Abstract
This paper studies evidences from community relocations in Papua New Guinea and Fiji that have shown that loss of culture are unavoidable results of relocation if customary land tenure is not considered at very early stage at relocation process. Good governance and best practice addressing limits to adaptation should include this dimension. Post-relocation vulnerability associated to land-based conflicts and the loss of customary land systems need to be considered when planning for relocation as sustainable adaptation strategy to climate change in the Pacific region. The diversity of customary land rights in the Pacific makes relocation a particularly complex process that needs to include negotiation at early stages of the process, including Governments, local leaders and both relocatees and hosting communities. Understanding this dimension is crucial and without deep comprehension of community-based adaptation strategies and planning around land management, the relocation process is likely to be unsustainable as it will lack the important cultural heritage and the essential link between Islanders and their land, which is considered an extension of one’s own self. Customary authorities and institutions are legitimate governance actors holding their own governance mechanisms in the Pacific region. Strategies addressing climate change adaptation in the Pacific should include both state-based governance mechanisms combined with customary non-state institutions. In order to combine those two forms of governance, it is necessary to include traditional authorities to the decision-making process on relocation. This cannot be done without a deep respect for their view of the world, a profound understanding of how they represent climate change and migration within their belief systems and how traditional knowledge directly addresses those questions.
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Notes
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This form of human mobility is one of the three forms of population’s movement in the context of climate change with “displacement” understood as the primarily forced movement of persons and “migration” as primarily voluntary movement of persons. In UNFCCC, supra note 9, paras.14 (b)(c)(h). Report of the Conference of the Parties on its eighteenth session, held in Doha from 26 November to 8 December 2012, Decision 3/CP.18.
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John Connell, University of Sydney and Nancy Lutkehaus, University of Southern California, to whom the authors owe sincere thanks. Any errors or analysis here should not be attributed to them. The full assessment report will ultimately be published by IOM (http://www.environmentalmigration.iom.int/migration-environment-and-climate-change-evidence-policy-meclep).
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The Nansen Initiative consultation on the Pacific: https://www.nanseninitiative.org/pacific-consultations-intergovernmental/.
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Unless indicated otherwise, we use this term to mean (small) localized conflicts or tensions among or between community members.
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The Murik reside around the Murik lakes region, along the north coast of PNG in the East Sepik Province in the Sepik (river) estuary.
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Even with a successful evacuation, five people tragically died. Most died of respiratory complications and from drinking ash-contaminated water; one person was killed when struck by large fragments of volcanic rock.
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Government-used estimates of 20,000 are derived from the media may not be reliable; Conell & Lutkehaus estimate the total population figure far lower at around 12,000.
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On the Saffir-Simpson hurricane rating scale.
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The Sendai Framework for Disaster Reduction 2015–2030 is the successor instrument to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters In http://www.unisdr.org/files/43291_sendaiframeworkfordrren.pdf.
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Gharbaoui, D., Blocher, J. (2018). Limits to Adapting to Climate Change Through Relocations in Papua-New Guinea and Fiji. In: Leal Filho, W., Nalau, J. (eds) Limits to Climate Change Adaptation. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64599-5_20
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