to why these donations had not reached the affected communities in 2015 when the NDMO recruited a lot of volunteers.

Sources revealed that some members of the public collected the expired Chinese noodles to feed their pigs while some of the clothes and food donations currently on shelves are also near their expiry dates.

Meanwhile, MP Chani told the local media that the Vanuatu community in Queensland, Australia, which supplied 11 containers of assorted food and clothing, o assist the people after cyclone Pam, was still waiting to hear a “thank- you” from the government and a response to clarify where the containers had been sent to assist distribution.

Anita Roberts is a Vanuatu Daily Post reporter.