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.
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Monday, May 26, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Pacific Regional Climate Pact Proposed - makes sense
Peter Christoff, www.globalcollabortive.org, argues strongly for PIs to develop a Pacific Regional Climate Pact, having Pacific Islanders (PIs) take control of their own destiny, without delay. Spend 5 minutes reading the following:
http://www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/apsnet/policy-forum/2007/a-south-seas-carbon-bubble/
Well, as you can imagine, we PIs couldn’t resist commenting on this article, poorly researched and lacking vision. In fact, it offers PIs nothing but hopelessness. And no one will take the initiative and act appropriately. Or will they? Hopefully, GEF-PAS will.
Whilst the European Union may have made considerable economic progress, largely through economic cooperation boosted by appropriate tough enforceable legislation and appropriate education, Australia’s appalling record of cooperation in the Pacific, for example, is sadly not recognized by most.
Likewise, we PIs need stronger regional legislation to help protct ourselves from ourselves.
And Australia continues to play-down its environmental and developmental and cultural abuses, covering a span of over 200 years, internally and regionally throughout the Pacific Region. AusAID could do well to fund Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), learn from it, apply it at home and in the Pacific, collectively.
GEF-PAS could do well to also fund ESD - see next postings.
Show we PIs a curriculum or a Pacific Village Development Operations Manual that we in the Pacific can follow, outlining all the positive steps that we can take in order to attain sustainable development within our villages with our co-called ‘development partners’ or ‘aid partners’.
I aptly refer to them as our ‘raid partners’, raiding our natural resources, our cultural integrities, our future hopes and our small niche lucrative international markets. We PIs need to legislate against such 'raidings' if we are to protect our region's resources, natural and cultural.
This is better explained in the GEF-PAS where, finally, Pacific Islanders (PIs) are taking their destiny into their own hands. We PIs can simply no longer rely on, for example, Australia to be a responsible ‘partner’ in development when it not only limits our development options, but adds to our development burdens.
Take a close moral look at their/our imports and exports, judging for yourself whether they are good for PIs or not (e.g. ‘edible animal fats’ is one example, no longer eaten in Australia/NZ for health reasons, instead exported to Pacific Islanders). Thanks Bro. And the list goes on. Yes, we PIs will continue ‘bubbling along’, too polite to comment on such neo-colonialistic attitudes and practices that are basically environmentally-unfriendly, unethical, culturally-insensitive and ………economically disasterous.
Whilst Christoff argues convincingly, and we admire his moment of forethought, but it comes a little late and it comes with little future hope. The Pacific cannot wait any longer, and the sooner the PIs formulate their own development strategies, with strict regional sanctions in place, the sooner Australians and New Zealanders will need to take a good look at the poverty and hardship being caused by their own international aid policies, in effect, a waste of taxpayers’ money today, and a larger burden to their taxpayers in the future as they hopefully continue to fund this dependency here in the Pacific.
We PIs would do well to act as one group of Micronesians and Polynesians and Melanesians - we're all PIs. Let's unite and have a collective regional policy on whaling, on trans-shipments of nuclear waste, on sustainable development, on logging, on climate change, .......climate change impacts in the Asia/Pacific region are now rapidly becoming the key development issue to be tackled by PIs above all other issues.
And ironically, we PIs are one of the major contributors to climate change with our deforestation, with our coral dynamiting, with our reliance on fossil fuels and trade, with our dependency on tourism and all its carbon emissions.
We PIs need look forward to the post-carbon economy, and look forward to a little more academia and compassion for fellow PIs, and we PIs look forward to seeing a more constructive positive proactive harmonized effort being made by the Australian Government to assist PIs in a more sustainable manner (commencing with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol with strict targets applied).
We PIs plan to improvise sustainability indicators, indicators as simple as signatores to the Kyoto Protocol. This time the ‘Penny’ has dropped in Australia after decades of ignorance.
Our heart goes out to Kevin Rudd, the new Labour Prime Minister of Australia, for all his labourings on this topic. And we see no improvement in Australia’s relationship with PIs under his stewardship until all such sustainability indicators are pointing in a more mutually-beneficial direction. Show us your list of such pertinent indicators, and we’ll show you ours, or just read on.
Finally, if I was Australian Federal Minister of Agriculture and Environment, I would offer no drought relief to any Australian farmer (or Pacific farmer for that matter) until the whole agricultural profession took Bill Mollison (founder of Permaculture) seriously, took sustainability seriously, and gave more consideration to our future generations of Australians and PIs.
As Australians, we have ignored advice on sustainability for some 200 years, just ask our Aborigines. And now we want to say ‘Sorry’ to our Aborigines when we cannot even forgive ourselves for what we are continuing to do to desecrate these ‘Dreamlands’.
Finally, here in the Pacific, we PIs have formal cultural apologies, called ifoga or hou-lo-ifi or matanigasau, in Samoan, Tongan and Fijian, respectively, and Kevin Rudd, you should learn this culturally-sensitive process of apology before you ever attempt a culturally-correct apology in Australia. Kevin, this is good advice to you as well: do your apology, say “sorry”, but do it in accordance with the Aboriginal culture, the recipients of your apology, that’s if you want your national apology to have any meaning within the Aboriginal community as well as within the non-Aboriginal community.
If we PIs were Aborigines, we’d accept your apology, that’s the Pacific Way, but it would be conditional to signing the Kyoto Protocol and much much more.
http://www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/apsnet/policy-forum/2007/a-south-seas-carbon-bubble/
Well, as you can imagine, we PIs couldn’t resist commenting on this article, poorly researched and lacking vision. In fact, it offers PIs nothing but hopelessness. And no one will take the initiative and act appropriately. Or will they? Hopefully, GEF-PAS will.
Whilst the European Union may have made considerable economic progress, largely through economic cooperation boosted by appropriate tough enforceable legislation and appropriate education, Australia’s appalling record of cooperation in the Pacific, for example, is sadly not recognized by most.
Likewise, we PIs need stronger regional legislation to help protct ourselves from ourselves.
And Australia continues to play-down its environmental and developmental and cultural abuses, covering a span of over 200 years, internally and regionally throughout the Pacific Region. AusAID could do well to fund Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), learn from it, apply it at home and in the Pacific, collectively.
GEF-PAS could do well to also fund ESD - see next postings.
Show we PIs a curriculum or a Pacific Village Development Operations Manual that we in the Pacific can follow, outlining all the positive steps that we can take in order to attain sustainable development within our villages with our co-called ‘development partners’ or ‘aid partners’.
I aptly refer to them as our ‘raid partners’, raiding our natural resources, our cultural integrities, our future hopes and our small niche lucrative international markets. We PIs need to legislate against such 'raidings' if we are to protect our region's resources, natural and cultural.
This is better explained in the GEF-PAS where, finally, Pacific Islanders (PIs) are taking their destiny into their own hands. We PIs can simply no longer rely on, for example, Australia to be a responsible ‘partner’ in development when it not only limits our development options, but adds to our development burdens.
Take a close moral look at their/our imports and exports, judging for yourself whether they are good for PIs or not (e.g. ‘edible animal fats’ is one example, no longer eaten in Australia/NZ for health reasons, instead exported to Pacific Islanders). Thanks Bro. And the list goes on. Yes, we PIs will continue ‘bubbling along’, too polite to comment on such neo-colonialistic attitudes and practices that are basically environmentally-unfriendly, unethical, culturally-insensitive and ………economically disasterous.
Whilst Christoff argues convincingly, and we admire his moment of forethought, but it comes a little late and it comes with little future hope. The Pacific cannot wait any longer, and the sooner the PIs formulate their own development strategies, with strict regional sanctions in place, the sooner Australians and New Zealanders will need to take a good look at the poverty and hardship being caused by their own international aid policies, in effect, a waste of taxpayers’ money today, and a larger burden to their taxpayers in the future as they hopefully continue to fund this dependency here in the Pacific.
We PIs would do well to act as one group of Micronesians and Polynesians and Melanesians - we're all PIs. Let's unite and have a collective regional policy on whaling, on trans-shipments of nuclear waste, on sustainable development, on logging, on climate change, .......climate change impacts in the Asia/Pacific region are now rapidly becoming the key development issue to be tackled by PIs above all other issues.
And ironically, we PIs are one of the major contributors to climate change with our deforestation, with our coral dynamiting, with our reliance on fossil fuels and trade, with our dependency on tourism and all its carbon emissions.
We PIs need look forward to the post-carbon economy, and look forward to a little more academia and compassion for fellow PIs, and we PIs look forward to seeing a more constructive positive proactive harmonized effort being made by the Australian Government to assist PIs in a more sustainable manner (commencing with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol with strict targets applied).
We PIs plan to improvise sustainability indicators, indicators as simple as signatores to the Kyoto Protocol. This time the ‘Penny’ has dropped in Australia after decades of ignorance.
Our heart goes out to Kevin Rudd, the new Labour Prime Minister of Australia, for all his labourings on this topic. And we see no improvement in Australia’s relationship with PIs under his stewardship until all such sustainability indicators are pointing in a more mutually-beneficial direction. Show us your list of such pertinent indicators, and we’ll show you ours, or just read on.
Finally, if I was Australian Federal Minister of Agriculture and Environment, I would offer no drought relief to any Australian farmer (or Pacific farmer for that matter) until the whole agricultural profession took Bill Mollison (founder of Permaculture) seriously, took sustainability seriously, and gave more consideration to our future generations of Australians and PIs.
As Australians, we have ignored advice on sustainability for some 200 years, just ask our Aborigines. And now we want to say ‘Sorry’ to our Aborigines when we cannot even forgive ourselves for what we are continuing to do to desecrate these ‘Dreamlands’.
Finally, here in the Pacific, we PIs have formal cultural apologies, called ifoga or hou-lo-ifi or matanigasau, in Samoan, Tongan and Fijian, respectively, and Kevin Rudd, you should learn this culturally-sensitive process of apology before you ever attempt a culturally-correct apology in Australia. Kevin, this is good advice to you as well: do your apology, say “sorry”, but do it in accordance with the Aboriginal culture, the recipients of your apology, that’s if you want your national apology to have any meaning within the Aboriginal community as well as within the non-Aboriginal community.
If we PIs were Aborigines, we’d accept your apology, that’s the Pacific Way, but it would be conditional to signing the Kyoto Protocol and much much more.
HOW CAN WE PIs HELP? With or without GEF-PAS.
Well, we can see from the Contents Page that there are numerous ways we can help make our Pacific villages the most sustainable villages in the world, but we may need to think laterally and think fast.
First, we may need to seek some cooperation (help) from our neighbouring villagers who may be polluting our river as it flows down from their deforested mountain tops above us. This means less water to drink.
We may also like to seek some more cooperation (help) from our global neighbours who are changing our global climate, altering our climate health and possibly leading to more coral bleaching in our lagoons and less fish to eat.
Therefore, this effort, to attain a really sustainable village, will require local, national, regional and global cooperation (help). We need a global effort (help), hence the role of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) (see http://www.thegef.org/).
We need a dedicated sustainable environmental management effort (help) right here in Samoa and in the Pacific, hence the GEF is offering to assist us PIs (see http://gef-passamoa.blogspot.com/).
We need an investment facility with over $USD100 million to help solve just the Pacific Island issues, some of them raised in the Contents Page, hence the GEF's funding plans for 2008-2010.
We, therefore, need cooperation (help) from within the whole South Pacific, hence the GEF Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (PAS).
We need some joint cooperation (help), an alliance of partners in Pacific development, hence the PAS is seeking all 15 PICs to harmonize their efforts.
Our Pacific Island (PI) focus is on our sustainability, hence the GEF-PAS.
So, money is the GEF-PAS answer, enough money to help solve all our Pacific ills: environmental, social, cultural, political and economic. IWe all, however, doubt that money alone will help us.
So, how canwe help, even if we have no money, to build the Pacific's most sustainable villages?
We PIs need to look after (help) ourselves first. Don't wait for the global conventions on biodiversity to help save our whales and other wildlife. Don't wait on the Kyoto Protocol to help reduce the impacts of global climate change. Those foreign palagi/kaivalagi/pakea all see the world differently from the way our PI ancestors saw it and still see it. We PIS want to remain in harmony with Nature.
OK, we modern-day Pacific Islanders (PIs) will then have to help ourselves by writing our own 'Kyoto Protocol', a climate change impact reduction just for the Pacific Region. We PIs will also have to write a 'save the Pacific wildlife' convention, 'save the Pacific cultures' convention, etc. to help address all these Pacific issues raised in the Contents Page. Therefore, written by PIs for PIs with future PIs in mind, our new approach relies on we chiefs tautua-ing or serving our childrens' interests, not just our own. This will require a major shift in thinking, unfortunately. Our Pacific chiefs, to date, have let us down.
On this blog, you will then see these 'Pacific environmental conventions' drafted, albeit brief, to help you think about the few options we PIs have got left.
Time is running out as our Pacific birds become extinct, as our Pacific cultures/languages become extinct, as our traditional medicinal plants become extinct and/or exploited by foreign interests, etc. We PIS can only blame ourselves. Mind you, we can't just sit back and blame the foreigners only.
We can all help by applying these drafted pieces of 'legislation', preferably with approval (help) from all our chiefs, womens committees, church groups, politicians, etc. And don't forget the Kids (you Kids will probably be insisting on helping more so than your parents, and we adults are certainly not looking after your interests - see http://nuanuasooaemalelagi.blogspot.com/) .
To illustrate these points raised above, we PIs can either learn from the horrible experiences from overseas or we can learn from our own horrible experiences right here in the Pacific. Sadly, most of us PIs are totally unaware of this destruction of our islands, our societies and our cultures, and we are possibly less prepared to admit that this destruction is being caused mostly by we fellow PIs.
So, how can we PIs help ourselves? We could start by applying, formally and informally, some Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). All Pacific Ministers of Education signed an ESD Framework in September, 2006, noe they have all signed an ESD Action Plan in December, 2007. Both documents will be posted on this blog because this is our 'operations manual' for sustainability. All we need to do is apply it to making our villages sustainable.
Once we PIs know the level of destruction elsewhere in the world, say deforestation in Indonesia and PNG and Solomon Islands (and Samoa, for that matter, as we have already felled 50% of our Samoan rainforests, and it's continuing in 2008 in the name of cattle ranching), then we may be forced to take action (help) personally (see next posting re the impacts of deforestation within the Asia/Pacific region on our global climate change impacts here in the Pacific.) We are losing our air, our water, our soils, our wildlife and our water through this madness: how can we develop sustainably alongside this level of deforestation?
In 2008, non-sustainable deforestation continues in Samoa, the Pacific, Asia and even globally. GEF needs to stop this madness by making the GEF funding conditional nationally and regionally (if PNG doesn't stop deforestation, then the whole Pacific suffers as other PICs become ineligible for funding assistance.
Is this too much to ask? Doesn't it represent our true 'absorptive capacity', our capacity as PICs to absorb this much reasoning and financial assistance?
Is our PI ability to think sustainably being questioned? The answer is "Yes".
And can we PIs think sustainably? The answer is "No". Well, we can, but we choose not to.
So, before GEF-PAS kicks-in with its $USD100 million in 2008 for assisting with attaining Pacific Sustainable Development, let's see if all Pacific Island Countries (PICs) can agree on one thing: namely, if we PIs are concerned about global climate change impacts on our villages, and we are ALL signatores to the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gas Reduction, then we need to put a stop to our legal and illegal, sustainable and non-sustainable, intra-Pacific and extra-Pacific logging trade. All Kyoto Protocol signatores, Pacific and non-Pacific need to stop buying rainforest timbers, and this Rule has to be written into the old and the new Kyoto Protocol.
What this means is, we PIs need to force our trading partners, our aid partners, our so-called sustainable development partners, our so-called 'signatores to the Kyoto Protocol' partners not to export, or even import, any rainforest logs, legally or illegally sourced, sustainably or non-sustainably logged, until two things happen:
Firstly, the impacts of global climate change have been reduced to NIL, and, secondly, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been completed and approved for all so-called sustainable logging practices here in the Pacific (and elsewhere), for both legal and illegal logging practices.
Once we know that this global level of deforestation is not affecting our wildlife, our air quality, our potable water supplies, our cultures, our spirituality, our soils, our reefs (through siltation and climate change impacts) and our food security and our health, then we can commence EIA-approved legal and sustainable logging here in the Pacific once again, but monitored by independent objective bodies/studies funded possibly by the GEF-PAS.
For example, just take a look at what commercial palm oil production is doing to the Asian environment, and now the delicate and vulnerable environments of the Pacific Islands. Why do we allow this level of non-sustainability to occur here in the PICs, and yet we still apply simultaneously for GEF-PAS funding support.
Where's our commitment to sustainability?
How can we PIs avaoi such audacious and ludicrous steps?
And where's our absorptive capacity, our capacity and sustainability skills to absorb this high level of funding?
And where's GEF-PAS's capacity to absorb such anomalies?
GEF asks for our 'absorptive capacity' to assist, but we PIs need to ask GEF what is its absorptive capacity? How much lack of capacity to do PICs need to have before it jeopardizes our ability to raise funding to repair our on-going and non-sustainable environmental damages, the very things we are being funded to repair?
To conclude, we can all help by applying a little reasoning, developing a little commitment and, most importantly, holding all other PICs to ransom by acting collectively, holistically andharmoniously. Reciprocally, GEF-PAS should hold all us PIs to ransom as well: no evidence of commitment, no funding.
Think about it.
Nothing else has worked in the past in the Pacific to raise our levels of sustainability: we need to think differently then, take another approach, do it internally before someone decides outside for us.
Let's act now PIs and help ourselves.
First, we may need to seek some cooperation (help) from our neighbouring villagers who may be polluting our river as it flows down from their deforested mountain tops above us. This means less water to drink.
We may also like to seek some more cooperation (help) from our global neighbours who are changing our global climate, altering our climate health and possibly leading to more coral bleaching in our lagoons and less fish to eat.
Therefore, this effort, to attain a really sustainable village, will require local, national, regional and global cooperation (help). We need a global effort (help), hence the role of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) (see http://www.thegef.org/).
We need a dedicated sustainable environmental management effort (help) right here in Samoa and in the Pacific, hence the GEF is offering to assist us PIs (see http://gef-passamoa.blogspot.com/).
We need an investment facility with over $USD100 million to help solve just the Pacific Island issues, some of them raised in the Contents Page, hence the GEF's funding plans for 2008-2010.
We, therefore, need cooperation (help) from within the whole South Pacific, hence the GEF Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (PAS).
We need some joint cooperation (help), an alliance of partners in Pacific development, hence the PAS is seeking all 15 PICs to harmonize their efforts.
Our Pacific Island (PI) focus is on our sustainability, hence the GEF-PAS.
So, money is the GEF-PAS answer, enough money to help solve all our Pacific ills: environmental, social, cultural, political and economic. IWe all, however, doubt that money alone will help us.
So, how canwe help, even if we have no money, to build the Pacific's most sustainable villages?
We PIs need to look after (help) ourselves first. Don't wait for the global conventions on biodiversity to help save our whales and other wildlife. Don't wait on the Kyoto Protocol to help reduce the impacts of global climate change. Those foreign palagi/kaivalagi/pakea all see the world differently from the way our PI ancestors saw it and still see it. We PIS want to remain in harmony with Nature.
OK, we modern-day Pacific Islanders (PIs) will then have to help ourselves by writing our own 'Kyoto Protocol', a climate change impact reduction just for the Pacific Region. We PIs will also have to write a 'save the Pacific wildlife' convention, 'save the Pacific cultures' convention, etc. to help address all these Pacific issues raised in the Contents Page. Therefore, written by PIs for PIs with future PIs in mind, our new approach relies on we chiefs tautua-ing or serving our childrens' interests, not just our own. This will require a major shift in thinking, unfortunately. Our Pacific chiefs, to date, have let us down.
On this blog, you will then see these 'Pacific environmental conventions' drafted, albeit brief, to help you think about the few options we PIs have got left.
Time is running out as our Pacific birds become extinct, as our Pacific cultures/languages become extinct, as our traditional medicinal plants become extinct and/or exploited by foreign interests, etc. We PIS can only blame ourselves. Mind you, we can't just sit back and blame the foreigners only.
We can all help by applying these drafted pieces of 'legislation', preferably with approval (help) from all our chiefs, womens committees, church groups, politicians, etc. And don't forget the Kids (you Kids will probably be insisting on helping more so than your parents, and we adults are certainly not looking after your interests - see http://nuanuasooaemalelagi.blogspot.com/) .
To illustrate these points raised above, we PIs can either learn from the horrible experiences from overseas or we can learn from our own horrible experiences right here in the Pacific. Sadly, most of us PIs are totally unaware of this destruction of our islands, our societies and our cultures, and we are possibly less prepared to admit that this destruction is being caused mostly by we fellow PIs.
So, how can we PIs help ourselves? We could start by applying, formally and informally, some Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). All Pacific Ministers of Education signed an ESD Framework in September, 2006, noe they have all signed an ESD Action Plan in December, 2007. Both documents will be posted on this blog because this is our 'operations manual' for sustainability. All we need to do is apply it to making our villages sustainable.
Once we PIs know the level of destruction elsewhere in the world, say deforestation in Indonesia and PNG and Solomon Islands (and Samoa, for that matter, as we have already felled 50% of our Samoan rainforests, and it's continuing in 2008 in the name of cattle ranching), then we may be forced to take action (help) personally (see next posting re the impacts of deforestation within the Asia/Pacific region on our global climate change impacts here in the Pacific.) We are losing our air, our water, our soils, our wildlife and our water through this madness: how can we develop sustainably alongside this level of deforestation?
In 2008, non-sustainable deforestation continues in Samoa, the Pacific, Asia and even globally. GEF needs to stop this madness by making the GEF funding conditional nationally and regionally (if PNG doesn't stop deforestation, then the whole Pacific suffers as other PICs become ineligible for funding assistance.
Is this too much to ask? Doesn't it represent our true 'absorptive capacity', our capacity as PICs to absorb this much reasoning and financial assistance?
Is our PI ability to think sustainably being questioned? The answer is "Yes".
And can we PIs think sustainably? The answer is "No". Well, we can, but we choose not to.
So, before GEF-PAS kicks-in with its $USD100 million in 2008 for assisting with attaining Pacific Sustainable Development, let's see if all Pacific Island Countries (PICs) can agree on one thing: namely, if we PIs are concerned about global climate change impacts on our villages, and we are ALL signatores to the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gas Reduction, then we need to put a stop to our legal and illegal, sustainable and non-sustainable, intra-Pacific and extra-Pacific logging trade. All Kyoto Protocol signatores, Pacific and non-Pacific need to stop buying rainforest timbers, and this Rule has to be written into the old and the new Kyoto Protocol.
What this means is, we PIs need to force our trading partners, our aid partners, our so-called sustainable development partners, our so-called 'signatores to the Kyoto Protocol' partners not to export, or even import, any rainforest logs, legally or illegally sourced, sustainably or non-sustainably logged, until two things happen:
Firstly, the impacts of global climate change have been reduced to NIL, and, secondly, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been completed and approved for all so-called sustainable logging practices here in the Pacific (and elsewhere), for both legal and illegal logging practices.
Once we know that this global level of deforestation is not affecting our wildlife, our air quality, our potable water supplies, our cultures, our spirituality, our soils, our reefs (through siltation and climate change impacts) and our food security and our health, then we can commence EIA-approved legal and sustainable logging here in the Pacific once again, but monitored by independent objective bodies/studies funded possibly by the GEF-PAS.
For example, just take a look at what commercial palm oil production is doing to the Asian environment, and now the delicate and vulnerable environments of the Pacific Islands. Why do we allow this level of non-sustainability to occur here in the PICs, and yet we still apply simultaneously for GEF-PAS funding support.
Where's our commitment to sustainability?
How can we PIs avaoi such audacious and ludicrous steps?
And where's our absorptive capacity, our capacity and sustainability skills to absorb this high level of funding?
And where's GEF-PAS's capacity to absorb such anomalies?
GEF asks for our 'absorptive capacity' to assist, but we PIs need to ask GEF what is its absorptive capacity? How much lack of capacity to do PICs need to have before it jeopardizes our ability to raise funding to repair our on-going and non-sustainable environmental damages, the very things we are being funded to repair?
To conclude, we can all help by applying a little reasoning, developing a little commitment and, most importantly, holding all other PICs to ransom by acting collectively, holistically andharmoniously. Reciprocally, GEF-PAS should hold all us PIs to ransom as well: no evidence of commitment, no funding.
Think about it.
Nothing else has worked in the past in the Pacific to raise our levels of sustainability: we need to think differently then, take another approach, do it internally before someone decides outside for us.
Let's act now PIs and help ourselves.
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