Coastal homes in Tuvalu, Funafuti pictured on November 28, 2019. The low-lying South Pacific island nation of about 11,000 people has been classified as "extremely vulnerable" to climate change by the United Nations Development Programme due to rising sea levels. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
A New Zealand-based researcher says there's a huge gap in climate literature of the voices of Pacific people who are at the forefront of climate change.
Dr Tracie Mafile'o from Mana Pacific Consultants and her team have recorded multi-generational stories in Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, and Tuvalu.
"Before we embarked on this project, as part of the planning, we did an extensive literature review around climate mobility," she said.
Dr Mafile'o explained climate mobility as "situations where people need to move because of climate impacts, or they decide to stay in place despite the climate impacts".
"What we found is that there's a huge gap, not only in climate mobility, but climate literature, of the voices of Pacific people, of those who are at the forefront of climate change that has been mostly caused by other parts of the world."
Communities across the Pacific have shared their personal experiences of climate change with her team of researchers, who are hoping their work will help influence decisions about the region.
"That was the real focus of this project - to get the voices of those who are actually experiencing and at the forefront of the most severe climate change impacts globally.
"So some of the impacts that we heard about were around food security.
"We have coastal communities who, for generations, have relied on fishing as sources of protein, and yet the fish supply is a lot less now, or the fish are smaller; they have to go further out into more dangerous seas to fish."
She said people in the Pacific are very adaptable - but some are planning relocation.
For two islands in Solomon Islands' East Malaita - Kwai Island and Ngongosila - the impacts are such that they are planning a relocation back to mainland Malaita, "and that will be the whole community".
"They're actively planning relocation for the whole island," she said.
"Some of the impacts that they've experienced - they're not even able to bury their loved ones who pass away."
The stories can be viewed here.
