Dr Suli Vunibola (right), of UC's Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, conducted research into how communities in Fiji and Tonga used indigenous knowledge and ancestral understanding to build community resilience in the face of climate crises and natural disasters. His research was made possible through philanthropic funding from the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust, as well as government funding.
University of Canterbury climate crisis research fellow Dr Suli Vunibola has been conducting research into how different communities in the Pacific, specifically Fiji and Tonga, have been responding to climate crises.
“When humanity is stripped to its very basics, what is left is their connection to each other, to the land, to the sea, and the experiences, including stories, of their ancestors who have experienced such catastrophes,” said Dr Vunibola.
Kia Island after the Cyclone
His research is part of the MFAT funded Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA), a partnership between UC and the University of South Pacific, which aims to provide a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, multi-methodological and integrated assessment of climate crisis and oceans covering 16 countries in the Pacific region.
His research further benefitted from philanthropic funding from the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust.
The communities that Dr Vunibola visited during his research included Yaro Village, Kia Island and Drawa Village in Fiji, coastal and inland communities respectively, and ‘Atata Island in Tonga.
In 2020, the category 5 Cyclone Yasa devastated Yaro, ripping down houses, destroying plantations and even the village’s fishing equipment, which the community relied on for their sustenance and economy.
Drawa, situated further inland on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island, is experiencing rising flood levels due to climate change. The soil becomes waterlogged, causing traditional crops like taro, cassava, kumala (kumara) and yam, upon which the community relied on year-round, to rot.
In Yaro, with their modern fishing gear destroyed by the cyclone, the community turned to an ancient moka – a stone fish trap shaped like a giant horseshoe that made use of the tides to catch fish – that had been built by their ancestors. By the time external help arrived weeks later, the people had already been feeding themselves with fish from the moka and foraged tubers, and preserving food, as in smoking extra fish for the future.
Many people in Yaro lived in modern housing with iron roofs and wooden frames held together with metal nails. When the cyclone hit, these houses with their rigid joints were ripped apart and the debris caused more damage than the wind itself.
Two years on, when Dr Vunibola went to Yaro, some people were still living in tents as they awaited the materials to rebuild. “In Yaro and (other places in the Pacific), people decided to build traditional houses instead, using readily available materials, and they were in a house in two weeks or so,” he said. Yaro was fortunate in that there were elders who still remembered the skill of building a bure (a traditional house), but this knowledge was increasingly endangered.
Some current scientific research found that traditional building methods and vernacular architecture complied with aspects of modern cyclone resilient building codes.
“There should be space for them to keep on building using their traditional designs and structures, but maybe supported by modern architecture and design – keeping in mind the accessibility and affordability,” said Dr Vunibola. At times modern science and technology may be either unaffordable or not present in rural areas, so Indigenous knowledge and practices is integral and a necessity. “Part of the POCCA project is to inform the development of policies that can help the preservation and incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems, and to help funders from other countries like New Zealand and Australia support these initiatives that will help build up communities’ resilience against climate change and crises.”
Drawa, similarly, turned to ancestral knowledge to help them counter the devastating effects of flooding, including traditional food storage methods and drawing on traditional understanding of the environment to forage for wild yams, and traditional designs of built environment.
Dr Vunibola also went to Tonga to visit the residents of ‘Atata Island which was devastated by tsunami waves after the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai in 2022. Similar to the people of Yaro, who held a lovo (a feast similar to a hangi) immediately after the cyclone, the residents of ‘Atata helped each other to reach a few houses on higher ground, where they ate together, shared stories, songs, grief, and tears. “It’s that collective notion of sharing the burden, of sharing stress and difficult times, that really play a big role in their sense of resilience,” he said.
This could also translate to larger , more urban communities, such as in the North Island, where there is a concern for the mental health of people affected by Cyclone Gabrielle. The difference between an urban community and ones like Yaro, Drawa, and ‘Atata, said Dr Vunibola, was that urban communities are much more individualistic.
“We own land and properties individually. We build fences around it. When disasters strike, like Cyclone Gabrielle, your resilience is tested individually. For communities like Yaro, Drawa, and ‘Atata, everything is communal and collective – even the clean-up of the villages after disasters is collective. Moving forward, there’s huge learning from the projects that we’re doing in the Pacific that can contribute to societies like New Zealand.”
‘Atata also provided learnings that could inform the way we look at induced migration globally, when people are forced to leave their homes because of crises, whether it’s a climate event or war. After the volcanic eruption and the tsunami, the Tongan government vacated the island and decreed no one should live on it. The original residents were moved to a new settlement named ‘Atata Isi, Little ‘Atata, on the main island of Tongatapu. “You can move people, but their sense of wellbeing is connected with their homeland,” said Dr Vunibola. “And some of them want to stay, so the issue becomes about staying with dignity.”
In the middle of 2023, Dr Vunibola will return to Fiji to conduct some action and applied research, where he will take part in the construction of regenerative communities including sustainable food systems and help establish forms of community production to supplement their economy.
