Abstract
By necessity Pacific Islands have become hubs of innovation, where climate strategies are piloted and refined to inform adaptation efforts globally. Pacific Island communities face increasingly severe climate impacts including sea-level rise, changing temperature and rainfall patterns, changes in food and water security, and social, cultural, and political impacts including loss of identity, climate-induced migration and threats to sovereignty. In response, communities in the region are leading climate adaptation strategies, often combining traditional practices and cutting-edge science, to build the resilience of their communities and ecosystems in the face of increasing climate risk. For example, communities are implementing resilient networks of marine protected areas using the best available science and strengthening tribal governance to manage these networks, experimenting with salt and drought tolerant crops, revegetating coastlines with native salt-tolerant plants, revitalizing traditional wells, and implementing climate-smart development plans. Often these efforts contribute to local development priorities and create co-benefits for multiple sustainable development goals (SDGs). These community efforts are being scaled up through provincial and national policies that reinforce the critical role that ecosystems play in climate adaptation and provide a model for the rest of the world. While adaptation efforts are critical to help communities cope with climate impacts, in some cases, they will be insufficient to address the magnitude of climate impacts and local development needs. Thus, there are inherent trade-offs and limitations to climate adaptation with migration being the last resort for some island communities.
Highlights
The Pacific Islands are facing devastating impacts of climate change including increasing droughts and water scarcity, coastal flooding and erosion, changes in rainfall that affect ecosystems and food production, and adverse impacts to human health (IPCC, 2014, 2018).Overpopulation, pollution and overuse of natural resources, and unsustainable development and mining are degrading island ecosystemsLessons From the Pacific (Burke et al, 2011; Hills et al, 2013; Balzan et al, 2018)
This paper presents local ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) examples that demonstrate how Pacific Island communities are leading the implementation of sustainable climate solutions and reinforcing the critical role of ecosystems in climate adaptation
The recently established Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) under the UNFCCC can help to bridge these institutional challenges and ensure local traditional knowledge is considered in the provision of adaptation finance
Summary
The Pacific Islands are facing devastating impacts of climate change including increasing droughts and water scarcity, coastal flooding and erosion, changes in rainfall that affect ecosystems and food production, and adverse impacts to human health (IPCC, 2014, 2018). The pace of environmental and climatic changes has increased, many communities are implementing climate-smart agriculture and are revitalizing traditional practices that utilize drought-tolerant species and the benefits of nature, such as using seaweed as compost to make soil more fertile, using palm fronds to shade plants during droughts, and planting vegetation to reduce flooding and erosion along coastlines. They are combining these traditional practices with new scientific advancements such as the development of salt-tolerant and heat-tolerant crops and community-led GIS mapping of breadfruit trees vulnerable to climate impacts in the Marshall Islands. We discuss these EBA activities, identify barriers to implementation, and highlight the importance of supportive national policies and political will to reinforce and scale up these efforts
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