Decolonising SIDs

everyone make here.

And in this lecture, I'm going to be talking about decolonization,

climate adaptation in the context of Oceania or the, uh,

diverse cultures of the Pacific

and Pacific islands, specifically small island developing states,

and bringing fourth oceanic perspectives on climate change,

mobility and sovereignty,

which contrast with the dominant ways in which

the Pacific islands and Pacific island cultures and

nations are represented in the media in academia

and an international aid and policy making discussions.

So let's begin with my

heart of

I think it's important that I introduce myself first before I go and discuss the

topic in more depth and the key sort of learning objectives for the course.

Or I should say for the lecture so

a bit about me, Who am I? You're wondering.

My name is Mel Parsons. I am.

I whakapapa So my genealogy tires me to, uh, in the North Island North Island, uh,

as well as Lebanese and, uh, specifically Scottish and Danish and history.

But I was actually brought up in the small, uh, predominantly Maori town.

It's one of only three urban areas in New Zealand, which is predominantly Maori.

Uh, that's

the key in the eastern Bay of plenty.

And, uh, the photos there you see me dressed up and my snazzy red, uh,

hat and floral address, Um,

on my sister birthday. And we are at, uh, my favorite spot to collect the,

uh so shellfish

until the water got to polluted from the dairy

farms and all the shellfish became toxic to eat.

But that is the river mouth of ototahi

on my first birthday and in the background to one of my friends, Jack,

Jackie there as well.

And I think you'll see a side of my brother.

My brother is the one holding the fish there. He's a lot bigger now.

He's six ft for, but other than that,

he looks pretty much similar and he still lives fishing.

And also there you see photos of my great

great uncles before they went off to the first World War,

and then my great grandmother

and her mother, um,

and

who was from Denmark.

And there's also a photo of the river mouth of the

river, which is partly where I now spend my time and live with my father now.

So I,

um,

and call myself maori-pakeha

Arab hybrid. Other so I am occupy various different identities.

I'm also dyslexic and also have auto-immune disease,

which means I have issues to do with physical mobility.

So I have lots of different, um

identities or subjectivities, as we call them within a human geography.

But most of my research is focused

on indigenous peoples experiences and responses to

radical social and environmental changes which are

connected to their experiences of colonization,

neoliberalism and environmental

pollution and extremes and degradation,

most notably climate change

and

within the context of my work, um, in my life,

moldy the Maori world or world views because there's no one Maori world view.

Um, every different, um

iwi or who has a specific

unique knowledge is and world views and values associated, uh,

with the uh over there

laws.

So

these are some of the principles of, um, sort of tl Maori.

It's concentric in terms of that,

genealogy is at the heart and relationships are key

and that human and non-human or more than human, which includes plants and animals,

rivers, mountains, the ocean are all tied together,

and there's no strict barrier between humans and non

humans or land and sea or land and rivers.

It's all connected together and at the center of things.

This notion of guardianship or katiakitanga,

um, that Maori are

guardians of the,

uh,

environment, who they're related to through Whakapapa

and Maori are expected to actors kaitiaki or guardians for their own,

their tribal lands and waters and sees.

So that is just sort of a brief meeting of, uh,

tell Maori, because it's informs how I come into this research,

recognizing that I have my own

perspectives and that no research is

completely independent of one's own subjectivities,

but also why it's important to think about the connections between

New Zealand as a Pacific nation

and the wider Pacific

and our responsibilities to others

who are our members of our wider kinship connections with Maori.

Tracing their kinship back to Hawaii. Um,

which is probably in the Society Islands, which is part of French Polynesia now.

But there's whakapapa links to the Cook Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific,

and we also have a substantial Pacific community in our

area,

and so it is critical we take that into account when we're learning about

climate change and thinking about the implications

of climate change and climate change.

actions

and our own countries, but also elsewhere in the Pacific.

So

let's see.

I can get on to the other side.

So as I see it,

uh, New Zealand is part of the Pacific.

We are located in the Pacific Ocean at the bottom of it,

and we have got all these connections to Pacific Island nations and territories.

We even have, um, places like Tokelau, which are

part of New Zealand.

The Cook Islands are in free association with us,

and so Cook Islanders have New Zealand passport and foreign affairs decisions

are made by the New Zealand government about the Cook Islands,

and we were also

we also have free association with New way. And we are the former colonizers of Samoa

as well as the Cook Islands. And anyway, so we have multiple responsibilities

to the Pacific.

There's substantial as I see genealogical so fucking

links cultural, political and economic relationships between artists

and the Pacific

and Tamaki Makaurau

Auckland is home to the biggest Pacifica population outside of the Pacific Um,

island, um,

nations and territories.

And so for this lecture, I'm gonna be talking about

the ways in which

the Pacific Island nations and territories have been represented

by academics, policymakers,

agencies and for a media as being inherently vulnerable spaces

who lacks the capacity to adapt

or cope with shocks, extreme weather events and climate change,

and that there does seem to be the world's first or

the world's first climate refugees.

I'm going to critique this

dominant discourse of islands is inherently vulnerable spaces

and look at the links between colonization and colonial discourses

and colonial or neo colonial policies and practices

in the Pacific as both producing or reinforcing

um,

and alcohol,

uh,

power dynamics

and contributing to increased,

um harms and

threats to Pacific peoples.

And look at

the ways in which

Pacific

people's are has long had a history of, uh, migration or mobility within, uh,

island,

um,

with between islands between nations and

what this means in terms of the capacity to adapt and

respond proactively to the ongoing impact of climate change.

And I'm just going to talk about the impacts of climate change and the

Oceania in particular,

and

then explore the ways in which

the dominant approaches to how

adaptation projects are being enacted are serving too

really articulate colonial, um,

processes of marginalization,

an exclusion of indigenous peoples and knowledge is in the Pacific,

but ways that can be addressed and challenged.

So it's getting from the

earlier discussions to do with adaptation

and vulnerability and thinking about what this means in terms of

a lot of the news you're seeing about sinking islands and,

uh,

climate refugees and this overwhelming narratives of despair and sort of doom

and gloom and thinking about the ways in which we can,

um,

as part of the Pacific community, extended communities support,

nurture and challenge and, um, support and nurture,

um, Pacific cultures and people's,

but at the same time challenge unequal power dynamics and, um,

socio economic systems.

So the discourses of vulnerability

so vulnerability

is defined within, uh,

the academic literature as the capacity to be harmed by negatively heart harmed or

damaged because of the impacts of climate change or other shops or disruptions.

And in previous lectures to do with

vulnerability,

I discussed specifically the different ways vulnerability is framed.

The dominant wise, which vulnerability is discussed in terms of, uh, Pacific

small islands, has focused on

islands as small,

physically small,

lacking land and natural resources be at forests or minerals or oil and gas,

or even soil or fresh water.

Also that the islands of the Pacific a small islands and a vast ocean

and the remote

and all of this contributes to them being vulnerable.

And that this positioning of small island in a

big ocean seas them as vulnerable to shock,

such as tropical cyclones or,

UH,

coral bleaching events. Or the loss of a particular

fish species such as toner

or they

a global economic meltdown or political and stability or

the impacts of climate change.

Small islands are depicted as lacking the capacity

to adapt because they have small economies,

little money

and

don't have,

um, often dependent on a narrow range of, uh,

economic activities.

As

there we go, you can see me better now,

a narrow range of economic activities in order for them, um,

on which people's livelihoods are dependent, such as the tourism industry or,

UH, fisheries or

forestry,

and so on.

And so things like Covid-nineteen meant that the Pacific islands,

which were dependent on tourism, suffered negatively in terms of, um,

ability to earn income.

In terms of climate change impacts,

sea level rise is a particular issue.

Hurricanes or tropical cyclones as we know them here in, uh,

our water and security,

a lack of fresh water is probably the most

significant issue facing most small island at all.

Nations like because they depend on freshwater derived from either rainfall or,

um from what's called the salt,

the freshwater lens at the top of which is at the sort of between

sort of bubble of fresh water,

I will provide a link. I'm not explaining the fresh water lens very well

and also the loss of biodiversity and food and security.

So there's these discourses of thinking islands and climate refugees,

but

these don't necessarily, um,

hold

any truth to them.

So

numerous islands in the Pacific, most notably Tuvalu,

Kiribati and the Cartridge islands, which is in the New Guinea,

are often represented as the world's first remarks, the world's first climate,

refugees

and the kids into these narratives of sinking islands that within a decade or so,

the entire island nations will be underwater and will be uninhabitable.

There's even been legal cases to gain climate refugees status around the world and,

uh, New Zealand. There was a case of a man from

us who was a had overstayed his, um, visa. And he claimed climate refugees status.

Uh, that was subsequently, uh,

rejected.

But this,

um on the grounds that climate refugees didn't afford the

meet the definition of a refugee under international refugee,

um,

definitions.

Similarly, legal cases in Australia has similarly failed.

Now, Pacific peoples have employed these climate refugees,

uh, terms and also thinking islands

they have employed them in legal cases.

They deployed them an international climate change negotiations as a way to

try and encourage or, um, motivate or pressure other, um, other governments and

corporations and influence your body's, such as the, um, triple C or the U N D.

P Development program. To take action to address climate change, to mitigate,

also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to fund adaptation, um,

or provide climate financing to allow for Pacific and other um

developing, uh,

nations to adapt to the

an adverse

impact of climate change.

And so

they've done it strategically as a means to achieve specific political ends.

Governments there,

But Pacific peoples have also challenged and

resisted the depiction of being climate,

refugees or

as the island, um,

that the island homes are doomed to be a

sink and rising sea levels will be washed away.

And in terms of the science of climate,

science and lived realities of climate change,

impact on Pacific nations shows a high degree of complexities and uncertainties.

We don't know how much the fees are going to rise in

the future because it's dependent on how much we had met.

Greenhouse gases is over the next two decades and centuries,

and also the rate of warming

that is going to occur from the emissions we have released over the last 50 years.

Because there's a lag time from when we admit greenhouse

gas emissions into the atmosphere and the rate of warming.

You know, carbon dioxide. It's about 50 years or so or more. The lag time methane.

It's a lot shorter.

It's only like, say, 30 years, that you get any lag time, other gasses. It differs.

So these complexities, in terms of also

tropical cyclones, are becoming less frequent but more extreme,

more intense and damaging.

And the islands of the Pacific incredibly diverse, culturally geologically

um 00 morphologically.

So the land and the coastline and the biodiversity substantially

and so the impacts defer.

So the as I said the sea level rises, ongoing

and highly dynamic. Some areas, um,

our most medals throughout the world, specifically all of them in the Pacific.

Even though the sea is rising, the rate of sediment building up on battles

is actually faster and more than the rate of erosion.

So the adults are getting higher, not lower.

They're not thinking they're actually growing.

But there's uncertainty about what will happen

for in terms of sea level, rise 100 or

a years into the future.

We don't know at what case at holes, the date of settlement will stop being built up.

An erosion will start to dominate The work

of Maori um from the School of Environment,

as well as our former head of the School of

Paul,

who's now based in Canada, shows that at all our building up settlement,

mainly because of increased tropical cyclones activity and storms,

which are creating more, um,

deposits, more wave action and more deposits of, um,

broken up coral and send onto atolls.

So the main issue,

despite what the media's representation of climate

change impact on the uh small island,

would have you believe the main issues is not sea level rise.

It's lack of fresh water supplies.

Um, that rainfall is becoming incredibly increasingly unpredictable.

Droughts becoming more common.

The land is becoming saline, so, so a salty and so people can't grow crops there.

More destructive tropical cyclones and the loss of biodiversity,

which is linked to warming climate conditions,

warming oceans walking here but also linked to plastic pollution,

pollution of water, the ocean as well as rivers, um,

over harvesting of biodiversity by humans

and toxins and various other drivers.

So it's not just climate change,

it says intercepting environmental change is taking place.

So within this, the context of

they

the impacts of climate change

already been found throughout the Pacific

and Pacific

islands

are already faced with challenge is to do with poverty, gender inequality,

pollution

problems with

corruption and

lack of um,

democratic process is, um, in some cases

political and stability,

uh, poor quality education

and

healthcare services,

and so on.

There's substantial socio-economic and health issues

being faced by Pacific cultures.

Climate change is exacerbated many of these,

but that doesn't necessarily mean that island

um,

island cultures people's nations are inherently

vulnerable because of their size.

There remote lis

or

some sort of, um,

at that

sort of generic factor.

Every community

culture place is vulnerable to climate change in different ways.

Some are more vulnerable than others. But it's bound up with the contextual or

vulnerability

right

and the context in which climate change is intercepting with other drivers of

inequity within societies in between societies.

So thinking about that, let's go on to looking at oceanic perceptions of, um,

climate change

and what climate change

means to them

rather than thinking of themselves

as

small islands in a big ocean.

The seminal work by Tongan, uh,

Scholar

E Pile Hello for

talked about Oceania

or the UM Pacific

Ocean communities as being a sea of islands

that the ocean connects people together.

It's an ocean space

or an ocean scape,

or sometimes described as the cityscape were indigenous people sense of place,

identities and relationships and health and well-being

a tight together

rather than ocean.

The ocean is an empty space, which separates land.

Um, indigenous Pacific scholars talk about oceans as a live with life,

with relationships and with genealogical connections

that bind people with the ocean

and with each other,

and with more than human plants and animals, supernatural beings.

God's all of our connected together through the Pacific Ocean,

and researchers have extended the work of However,

I'm sorry I'm mispronouncing that terribly.

I apologize for any Tongans in the audience.

Um, and through the use of colonizing methodologies,

which is a approach to research methods, uh, based on the work of, uh, family, uh,

scholars, Um,

Graham Smith and his wife,

Linda Smith from Waikato University and Linda Smith wrote a key text, uh,

first published in 19 Ninety-nine but re

published in 2012 called Colonizing Methodologies.

And this work emphasizes the indigenous Pacific on technologies. Um,

and a pest. Apologies

and ways of thinking and ways of doing, um,

and practices and management approaches.

So what does this mean?

Oceanic thinking when it comes to thinking about climate change,

impacts and mobility?

Well, the critical experiences of, um,

from

Carrie Bath

shine a light on

the dominant climate displacement regime. Um,

which

is premised on this idea that,

um, climate change is going to force whole islands to hold nations to be

forced to migrate or be relocated to entirely new places. Uh, for instance,

Karen

has bought land in the Fiji and the idea that they might be all forced to

migrate to Fiji because all their battles will

be rendered underwater because of rising sea levels

and

that other places like in the

um Maldives, which is in the Indian Ocean.

There's similarly this Safer Island project,

which is getting outer islands and forcing outer

island communities to relocate into the central community,

and the premise that will make them safer

from the negative impact of climate change.

Research by Tammy Toby demonstrates how, um has already been a long history of, um,

displacement of indigenous communities in the Pacific.

And it was, and still is, an exercise and colonial power

that the global Tease people, which is in present day,

were forced to relocate to the Solomon Islands in the mid 20th centuries.

Now they're relocation was because the colonial government, which was under, um,

British colonial rule at the time, deemed it was more cost-effective

for them to rule the guilt

of these people from the Solomon Islands

because it was already rolling over the Solomon

Islands and it was just easier rather than having them all in this remote island,

Um, which was hard to them

administer. It was easier if they just got them all centrally located.

So they got one entirely different culture.

The guilty's who spoke different languages different, completely different, um,

cultures to the Solomon Islands cultures and force them to live together

under this thing of economic efficiency. Cost effectiveness.

Tell the ones that without significant involvement

of and consent of people affected,

um,

similar discussions of climate mobility or my moving

or relocating entire communities to different locations.

Uh,

because of the impacts of climate change or to preempt the impacts of climate change

could be result in similarly forced displacement, as has occurred in the past,

and it could be an example of neo colonialism.

T F

work draws on her own experiences of the Vander Bar culture who

were forced to be displaced from their island home following colonial um,

government.

It was similarly British,

but Australia and New Zealand were also involved

and benefited from the mining of phosphorous.

The entire island was destroyed by a phosphate mining,

and all the phosphate went to support farmers in New Zealand and Australia,

and there was an excellent exhibition a few years ago on, um at a party on the,

uh culture and their experience of being forced to leave their island home.

So indigenous experiences of passed

relocations a critical importance when thinking

about what the impact of climate change are or will be,

and how

certain islands, maybe not now, but maybe in 50 or 100 years time may not be livable,

probably because of lack of fresh water supply,

all because of the ongoing devastating impacts

of tropical cyclones and declining biodiversity.

The recent I P c C Working Group to

report found that fresh water supply and biodiversity loss,

um,

and the implications for food security with the

two biggest issues for Pacific small islands.

Hm.

So the other example comes from Samoa.

So my research with similar brown carry Fisher and your Honolulu looked at, uh,

the ways in which Samoa

her, um, Samoan, um, families, uh,

had incredibly rich and strong social networks, which is based on their family,

their village and their church,

and that

social networks were at the heart of, um,

Pacific or Samoan adaptive capacity that rather

being small islands and a vast ocean,

um,

that Pacific communities

and Samoan communities in particular, were connected together across oceans

the New Zealand, Australia, Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea,

the United States or else where they were

tied together and the sharing of resources,

whether it be money or food or um, technologies and so on.

And that

that even extended to providing a form of informal insurance for our families,

villages and others who were negatively affected by finish sort of shock,

most notably tropical cyclones.

But also when there was

tsunami a number of years ago and some or

it was through these social networks that families throughout the

um in New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere,

we're sending money and other goods back to some more to support family,

their family members and their home villages

to rebuild and recover from destruction.

Similarly, happened after any tropical cyclones.

Likewise, when Samoan arms

in New Zealand or Australia or

the U. S. And negatively affected by

other things like Covid 19 or the Christchurch Earthquake,

family members in some more similarly sent

money and goods to support their family members or

they physically traveled over here to support them.

And so these

um, social networks

continued even after people live Samoa and migrated to a different location,

and that migration was not the end or the diminishment of Samoan culture,

but it continues on.

And

there's a hearing of resources, knowledge and experiences,

which means that Samoa or is able to learn from the past experience of extremes

and draw on a wide range of networks and different knowledge systems to adapt.

And finally, the last example comes from the Marshall Islands.

So the Marshall Islands are

located and

the northern

area of the South Pacific

and

where

colonized by various different nations,

including Britain, the United States,

and it continues to be significantly influenced by us.

Um, the U. S. Government

that was also highly negatively affected by the

nuclear tests that were performed by the United States,

um,

in the at the bikini at all

in the mid 20th century.

And there's substantial issues to do with radiation.

The disposal of radioactive materials on furious islands within the,

uh Marshall Islands and areas being redid,

unable to be lived on and people suffering terrible health impacts,

high rates of cancer and so on as a consequence of those nuclear tests.

So,

you know, um,

islands have the Marshall Islands have already

experienced forced relocation because of the nuclear testing

and, um, ongoing radiation and toxins. As a consequence,

Marshall Islands are like with the

Cura base and so on,

uh, to follow or often depicted as domes, too,

uh, become climate refugees as a consequence of the impacts of climate change,

most notably sea level rise.

But there is ongoing community-based climate

change adaptation projects taking place.

Now the key reading by, uh oh,

and Barnett looks at a community-based adaptation projects

and one at all in the Marshall Islands.

Uh, they found that the population of new

track

is already highly dynamic.

There's a large number, uh, ongoing sort of culture of mobility.

And it's the central part of

Marshall Lease identity,

both pre and post colonization.

And this can be seen throughout the Pacific,

whether it be in some more Tuvalu Cook Islands, uh, Micronesia

and so on.

That mobility is part of a Pacific cultures,

and this whole idea of islands ocean spaces

and the ocean is connecting people together.

Uh, the authors talked about it in terms of,

uh,

contingent community and network.

Geography is that there's a social networks, um,

tying communities across the Pacific and further

two together.

And that notion is to do with, uh, relations.

Reality and kinship sort of extend this notion of community,

and that's circular Mobility is common that

rather than just movement one place from

A to B it's from a to B two c to a to see,

to A, to be, to see things.

And so often people go away, earn some money and then returned to their home islands

and

people, um, within the

community talk about a sense of belonging

and belonging to the at all home

and the community

and their culture.

But it transcends the local transcends of physical at all itself,

and it also transcends the nation.

State boundaries

and community ties are maintained after migration,

which is the same as what we found in Samoa.

And this goes across even if we're talking several generations, um,

post migration somewhere that those relationships are maintained.

And

rather than being

isolated and

um remote,

they are connected and embedded in these wider networks

and communities that are the heart of the adaptive capacity

and the community

and

as

and network a common being so that mobility and these social networks have long

been used within the Marshall Islands as well as elsewhere in the Pacific,

uh, to ensure resilience

and of resilient and adaptive communities who can cope with and

responding adjust to changing environmental or social and economic conditions.

And that community is performed as a series of assemblages

distributed entities. And so they're not just

they're more than just the local

level.

And

it emphasizes within,

uh, culture this notion of common being,

um,

or collectivism or community Terry in ideas that thinking about you not as

an individual but is connected to be part of a wider group.

And you think about

the being

of all in the well-being of all rather than just you as yourself.

And this contrast with Western cultures dominant, um,

sort of worldviews which emphasize being in common or individual, is, um,

that you think about your individual health,

well-being and your even decision to migrate and so forth,

and that in on

the shared identity and cultural social cultural

values were stressed the interdependence of everyone,

um together and also the more than human plants, animal spirits, God's and so on,

and that the threat of climate change,

the unites community across islands within the

Marshall Islands and across these international borders.

So climate change adaptation, um, specifically,

community based adaptation is often framed as being inherently

local and only occurring at the local level.

But

they

you're yellow and Barnett Research shows that

COMMUNITY-BASED adaptation needs to think more exclusively

and thinking about the ways in which highly mobile actors like the, um,

deck community,

how they work across these networks

and what the composition of goals are of the community and how they change over time.

But that's not necessarily, uh, um,

easy thing to do.

The current mobility regime, um,

it can be manipulated and

sort of unscrupulous and, uh, politically problematic ways,

um is border detail in 2020 highlighted that the mobility regime, um,

bound up with climate change of the climate, mobility,

regime or migration regime as being manipulated by,

um,

non-government factors, or even foreign governments.

So, for instance,

despite the national policy of the Marshall

Islands are prioritizing climate change adaptation,

um,

in situ stay of community, staying in place of not leaving their islands and

adapting to the impacts

within the island homelands

donors. So these are foreign governments. They can be n g o s.

They can be international organizations like the United Nations Development Fund

or the Clean Energy Fund or various other large uh,

U N or other, um,

development aid funding.

Our donors are basing their age decisions where

they're actually going to put funding in,

um on decisions and projects that are

supporting relocation of entire communities throughout the Pacific

and elsewhere in small islands around the world.

And it's supposedly based on this false notion that

it's an advert like an ex inescapable that relocation

of the entire population of Marshall Islands is,

you know it's going to happen.

They're making so many.

This idea that they're going to all be forced to be be relocated is the climate.

Science is here. We just don't know what is going to happen and 1502 100 years time.

Um,

and also we are not expecting, um,

book communities and

New Zealand or Australia or the United States, or so on to be, um,

everybody who lives on a floodplain or live along within

500 or 11 kilometer of the coastline should have to

be relocated because of sea level and flooding risks.

Um,

you know,

there's no talk that we would expect we're going to be doing this relocations of our

populations. But,

um,

us In the developed world, Western societies, the wealthy are able to, uh,

deciding that

the island, um,

people living in small islands are going to have to be forced to relocate.

Um, odd mess,

because of the climate risks

for things and donors, governments, foreign governments and n g.

O s have said, Oh, well, we don't want to fund adaptation actions. Um, and

in small islands, um, which aren't based on relocation or things,

because in 50 or 100 years time, it could be, you know,

underwater and it will be a waste of our time and money.

So it's better if we just relocate them now,

despite the fact that those people that their homelands,

they have self-determination rights,

they've got cultural connections which stretch back thousands of years,

in some cases tens of thousands of years.

And it is,

uh, powerful groups,

uh,

and non indigenous cultures who are making those decisions about who should

receive funny thing and what sort of funding and adaptation project should be

happening.

So in the Marshall Islands,

there's been a lot of things of trying

to plan for relocation of entire island communities.

Same thing is happening elsewhere in the Pacific. Um, in

the New Zealand government was planning to fund a project to build.

So it was like, spend $50 million or something ridiculous,

like a huge amount of money.

Maybe it wasn't 50 million,

but it was a huge amount of money to build these apartments on the central island,

the capital island.

And

so all the, um, and relocate,

um,

care about communities from vulnerable islands to

live in these giant apartment blocks.

Uh,

because supposedly they were under the

misconception the New Zealand government that

all the islands would be underwater in a few years,

and so they were going to build this giant apartment blocks.

It wasn't a school of environment staff pointed out,

We don't know what the sea level rise, what the impact is going to be

and the medium and long-term on that.

At the moment,

the issue to do with care about sea level rise is not the main issue.

Um, lack of fresh water supply, poor urban planning. Um,

decreasing fish stock is all much more significant.

And if you build these apartments,

you're removing people from the island home gardens there.

Sustainable livelyhoods. But you're also, uh, going to create urban slums

because that will be what

they turned into because that is what they did in the Maldives.

And they've become, um, the apartments have been

cause huge amounts of poverty and distress for those

people who have been forced to relocate there.

So

if I get

hopes, I'm going to try and get back to the next one. Sorry about that.

So finally,

one of the issues, um, that these, uh, three examples of case studies, uh,

testament to

is that

not only is climate change adaptation

um, being applied,

um, and problematic ways and that we can't necessarily assume that

migration um, relocation is the best solution.

But also, we need to think about,

um, what is allowed for under international law.

Uh, that

at present questions to do with that,

um, what happens of islands are

if they are,

read it inhabitable,

um, and

subsumed under the waves

in the future.

At the present, um,

international law has it that

rising seas could technically extinguished sovereign

rights of nations under the western system of international law.

Uh,

these forms of sovereignty has been protect for

failing to account of oceanic cultures cosmology these,

uh, relationships between people and places in the oceans.

And that

there's warnings that numerous policy proposals, um,

being put forward by larger nations such as the United States, e u um,

Australia and New Zealand could be manipulate small island nations

and undermining the political agency of

nation small island nation, specifically at all nations such as

the Marshall Islands, Maldives

and, um to follow. Um

So, for instance,

there was a proposal to address climate risks

by providing foreign citizenship to populations at risk.

But in return, the larger nations, um such as New Zealand or Australia and the U.

S would gain legal rights to the sovereign space. So the oceanic resources,

um so specifically the ocean, um,

the fisheries, Uh,

and also the c b, d and the mineral oil, gas resources on the seabed,

um,

and the shipping lands and stuff so that larger nations so developed

nations would gain legal rights to exploit the resources of island nations.

And also there's what's been called the inverse sovereignty were donor demands,

as this case taking place in Marshall that

donor demands over the conditions of eight.

Funding and climate financing is reducing the

sovereignty of Pacific small island states.

And we can see this throughout the Pacific and numerous instances.

So what does this mean,

this, uh, can you have sovereignty if you don't have land?

Well,

oceanic scholars,

Pacific scholars have argued that oceanic mobility has been shaped by social,

political and economic factors.

Uh,

and that climate change is being over laid onto rather

than the soul driver of mobility across the Pacific.

And that we're seeing circular in temporary migration

already as a significant part of Pacific cultures,

and that these communities relationships in the attachments continue

despite or with migration. Mobility,

um, is

at the heart of Pacific, um, relationships and ways of life.

Now, if we take this and think about alternative forms of sovereignty as possible,

you know, in 50

100 years time, if islands are, um and water,

not all islands,

uh, maybe a few of the at All nations will have lost some of their battles,

but probably not all.

But if that occurs,

there's politically and legally viable continuation of nation states,

even if populations displaced and d terrorized.

So this is exciting. Sovereignty?

Um, one. We're climate change identities can,

uh,

the galvanized into sort of empowering and colonizing forms.

We as sovereignty is not defined through Western legal systems,

but takes into account indigenous legal traditions and systems, which in

New Zealand, we've got, uh, which is, uh, laws and protocols.

So

rather than having this simplistic account of

islands as being thinking or inherently vulnerable,

the reality is much more complex.

Islands are exposed to environmental changes and also social changes

and economic changes in political changes.

But it's bound up into wider histories and

continued lived realities of unequal power relations,

Colonialism,

Um,

and sort of the global political economy is going on,

but also to do with indigenous cultures,

mobility histories and lived realities of migration in the present day.

And that

often the dominant ways in which we think about the impacts of

climate change and how it has responded to whether it be relocation,

uh, and other forms of meditation

or,

uh, in terms of the discourse to do with climate refugees.

It often privileges of Western understandings.

But it's important to think about the ways in which,

uh and I think that's not a challenge.

That is,

uh, that,

uh, assumed sort of norm.

And think about how other people's cultures and, um

on technologies

our manifest and what that means to thinking about better,

more equitable approaches to adaptation.

So in this lecture, I've talked about some of the impact of climate change,

but a lot of them have already been discussed

and other lectures in this course and elsewhere.

I briefly talked about the critiques of, um,

the ways in which Pacific islands are represented as inherently vulnerable

and

how

adaptation projects are being often driven by donors in

a sort of a top down Western expert,

layered, um manner, which is neo colonialist stick.

Pacific Islanders are not doomed to become

climate refugees and instead the history of mobility

and migration in the Pacific and the inter island and Trans Island social networks,

or a source of adaptive capacity.

And that even if the relocation is required in the future,

we need to take into account the history of

relocation being imposed and forced on indigenous peoples and the

avoid the mistakes and the trauma that cause those indigenous peoples,

which the example of guilty's was, um,

used as an example of that.

But we could also look at, uh,

the experiences of being forced to relocate as a consequence of, um,

nuclear testing and waste disposal.

There's all these challenges to Pacific Self-determination and sovereignty,

which are bound up with power relations, the flows of finance and,

in some cases, climate adaptation funding decisions. Um, impeding on

the decision-making process is

of nation states and

local governments within the Pacific Island, um,

nations.

But there's opportunities to

colonize and transform, which we can talk later,

um,

about and further depth. So thank you for listening.

And I look forward to seeing you all later on.

Decolonising SIDs

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