Indigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate Change

Aotearoa/New Zealand

Lyn Carter

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319964386
• eBook ISBN: 9783319964393
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

Situating M?ori Ecological Knowledge (MEK) within traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) frameworks, this book recognizes that indigenous ecological knowledge contributes to our understanding of how we live in our world (our world views), and in turn, the ways in which humans adapt to climate change. As an industrialized nation, Aotearoa/New Zealand (A/NZ) has responsibilities and obligations to other Pacific dwellers, including its indigenous populations. In this context, this book seeks to discuss how A/NZ can benefit from the wider Pacific strategies already in place; how to meet its global obligations to reducing GHG; and how A/NZ can utilize MEK to achieve substantial inroads into adaptation strategies and practices. In all respects, M?ori tribal groups here are well-placed to be key players in adaptation strategies, policies, and practices that are referenced through M?ori/Iwi traditional knowledge.

© The Author(s) 2019

Lyn CarterIndigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate ChangePalgrave Studies in Disaster Anthropologyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96439-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Lyn Carter¹

(1)

University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Lyn Carter

Abstract

The book Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Change: Aotearoa/New Zealand has its genesis in conversations with my colleague, Jenny Bryant-Tokalau on how Aotearoa/New Zealand could benefit from many of the Pacific ways of understanding and dealing with environmental change across the Pacific. Aotearoa/New Zealand as a Pacific Island nation has much to learn from indigenous ways of knowing and understanding mitigation and adaptation brought about through the impacts of climate change. This chapter introduces how Aotearoa/New Zealand can benefit and learn from its Pacific Island neighbours and key to this is utilising Māori knowledge frameworks and practices. From an indigenous knowledge perspective, relationships between people and the other elements of an ecosystem are dynamic and constantly changing, thus requiring renegotiation to overcome challenges that present themselves.

Keywords

Pacific Island countriesClimate changeIndigenous knowledgeAotearoa/New Zealand

End Abstract

The 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report emphasised that Aotearoa/New Zealand (A/NZ), along with smaller Pacific Island countries (PIC), is unavoidably exposed to the effects of climate change with key risk areas of sea-level rise, flooding, and wildfires.¹ Climate change is undeniably among us and we cannot be unaware of the impacts on our wider Pacific neighbours. The New Zealand government has been accused of ‘lethargy’ and the government’s policies exhibiting ‘an indifference to the phenomenon of climate change both at international level and domestically’.² A/NZ as a large industrialised nation amongst her Pacific neighbours has to mount a two-pronged defence against climate change—both mitigation against increased greenhouse effect (GHE), and secondly developing adaptation strategies for the impacts from climate change already being felt. The IPCC has called for a combination of the two strategies to achieve the most positive benefits.³ With a primary focus on mitigation to date, A/NZ has paid scant attention to adaptation factors necessary for dealing with the many challenges and disasters that will come with the changing climate. Despite being part of Oceanic Polynesia, 13 per cent of New Zealanders are sceptical that anthropogenic climate change exists.⁴ Of the 15 industrialised countries monitored, only Australia and Norway rate higher with the United States rating just below New Zealand. The reasons for this scepticism are complex, but according to a recent report from Tranter and Booth , the key consistent factors are affiliation with conservative political parties, gender, being unconcerned about the environment, having little trust in government, and a correlation with CO₂ emissions.⁵ Tranter and Booth observed those who favour economic growth above environmental interests are ‘those who … tend to believe that global climate change is not occurring, that the causes of global climate change are more natural than human caused, and that its consequences will not be negative’.⁶ Despite the 13 per cent scepticism across A/NZ, it is certain that the impact of climate change will have a profound effect on our lives and how we live them. In a climate change world we must accept that any action (adaptation or mitigation) will force human societies to change. How we interpret the changes needed will depend on how we understand, know, and live within our landscapes and environments. Our environment can teach us how to adjust to the coming changes by observing how it changes, why it changes, and what we can do to live with it. The capacity to adapt will prove to be the biggest challenge and will have most impact on indigenous communities, impoverished peoples, and groups whose ways and means for living are inextricably linked to the environment. In particular Pacific peoples who are part of the environmental ecosystem through belief, values, knowledge, and practices will experience substantial challenges to lifeways.

This is one of two companion books that investigate the role of indigenous knowledge (IK) in minimising the impact of climate change. Bryant-Tokalau’s book Indigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate Change: Pacific Island Countries seeks to portray what has taken place in neighbouring PIC to date. Bryant-Tokalau traces a history of Pacific environmental management since the 1950s with the establishment of regional organisations, the impact of the Pacific’s difficult nuclear history on these organisations, and the shift to other concerns such as biodiversity, waste, and climate. Global institutional developments within the UN and other multilateral organisations had an enormous influence on the way that PICs responded to their many environmental concerns, and indeed caused much stress in terms of dealing with institutional demands, but the PICs also had some influence on global practice, particularly through alliances such as Small Island States and the UNFCCC. Bryant-Tokalau acknowledges that formal religion, spirituality, and the fundamental belief systems of the many, complex Pacific societies are intrinsic to the many ways that communities, individuals, and governments respond to the challenges of climate change. She states that ‘many of [the tradition-based responses] evolved over centuries, and often are more appropriate than the current “technical fix” response to inundation, droughts and major storms’. Bryant-Tokalau examines the theme of global responses versus traditional practices (and the stressors placed on those). Some of her examples include the artificial islands approach with particular emphasis on the long-established Pacific practice of creating land (one key example is Kokoifou artificial island in Langalanga lagoon, Solomon Islands). This was done both as a response to shortage of living space, and for cultural, relational, and environmental reasons. Other examples are the migration and resettlement options for increasingly uninhabitable lands, and responses to flooding and increased hurricane activity. Bryant-Tokalau discusses the long history of such developments and traditional adaptations that communities have always made and still make to the changing environments. Her examples span case studies from Solomon Island, Vanuatu, and areas of Micronesia and Fiji. In all respects it appears that A/NZ has a lot to learn from the Pacific. As with the Pacific solutions and practices, Māori tribal groups here in A/NZ stand well placed to be key players in adaptation strategies, policies, and practices that are referenced through Māori/Iwi traditional knowledge. The book then acknowledges that IK frameworks will form the foundation for understanding and adapting to the many climate change challenges that lay ahead for A/NZ.

Neither this book nor Bryant-Tokalau’s book will be dealing with the scientific focus around climate change. Rather we accept the evidence for it, and instead will focus on the key areas that impact most particularly on the social and cultural factors of human society. The book will be supporting earlier work by Barnett and Campbell that challenged the climate change science-and-policy orthodoxy and moved the thinking to a wider social dimension.⁷

Because of the focus on the areas in the IPCC report, both books have chosen not to specifically discuss energy projects designed to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. We do acknowledge however the importance of these strategies for the wider Pacific region. There is a vast amount of literature and research around alternative energy and fossil fuel reduction, whereas positive stories about adaptation measures t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Setting the Scene
• 3. Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Climate Change
• 4. Aotearoa/New Zealand and Land-Use Changes
• 5. Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Emissions Trading Scheme
• 6. Aotearoa/New Zealand Adaptation Strategies and Practices
• 7. Where to from Here? Learning from Our Pacific Neighbours
• Back Matter