Transcript
JULIANNE HICKEY: The report is our attempt to listen to the voices of the people from across Oceania. We listened to those on the coastal edges and the grassroots to find out what they're experiencing in their environment and to find out how they're coping and managing the challenges of what's happening in the Pacific.
JAMIE TAHANA: How are they coping and managing? What is the situation according to these accounts?
JH: Well Pacific peoples are, by and large, resilient. The challenges, though, with the ever-increasing weather patterns, the way in which they can't understand it like they used to, a lot of the traditional knowledge that they knew about weather patterns and places which were dry and places which were wet, all of that seems to be changing. So they're having to adapt regularly. They're also struggling the compounded nature of things that are happening in the environment. So, for example, here in Kiribati at the moment, I visited a community and they're suffering from coastal erosion which in turn affects how they can grow any food and that means that they're more liable to getting hungry, but at the same time because of the coastal erosion their well water is becoming brackish - so they're finding that they're getting thirsty as well. I heard it very clearly when I went into one of the small villages and they said to me, "This well that we have here, at the moment it is the only well in the village that has water that we can drink." But, if the dry weather continues - and I've heard this across South Tarawa - it has been very dry for the last few months and they think it might continue for a number more months.
JT: How much water does this village have left?
JH: I saw just the one well that was still working. I saw four wells in the village but three of them could not be used for drinking water because the water was contaminated either by salty water or by other pollutants, and unfortunately in that particular village they don't have a water tank, but I've been hearing that a number of the water tanks on South Tarawa are either empty or close to empty.
JT: There are many reports on climate change in the Pacific. What's different about this one? What do you hope to achieve with this one?
JH: The report does not focus on lots of scientific evidence, I think the scientific reports speak for themselves. Our report is different because it focuses on the voices and experiences of peoples and their communities across the Pacific so we get that perspective of what's happening to those on the coastal edges and at the grassroots.
