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Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

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Project • CRRP2016-03MY-Nunn

Risk and resilience in the Pacific: Influence of peripherality on exposure and responses to global change

In rural parts of many Pacific Island countries, significant differences exist between cores and peripheries. Core communities may be better informed about the science of global change and better equipped to respond to its impacts; peripheral communities often have less such awareness. Yet much of the cultural resilience that has allowed such communities to survive for millennia is lost in core areas while in peripheral communities it remains stronger, often as traditional environmental/ecological knowledge. These disparities are clearest in archipelagic (island) countries but have not been recognized by agencies seeking to enable adaptation. Adaptation to global change in the rural Pacific may succeed only when it combines scientific with traditional knowledge. Science is needed to help communities cope with unprecedented environmental change while traditional knowledge localizes adaptation and expresses cultural resilience that will help sustain adaptation. The project will study 12 core and peripheral communities in the Federated States of Micronesia and Fiji. Information will be collected about exposure to environmental risk, awareness of global climate change and its (recent/future) manifestations and responses. This will allow assessment of the influence of peripherality (a measure of geographical distance from cores) that is key to effective policy development and adaptive interventions.

Project publications

Presentation • 2020

Risk and resilience in the Pacific—community exposure and response to climate change

Book / book chapter • 2020

Adaptation to climate change: contemporary challenges and perspectives

Peer-reviewed publication • 2019

Cashless Adaptation to Climate Change: Unwelcome yet Unavoidable?

Report • 2019

Project Final Report: CRRP2016-03MY-Nunn

Peer-reviewed publication • 2019

Adaptation to climate change in Small Island Developing States: a systematic literature review

Peer-reviewed publication • 2019

Peripherality as key to understanding opportunities and needs for effective and sustainable climate-change adaptation: a case study from Viti Levu Island, Fiji

Peer-reviewed publication • 2019

Peripherality as key to understanding climate-associated risk and resilience for Pacific island communities

Book / book chapter • 2019

Failing adaptation in island contexts: the growing need for transformational change

Peer-reviewed publication • 2019

Measuring peripherality as a proxy for autonomous community coping capacity: a case study from Bua Province, Fiji Islands, for improving climate change adaptation

Peer-reviewed publication • 2019

Moving people in a changing climate: lessons from two case studies in Fiji

Peer-reviewed publication • 2019

What are the barriers to successful community-based climate change adaptation? A review of grey literature

Peer-reviewed publication • 2019

From community-based to locally led adaptation: Evidence from Vanuatu

Peer-reviewed publication • 2018

Responding to multiple climate-linked stressors in a remote island context: the example of Yadua Island, Fiji

Peer-reviewed publication • 2018

Understanding climate-human interactions in Small Island Developing States (SIDS): implications for future livelihood sustainability

Presentation • 2017

Through the lens of peripherality: climate-driven changes to ecosystem services for communities in Bua, western Vanua Levu Island (Fiji)

Conference material • 2017

Climate change and mental health in rural Fiji (Southwest Pacific)