LATE TACKLES for Climate Change

NB: Samoa is very late in tackling the climate change debate and even later in tackling the climate change impacts.

For our rural villagers to respond to climate change, we offer here 36 activities to contemplate, preferably very quickly.



Samoa may have just won the 2008 International Rugby 7s Tournament against Fiji (May 2008), but if it wasn’t for a vital call from the Side-line Referee just as the final bell rang, who had mind you luckily identified a ‘late tackle’ penalty against the Fiji Team, then Samoa was bound to have lost against Fiji who had just scored hopefully their winning try – to then have it disallowed.

And, ironically, Samoa may have once again been saved by yet another ‘late tackle’, this time from the GEF-PAS. Yes, the Global Environment Facility's Pacific Alliance of Sustainability is offering millions of dollars to help Samoa fight climate change.

And Samoa is inheriting $USD2Million in August 2008 from GEF-PAS LDC Climate Change Fund to ‘tackle’ climate change impacts on its 10 islands. This is indeed a very late ‘tackle’ in that we have all known for many years that global warming is seriously affecting our Pacific Island Countries.

By the way the whole community is responding, rugby is by far much more important than climate change impacts. Well, so it seems. So what will it take before 20,000 Samoans are seen marching on Parliament House in protest against the following array of serious climate change related impacts already being felt in Samoa, namely:
high susceptibility and vulnerability of Pacific Islands to climate change and sea level rise,
episodic extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, floods and droughts,
sea-level rise with salinization of ground-waters,
ecological impacts through temperature and ocean acidification related stressors on natural systems,
storm related inundation of low-lying coastal communities/infrastructure,
increased coastal erosion due to worsening tropical cyclone events,
flooding as a result of higher intensity/increased duration rainfall events,
drought as a result of longer periods without rainfall,
increased evapo-transpiration at higher ambient temperatures. This could be exacerbated in some low-lying areas by as sea levels rise,
threatened socio-economic development,
reduced national security and development,
increased necessity for extra hazard management,
altering traditional community disaster preparedness,
growing reliance on ecological and environmental knowledge,
growing necessity for culturally appropriate adaptation policies and measures,
necessity now for climate early warning advisories,
need for improved climate change decision-making,
need for capacity building framework,
need for community awareness building framework,
need for improved climate change educational outputs,
building the overall resilience of Pacific Islands to climate change related hazards, need for strengthened weather and climate observation systems and activities,
updating analysis of existing climate data for all South Pacific Island nations,
developing international scientific linkages,
Improving climate change risk assessment skills,
Improving adaptation development at community levels,
Developing hazard models for communities,
Improving Cyclone Recovery Reconstruction Plans,
Designing appropriate stakeholder engagement and adaptation plans,
Implementing CIMs and CERPs,
Identifying fundamental gaps in understanding the effects of climate change on Pacific Island communities,
Developing practical hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation measures to respond to these risks,
Increasing the investment in sustainable development by implementing An investment for sustainable development in the Pacific Island Countries – Disaster risk reduction and disaster management – A framework for action 2005-2015,
Increasing economic growth without harming ecosystems,
Alleviating poverty,
Improved environmental and social resilience to the impacts of such natural hazards,
Help implement the Pacific Island for Action on Climate Change 2006-2015 and
Making ESD compulsory in the schools and all public sector segments.

This is a comprehensive list of things to consider.

For the sake of those who have just joined this broadcast, GEF-PAS is investing $USD99Million into hopefully restoring vulnerable, threatened and degraded Pacific Island ecosystems. And about half of these funds are going towards adapting to climate change impacts in one way or another.

What if Pacific governments still prefer to importing fossil fuels and, therefore, continue to add to the global warming impacts being felt globally? Samoa has taken a different tack by looking at growing its own ‘oil’. This may be the saviour crop our farmers have been looking for?

Palm oil is now being grown in Indonesia at the expense of its own valuable vast tracts of native rainforests. Yes, the third largest set of ‘lungs’ of the Earth are being ‘surgically’ removed. But, no matter what bio-fuel crop we plant in Samoa, we still need to complete a safety check, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), to ensure that no such damage like this is caused in Samoa.

But, just think about it. Samoa can grow these ‘energy’ crops and make its own electricity. In fact, we can help replace some of our expensive imported fuels (~$SAT100million per year is imported).

Samoa is about to design an agro-forestry project that could, if considered in light of the climate change impacts on Samoa, indeed become another very ‘late tackle’ from our agricultural sector.

Now our health sector needs to adapt to climate change. Yes, climate health is now a priority area for our health services to concentrate on. With more climate change impacts, Samoa may get more floodings and hence more typhoid and other water-borne, food-borne and vector-borne diseases like dengue fever and leptospirosis.

Should Samoa’s tourism industry also adapt to climate change impacts?

Should Samoa’s energy sector also adapt to climate change impacts?

Should villagers also adapt to climate change impacts?

These are just some of the questions that MNRE are asking their key climate change stakeholders. And the question we’d like to leave you with is:

“Why are we all tackling these climate change impacts above so late?” Why the late tackle?

Luckily, The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has asked all Pacific Islanders to form a Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (PAS) so that all the governments of the Pacific can take a serious programmatic approach to one of the world’s most serious environmental challenges. The GEF-PAS is going to tackle this climate change issue very seriously, spending in fact well over $USD10million to help protect the Pacific from climate change impacts.

So, what can you do to help?

What can you do to help Samoa protect itself against these serious consequences of air pollution - all caused by carbon emissions.

Eco-Villages in the Making - SAMOA 2008

NB: Samoa, thanks to GEF-PAS, is funding a major coastal re-development to help combat global climate change.


IN SAMOA, South Pacific, we are targeting 7 coastal villages and trying to turn them into a model village setting, a small step towards an eco-village.

We have 21 sustainable environmental restoration projects nationally, valued at $USD15Million, thanks to the Global Environment Facility and their Pacific Alliance of Sustainability Programme (2008-2012) valued at $USD99million, Pacific-wide.

We now want to harmonize some of these projects into these 7 villages on the shores of Vaiusu Bay, inner city Apia. We have renewable energy projects, we have micro-financing access, agro-forestry projects, climate change adaptation projects increasing ecosystem resilience, mangrove re-afforestation, biodiversity conservation, etc. Should anyone be keen to suggest some helpful hints, we'd like to hear from you.

We're even moving one village, Sogi, away from sea level and to higher ground. Other villages in Vaiusu Bay are now prone to increasing floodings and climate health risks. We're even restoring the old Vaitoloa household dumpsite which ceased operation in 1996.

Wish us luck. A monumental task, but we're trying, hopefully ending-up with a Marine Protected Area by 2010 as a tourist attraction complete with ecotourism activities and an educational Environmental Resource Centre.

This would be a landscape architect's dream project, South Seas, desperate villagers, and well financed, backed by Government and hopefully the potential of being a Pacific 'first'.
Samoa is moving towards becoming a sustainable tourism destination, a carbon-neutral holiday destination, but we are floating in the middle of the largest ocean mass in the world, subject to the full brunt of climate change.

And where's the climate justice from our main tourism markets? For example, Australians are mining and exporting more polluting coal to China than ever before, New Zealanders are opposing their own self-regulatory Carbon Trading Scheme designed to reduce their own carbon emissions, Americans still refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and whilst Australians have signed the Kyoto Protocol, they still refuse to honour the real intention of reducing climate change impacts on their neighbouring Pacific 'development partners'.

Then, where's the real partnership here? Where are the value-based societies that breed such injustices?

PLEASE HELP Pacific Islands retain their 300,000 islands and their 3000 languages and cultures as climate change continues to impact Pacific Islanders, especially as airline bunker fuels increase their global carbon pollution at an increasing alarming rate of 5% annually, and pollution from shipping fuel also increasing at 5% annually.

So, where's the social and cultural interest in the world's top tourist destinations? Or is it only short-term economic interests?

What does PATA and SPTO say about this? Nothing. Neither the Pacific Asia Travel Association nor the Secretatiat for the Pacific Travel Organization have addressed this concern for the past 20 years, despite receiving this advice repeatedly. And these are our Pacific tourism advisory boards? What do Pacific Islanders say about this? Very little. Not enough?

God help our travellers to the South Seize. God help Pacific Islanders.