Lecture NINE: Enviromental Crisis and the Pacific: past, present, and future.  

Review of Week 7-9  

• If individual and collective identity and well-being for Pacific Islanders is inextricably tied to land/place/environment, what are the consequences of the devastation, irrevocable change, or even disappearances of these meaningful places?  

OVERVIEW: 

• Banaba/Ocean Island and “A Sea of Phosphate” (K. Teaiwa) 

• History of Phosphate mining on Banaba (and Nauru) 

• Environmental impact 

• Forced migration (Banabans on Rabi, Fiji) 

• Implications for sovereignty (Nauru as detention center) 

• Segue: Forced Migration and climate change 

• Situating the effects of climate change  

• Big questions/concluding ideas 

Consuming Ocean Island (Teaiwa)  

• Beginning in 1990s, banaba, Naru, and Christmas Island were the sites of open cut mining  

• Phopshate was used to make superphospahte fertilizer which led to a dramatic growth in agricultural overseases; the mined islands were left with no topsoil and no ability to grow food.  

 
Video- Katerina Teaiwa  

• Phosophate was seen as national security, because it provides food security  

• Not knowing the history of food and how superphospagte interacts with each other.  

• Animals are also key for this as well. 

• Rest of western world see islands as ways of protecting themselves, without highlighting how the history of the islands.  

What are the enduring effects of environmental and social ruin 

• Banabans after occupied by the japaneses, was forced to migrate to răbufnit, Fijiji in 1945 

• Only 300 islanders remain on banaba, rest live in diaspora 

• Nauru’s after gaining independence was temp was the richest nation per căpiță in the world  

• Nauru’s is captive to the whims of Australia,  

• Was once callled rock land/or pthe people, now is callled a sea of phosphate. 

• Because the island is seen  as a person, it highlights how Banaba is everywhere.  

A sea of Phospahte  

• Where once Banaba was  “rock land”, aba, or “the people”,  Banaba today is “a sea of phosphate” (376) 

• 3000 Banabans on Rabi are caught between the Fijian and Kiribati governments; many more live further afield (NZ, Australia, etc.) 

• Climate change threatens the security and livelihood  of the current Banban population on Rabi 

• Drowing islands  

• Seen as a guests on Rabi not as citizens. 

Imperiali Rubin’s, Nauru (and Christmas Island)  

• Nauru was briefly, the richest nation per capita in the world post independence  

• But there is no local subsistence economy; all food is imported; leads to health risk  

• Nauru’s realizes heavily on Australian aid 

Effects of climate change in Melanesia  

• Melanesia nations are large and high but they are still affected by sea rise as a a majority of people live in costal areas 

• Fresh water and agricultural soil contamination with sea level rise and storm surges 

• Super cyclones – become more common 

• Frost in the highlands  

• Coastal squeeze; land disputes.  

Lived reality  

• Marovo lagoon, Salomon islands: 700 square kmby a double reef; World Heritage Area 

•Marovans have long thought of their environment as changeable (seismic zone) 

•BUT saltwater inundation IS  an increasing problem, as are warmer waters, stronger storms, logging  

•Marovans are resilient, and have a history of adaptation that shape what climate change means to them 

Anthropologist  

The global community is not taking local views, experiences, and solutions particularly seriously 

•There is a role for anthropologists to play in connecting various stakeholders: NGOS, local leaders, lay people, international governing bodies, climate scientists, etc.  

•Strike a balance between spreading the word about the "crisis" aspects of climate change without recirculating narratives of "disappearing" or "drowning" natives 

Cop27 

nuatu introduces Fossil Fuel non-Proliferation Treaty: fossilfueltreaty.org/Vanuatu 

•Ralph Reganvanu, anthropologist and Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change Adaptation, Meteorology and Geo-Hazards, Energy, Environment and Disaster Risk Management 

•Siobahn McDonnell (lawyer and anthropologist) works as a climate negotiator; listen to thoughts on COP27 here: https://play.acast.com/s/62c671378529330012ab6e43/63607db972c52000119a8727 

CONCLUSION  

Pacific Islanders have been, and continue to be, particularly vulnerable to environmental crises beyond their own control 

•These crises set off social crises as well 

•The aftereffects  (ruins) of these crises (and imperialism in general) live on in various forms and continue to shape the role of the Pacific in a global world 

•Crisis, ruination, migration, climate change as interconnected web or cycle 

•Pacific Islanders are resilient in the face of such challenges, but should they have to be?