How is the Blue Pacific Relevant to a Safer Cleaner Fairer Future

i want to also acknowledge that we are

gathered here today

on nunual and nambri country on unseated

land

and pay my respects to nunawal and

nambri ancestors and their descendants

i’m going old school today because in

2020 you just

do not push your luck especially

on disrupted sleep so i’m going old

school with the paper

this evening but thank you so much to

all the organizers

um it’s been a really enlightening

series of talks so far so how is the

blue pacific

relevant to a safer cleaner

fairer future

how many people here have been to the

pacific to a pacific island

put your hand up interesting how many

people went on a holiday

keep your hand up keep your hand up if

it was a great

holiday excellent

so the pacific is indeed filled with

many many

white sandy beaches swaying coconut palm

trees

pineapple cocktails and brilliant blue

ocean surf

but just behind such scenes are deep

histories

of environmental and social devastation

tied to colonial and imperial expansion

and the deliberate transformation of

pacific island environments

the kovit 19 pandemic has seriously

disrupted the international tourism that

many pacific economies

rely on but it’s also opened up

spaces for reflection and the rethinking

of possibilities for new and ancient

approaches to social and economic

resilience

according to the pacific islands forum

leaders the blue pacific

is an expression of our region as one

big blue continent it includes

all people in an ocean of islands who

recognize

their needs and potential who plan and

own their development and who act

collectively

for the good of all rather than for just

a few

the blue pacific is a re-imagination of

a space

once seen as small it actually covers

one-third of our entire planet you can

fit all the earth’s lands into the

pacific

and still have space for another

continent

the world’s oceans cover 70 of the

planet and function

as a critical regulator of the earth’s

temperature

absorbing the sun’s heat transferring it

to the atmosphere

and distributing it around the world

all this drives global weather patterns

and acts like a big

reverse cycle air conditioner providing

heating in the winter

and cooling in the summer through

photosynthesis microscopic

oceanic life provides about half the

world’s

oxygen our oceans are an absolutely

critical

organ in the body of the planet and if

they’re not working

properly the whole system starts to

break down

the pacific ocean is a major part of

that system

and our leaders agree that climate

change is the biggest

challenge facing our islands

unfortunately the ocean and the islands

they surround

are not always valued for this critical

role

the pacific particularly when viewed

from the rim

and from rim countries like australia is

often seen to be more important

from an economic and geostrategic

perspective

it’s a place to battle for influence

the islands and their peoples are

regularly framed as small

underdeveloped and in constant need of

studying aiding and saving

the politics often overshadow the

critical and urgent

environmental issues and these urgent

issues

are not solved by science alone for

centuries the pacific has been as

imagined as the perfect lab

for understanding human and

environmental change and

and resilience but like in most

labs the test subjects don’t really

have a voice or a choice

from nuclear testing programs and other

major military exercises

to deforestation and mining the pacific

has often been the site

of sacrifice for science business

and security projects described as

for the good of mankind

the so-called mankind are almost

always wealthier producers and consumers

beyond the very resource-rich islands

and oceans

today the pacific islands and

particularly our low-lying atolls

are experiencing the effects of global

warming and extreme weather

in more intense and frequent ways

salt water is inundating coastal areas

and fresh water systems

threatening the physical food security

of communities

the pacific contributes the least to

global fossil fuel emissions

and global warming while

disproportionately

feeling its greatest effects

when the oceans absorb more heat and

excess carbon dioxide from the

atmosphere

this changes water temperature and ph

levels

causing ocean acidification and

deoxygenation

this affects ocean circulation and

chemistry

and depletes the diversity and abundance

of marine life

the intergovernmental panel on climate

change reported

that the ocean has absorbed so much

atmospheric

heat that changes in temperature can now

be

felt and observed as far as 1 000 meters

below the surface

they predict the sea levels will rise to

at least 0.4 meters

and perhaps as much as 0.6 meters

if we do not drastically lower fossil

fuel emissions

and keep temperature rise to below 1.5

degrees celsius

for many pacific atolls that are just

around two meters above sea level

this is huge

climate change is at the forefront of

the blue pacific strategy

and pacific leaders have been calling

for global climate

action for over 30 years

in spite of a widely accepted frame that

sees the pacific as small and vulnerable

there are many important campaigns run

by smart

proud young islanders such as the

pacific climate warriors

working at all levels to bring awareness

for the need

for integrated global action

such action however must build on a

diverse

base of knowledge and values including

those of pacific peoples

the pacific meaning peaceful

was named by explorer ferdinand magellan

in the 1500s

but pacific islanders had their own

terms for the oceans such as

tassi moana wasawasa

and marawa these terms included a value

for kinship

understanding care and stewardship

last year i participated in a human

rights forum

with business and legal experts gathered

in melbourne

there was a huge amount of discussion on

finding solutions to support

ethical business practices and ensure

human rights were upheld the problem i

kept seeing

was that human rights regularly appeared

to be divorced

from indigenous and environmental rights

when asked about my views on how to find

balance i said

what you do to the land and the sea you

do

to the people for thousands of years

pacific people were

of the land and sea not apart from it

land ocean sky and people

were in kinship in one holistic

complex

i descend from two islands

in the central pacific tabete where

in the southern part of kiribati and

barnaba in the west i was born and

raised in fiji

but these are my ancestral islands

the word for land is tiapa and

kaintyappa

are the people of the land this concept

of land or place

is inclusive of everything including our

waterways

it is similar to concepts such as vanua

in

fiji aina in hawaii

fonua in tonga and fenua in aotearoa

new zealand while pacific islanders were

master wayfinders traveling

thousands of years before magellan they

were also brilliant in establishing

roots

and connecting to new lands and

environments

our ancestors spirits and deities

emerged from

oceans skies clouds rocks

turtles stingrays spiders and coconut

trees

a system of life evolved where you did

your best

to ensure you didn’t damage or exhaust

these things i have spent 20 years

trying to understand

what happened on barnaba and why it’s in

the dilapidated state

it’s in today i’ll share a little bit of

this story

in 1900 new zealander albert ellis

was sent on a prospecting mission by a

mining company

based in london sydney and auckland

he knew that naoru was made of phosphate

but nauru had been claimed by germany

so he looked for the closest island on

the map and found what europeans had

named

ocean island which is also called banaba

by the indigenous people

it was two and a half square miles or

six square kilometers

near the equator and almost completely

made

of sedimented guano and marine phosphate

ellis and his colleagues arrived rifles

in hand you know

just in case and were welcomed by many

bemused barnabans he tested the rocks

and they turned out to be some of the

world’s richest sources of phosphoric

acid a key ingredient in phosphate

fertilizer

that was set along with nitrogen-based

fertilizers

to power the expansion of global

agriculture

ellis wrote in his journal if ocean

island is what i think it is

there’s a fortune in it if not several

he then asked the barnabans who had

never seen or used money

to lease their land to the company for

999 years

for 50 pounds a year

an x was marked on a piece of paper a

british flag planted

and the men started hauling off rocks

this series of events led to the

establishment of a lucrative mine

that made shareholders very wealthy and

resulted in the incorporation of banaba

into the colony in 1920 australia new

zealand and the british government

took over banaba and naoru to secure

cheap

fertilizer for farmers enhance food

security across the three countries

and expand other agricultural and

sipping

shipping supply chains from

two tiny islands in the middle of the

pacific massive fertilizer and farming

operations grew and thrived

the impact on the islanders however was

significant

people went from eating fresh fish

coconut

and pandanus to tinned meat and white

bread

they went from dancing and composing new

songs about the importance of the land

and sea

to watching hollywood films about

cowboys

on outdoor screens the company shipped

in water from melbourne

and their officials a duck goose and

roasted potatoes

this shiny industrial spot in the middle

of the pacific became a target during

world war

ii resulting in the depths of hundreds

of barnabas

and the laborers bought to mine

phosphate

the barnabans were then moved to war

camps

and after the war to rambi island in

northern fiji

my great-grandfather tenamo was one of

just

700 banabans who survived

this year marks the 50th anniversary of

fiji’s independence from great britain

and the 75th anniversary of the barnaban

arrival

on rambi in those 75 years they have

petitioned the u.n for independence

placed a small occupying force on their

home island

sued the multinational company sued the

british government

received a small out-of-court settlement

lost and rebuilt

many aspects of their culture

experienced

serious governance issues and become a

small

but visible minority in the

multicultural nation

of fiji currently facing

major challenges from climate change

the motto of the rambi council of

leaders is

our god help us

several barnabans including my grand

aunt pelenise alofa

and issenteronga ray paentes are vocal

and widely respected pacific

climate warriors

mining seized on barnaba in 1980 and the

company

packed up and left with no cleaning

clearing or rehabilitation 22 million

tons of

land had been extracted and exported

the island is a mining relic a

post-apocalyptic

scene of the end of industrial progress

with a small number of people living

amongst the rubble

and the old now overgrown colonial

mansions a young american journalist

jana scantieri who spent many weeks on

barnaba

has highlighted stories of asbestos

pollution

and many other health challenges facing

the small population

there the possibility of reopening the

minds

continues to be discussed by leaders

barnabas now everywhere spread across

farmlands

flowing through and polluting other

ecosystems

and like their lands bonnevilles are

also displaced

moving across the seas and transplanted

in new soil that we are not

indigenous to such industrial activities

and histories are

not separate or different from climate

change

climate change is the culmination of

all the effects of all the resource

extraction

land desertification and degradation

excessive production and consumption

powered by fossil fuels and the

pollution of

lands and waterways by synthetic

chemicals

we don’t have too many humans

on the planet we have a small number

of wealthy humans in industrial

countries

who consume way more than others

and leave a disproportionately massive

footprint

on the planet the ocean has

always protected barnaba from

large-scale intrusion but not this time

it took hundreds of thousands of years

to grow this island

and 80 years of mining to devastate it

what islands like barnaba and the blue

pacific can teach us

is how to observe and understand what

happens to people

and to the planet when you exploit such

resources

so what does the blue pacific tell us

about how to move towards a clean

green safe and fair future

there is no stem-based or technical

solution

that will be effective or sustainable

without the holistic integration

of humanities arts social sciences

and indigenous thinking knowledge

and values how do we move towards a safe

clean and fair future

by truly supporting justice equality

and a fair and sustainable distribution

of resources

how do we move towards a safe clean and

fair future

by facing and reckoning with the

environmental

political and social injustices

of the past i do this in my own work by

transforming my research

into public art exhibitions because i

know not everyone reads

academic journals philosopher george

santayana said those who cannot remember

the past

are condemned to repeat it

pacific peoples are very familiar with

the concept of walking backwards

into the future amari proverb

goes to

i walk backwards into the future with my

eyes

fixed on my past how do we move towards

a safe clean and fair

future by paying serious attention

to the blue parts of our planet

if the earth can be imagined as a body

the pacific ocean is a major organ like

the lungs and we

all need our lungs to breathe and

survive

what we do to the oceans and to the

islands

we do to all of us thank you

you