9 Lessons from Lomani Gau Project, Fiji: A Local Community’s Response to Climate Change

Life in the Pacific Islands is being transformed by climate change: higher temperatures are causing coral bleaching and will affect crops and biodiversity; rising seas are consuming the coastal areas and causing salt water intrusion that is affecting freshwater supplies; carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel combustion is being absorbed by the ocean, resulting in changing pH levels leading to ocean acidification; and more frequent and severe storms and tropical cyclones will exacerbate floods and loss of human lives and property. Climate change is altering ecosystems and affecting how Pacific Islanders live in their small island developing states—already burdened by rapidly increasing populations; limited land area; restricted natural resources to accommodate people’s development aspirations; limited finance and scarce and unskilled labour. With such wide-ranging impacts on people’s lives, climate change is regarded as the greatest challenge to life in the Pacific Islands in years ahead. This makes the effort of Pacific Islanders to live with climate change remarkable. While climate change adaptation is everybody’s responsibility and Pacific Island Governments are taking action at national and international levels, the focus in this paper will be on how local communities that are dependent on their land and marine resources are taking action to protect their sources of livelihood and adapt to the new reality ravaged by climate change. Local Fijian communities heavily depend on their island environment that is dominated by the sea and marine resources. These people are at the forefront of attempts to live with climate change, which is expected to have devastating impacts that may mean relocation and the alteration of all their rights. Although indigenous Fijians have ownership rights over their environmental resources whose uses are regulated under customary arrangements and practices, Fijians today have to ensure that their environmental resources provide for them as well as succeeding generations in a time when customary arrangements may no longer be effective and appropriate. Already, many of the time-tested customary arrangements have been altered owing to the transition to a cash-based economic system and other aspects of globalisation now witnessed in the country. In addition, Fijians have to adapt to changing climatic conditions using both the knowledge and practices of