A Trip to Fiji where Climate Change is Very Real.

The consensus in Fiji is that the life changes they are forced to endure are the result of the climate crisis. “We know it affects our lives”, said Mosese, the receptionist at the hotel where I was staying in Suva, the capital and largest city in Fiji. 

Mosese’s family, like many of the iTaukei (Indigenous people) are from a village in rural Fiji where the land is theirs and very important to them.  When I was in Fiji a couple of weeks ago visiting my granddaughter, he told me that many people in his village cannot stay in their village. The sea is swallowing their land.

Sea rise is forcing two kinds of migration: individual and community. In individual migration, individual members are leaving and going to a city or town. During a community migration, the entire community moves inland to escape the sea’s ravages.

The city is attractive. A person no longer has to garner or harvest their own food. You can go to a store and purchase it. But you need a job and a place to live – both of which can be difficult to find. Many children are not going to school. That was the situation that Seremaia (also from Mosese’s village) found himself. The land of his community was being washed away. Consequently, he had no choice but to leave his home for a flat in Suva, Fiji’s capital and largest city. 

The land of his community was being washed away. Consequently, he had no choice but to leave his home for a flat in Suva, Fiji’s capital and largest city. 

There is anger and fear. The future for the community and its individual members feels quite unclear. With fewer young people, there are fewer caretakers of the older people. In a subsistence culture, everyone is needed to care for everyone. The situation is scary. There also is anger because the people of Fiji know that they had very little to do with causing the climate crisis. Fiji produces a miniscule amount of the greenhouse gasses which go into the atmosphere and make the gaseous blanket around the earth even thicker, stopping the sun’s rays from bouncing off the earth. China and the United States emit the most greenhouse gasses.

One solution is quite popular around the world - building sea walls which shield shorelines from the effects of erosion. This effective erosion control includes not just the steady erosion that takes place over time, but also the erosion that happens abruptly during a more severe weather event. The Fijian government is in debt and cannot build very many sea walls. So, the iTaukei villages have tried to raise money.

Fiji and other developing countries have asked the rich nations for money for such projects. They have received a limited amount of support for efforts to combat the climate crisis. I am reminded of the parable of the Good Samaritan where two religious men from Israel passed a victim of a crime on the road. But the third, a foreigner stopped to help him. Fiji needs Good Samaritans.

We are particularly concerned by the risk of climate induced migration and losing our territories, already witnessing people forced to leave their lands as a result of climate change.

The Indigenous people of Fiji make this request because they are losing their culture which is ancient. The culture defines who they are. As a result, their daily lives are changing. Some are going back to building grass huts which can be rebuilt after a storm. Mosese told me that 64 villages in Fiji have had to be relocated to ensure a supply of fresh drinkable water and to provide protection from erosion. The land that the iTaukei villages own is now claimed by the sea and is swallowed up.

The Pacific Conference of Churches in 2016 issued the Tokatoka declaration on climate change which said in part: 

“We are deeply concerned by climate change impacts threatening our very survival in the Pacific, such as sea level rise and extreme weather events putting at risk lives, culture, livelihoods, identity and our communal way of life. Due to our geographical setting, our islands continue to be most exposed and therefore most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of anthropogenic (human caused) climate change.  We recognize that our communities are affected in various ways, increasingly suffering from more frequent and more intense climate change related disasters, and we urge for immediate action to minimize its direct impact. We are particularly concerned by the risk of climate induced migration and losing our territories, already witnessing people forced to leave their lands as a result of climate change related sea level rise which infringes on their rights as indigenous landowners and their customary fishing rights and boundaries.” 

Mosese added that people from the villages do go back home occasionally to help. “If you lose the village, you have lost who you are. You have lost your identity”.