Indigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate Change

Jenny Bryant-Tokalau is Associate Professor in the School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand. She has also worked throughout the Pacific as an academic and UN/GEF staffer.

This book explores how Pacific Island communities are responding to the challenges wrought by climate change-most notably fresh water accessibility, the growing threat of disease, and crop failure. The Pacific Island nations are not alone in facing these challenges, but their responses are unique in that they arise from traditional and community-based understandings of climate and disaster. Knowledge sharing, community education, and widespread participation in decision-making have promoted social resilience to such challenges across the Pacific. In this exploration of the Pacific Island countries, Bryant-Tokalau demonstrates that by understanding the inter-relatedness of local expertise, customary resource management, traditional knowledge and practice, as well as the roles of leaders and institutions, local "knowledge-practice-belief systems" can be used to inform adaptation to disasters wherever they occur.

1. Pacific Responses to and Knowledge of Climate Change.- 2. Adaptation to Climate Change in the Pacific Islands: Theory, Dreams, Practice and Reality.- 3. Handling Weather Disasters: The Resilience and Adaptive Capacity of Pacific Communities.- 4. Urban Responses to Climate Change.- 5. Pacific Islands Here, Now and in the Future of a Changed World.