Abstract
Climate change is a great impact on Fiji’s ecosystem including animal (livestock and marine) and crop production from past decades and still possesses a large effect on their economy as well. These climatic events include flooding, rise in ambient temperature, rise in the sea level, droughts, tropical cyclones, and all others that bring large changes to the environmental system. These large changes adversely affect animal production and its economy in Fiji. Not only this, individuals that are linked to animal production are also affected through climatic conditions such as loss of income and livestock species that die out during cyclones and other aspects. Not only the terrestrial species but the marine organisms are also affected since climatic changes bring alterations to their feeding period and the mating time leading to a vast decrease in organisms’ health, quality, and population. Consequently, the Fijian government and other Pacific organizations have brought strategies like adaptation plans to implement in animal production sectors. These plans and methods will help farmers in stimulating their farming systems and adapting to climatic changes and hence, this will lead to increased productivity and economy. The aim and objective of this review are to define and elaborate the climatic change effects on livestock and marine production in Fiji and effective solutions adapted by Fiji and other Pacific governments to refrain from adverse climate conditions.
Highlights
Fiji is regarded as one of the South Pacific Island Countries (SPICs) whereby, they are geographically segregated into Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia
“Climate change has caused an intensity of extreme weather events” (IPCC, 2013), “which can result in significant and long-lasting effects to ecosystems” (Easterling et al, 2000) and the human communities that depend upon them. [The occurrence of different climatic conditions has caused extreme changes in weather events (IPCC, 2013), which has eventually resulted in long-lasting losses and effects on both terrestrial and marine lives (Easterling et al, 2000) and humans that depend upon these lives for their consumption and income]
As discussed in the above content, climate change can highly affect livestock, other terrestrial and marine organisms’ production in numerous ways leading to a decline in their feeding quality, growth, health conditions, and productivity which later results in behavior changes and mortality
Summary
Fiji is regarded as one of the South Pacific Island Countries (SPICs) whereby, they are geographically segregated into Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. The thinning happens due to wind-driven movements of water that are warm, over deep canals crossing the continental shelf, contributing to a rise in the sea level which gradually boosts the vulnerability of people and animals living in low lying areas to flood These climatic changes have been occurring for decades and will continue to occur until corrective measures have been found since livestock and marine species are losing their habitat and a time will come when these species go extinct due to rapid changes in the climatic conditions (Taylor & Kumar, 2016). TC Winston that occurred in 2016 caused major damages to Fiji’s total GDP, accounting for a loss of 20% Extreme changes like this (Tropical cyclone) can affect the options and outcomes of the development plan conducted (Government of Fiji, World Bank, and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, 2017). The Climate Vulnerability Assessment Report was organized with the objective to provide a better understanding on the natural hazard and climatic change threats that prohibits the development plans and objectives of the country
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