Vulnerable Islands: Climate Change, Tectonic Change, and Changing Livelihoods in the Western Pacific

Abstract

Small Pacific islands, especially atolls, have been widely argued to be in the forefront of climate change. Recent degradation of island environments has primarily been attributed to the impact of sea-level rise. However, physical changes to several small islands can be linked to a range of physical influences and to human modification. La Niña events, cyclones, and wind waves have caused localized flooding and storm damage. Most atoll islands have not significantly changed in size, as deposition balances erosion. Many islands have experienced broadly similar environmental problems in earlier times, at different scales, and over different time periods, now accentuated by human pressures on scarce land areas and resources. Local human factors (including construction and mining), tectonic subsidence, and La Niña events have created some iconic sites that have become symbols of sea-level rise, sometimes erroneously attributed solely to global warming. Limited economic prospects in most small islands, rising expectations, and growing populations have contributed to a culture of migration, marked by international migration and urbanization, that has diversified impoverished livelihoods, extended island geographies, and resulted in accentuated population concentrations. Contemporary climate change exacerbates present environmental changes, stimulates further migration, and points to diasporic futures.

Food security in the island Pacific: Is Micronesia as far away as ever?

“…A century later, as in Solomon Islands atolls, migration had become 'a household strategy, by which migrants and their families (including those staying behind) diversify sources of incomes in order to minimise risks, such as loss of income and crop failures' (Birk and Rasmussen 2014). That has intensified as migration has been prolonged, expectations have risen and aspirations increased, and a culture of migration been established where migration was anticipated and normative (Donner 2002;Connell 2008Connell , 2015. Changing aspirations, the increased necessity and desire to earn cash, a preference for bureaucratic employment, a taste for 'respectability' and distaste for agricultural work have given migration a primarily economic rationale: a movement in search of wage employment, rare in most rural areas and the security of the 'fast money' of wages rather than the 'slow money' of crop sales (Finney 1967).…”

Pacific Islanders’ understanding of climate change: Where do they source information and to what extent do they trust it?

“…Respondents born on atolls (rather than high islands) were more likely to rate their home environments as being in a 'bad' condition, perhaps an effect of both the vulnerability of atoll islands to sea level rise and the manifest problems associated with their growing population densities (Connell 2011). Inconsistent with this finding, however, atoll islanders were much more likely to believe the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated, a surprise outcome considering their observations of recent environmental change as well as media representation of atoll islands as being on the 'front line' in terms of experiencing climate change impacts (Connell 2015).…”

Last days in the Carteret Islands? Climate change, livelihoods and migration on coral atolls

“…No good records of SLR exist for CI or for any nearby islands, whether atolls or the high island of Bougainville. SLR in the CI is likely to be somewhere between 3 and 5 mm per year (Connell, ). While significant for atolls, whose highest points are less than 3 m above sea level, in itself, SLR has created few immediate problems.…”

“…Mangroves have been cleared, contributing to some erosion, and dynamiting of reefs occurred in the 1990s. Erosion and maladaptive trajectories of change have been greatest in the most densely populated and most modified parts of atolls, Han and Piul, as on atolls elsewhere (Maharaj, ; Duvat et al ., ; Biribo and Woodruffe, , Connell, ). Aerial photographs suggest that deposition has also occurred in CI but away from densely populated areas, well documented for other atolls, including neighbouring Takuu (Webb and Kench, ; Yates et al ., ; Mann and Westphal, ; Birk, ; Ford and Kench, ; Kench et al ., ).…”