RNZ International (RNZI) began broadcasting to the Pacific region 35 years ago — on 24 January 1990, the same day the Auckland Commonwealth Games opened.

Its news bulletins and programmes were carried by a brand new 100kW transmitter.

The service was rebranded as RNZ Pacific in 2017. However its mission remains unchanged, to provide news of the highest quality and be a trusted service to local broadcasters in the Pacific region.

Although RNZ had been broadcasting to the Pacific since 1948, in the late 1980s the New Zealand government saw the benefit of upgrading the service. Thus RNZI was born, with a small dedicated team.

The first RNZI manager was Ian Johnstone. He believed that the service should have a strong cultural connection to the people of the Pacific. To that end, it was important that some of the staff reflected parts of the region where RNZ Pacific broadcasted.

He hired the first Pacific woman sports reporter at RNZ, the late Elma Ma’ua.

The Pacific region is one of the most vital areas of the earth, but it is not always the safest, particularly from natural disasters.

Disaster coverage
RNZ Pacific covered events such as the 2009 Samoan tsunami, and during the devastating 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai eruption, it was the only news service that could be heard in the kingdom.

More recently, it supported Vanuatu’s public broadcaster during the December 17 earthquake by providing extra bulletin updates for listeners when VBTC services were temporarily out of action.

Cyclones have become more frequent in the region, and RNZ Pacific provides vital weather updates, as the late Linden Clark, RNZI’s second manager, explained: “Many times, we have been broadcasting warnings on analogue shortwave to listeners when their local station has had to go off air or has been forced off air.”

RNZ Pacific’s cyclone watch service continues to operate during the cyclone season in the South Pacific.

As well as natural disasters, the Pacific can also be politically volatile. Since its inception RNZ Pacific has reported on elections and political events in the region.

Some of the more recent events include the 2000 and 2006 coups in Fiji, the Samoan Constitutional Crisis of 2021, the 2006 pro-democracy riots in Nuku’alofa, the revolving door leadership changes in Vanuatu, and the 2022 security agreement that Solomon Islands signed with China.

Human interest, culture
Human interest and cultural stories are also a key part of RNZ Pacific’s programming.

The service regularly covers cultural events and festivals within New Zealand, such as Polyfest. This was part of Linden Clark’s vision, in her role as RNZI manager, that the service would be a link for the Pacific diaspora in New Zealand to their homelands.

Today, RNZ Pacific continues that work. Currently its programmes are carried on two transmitters — one installed in 2008 and a much more modern facility, installed in 2024 following a funding boost.

Around 20 Pacific region radio stations relay RNZP’s material daily. Individual short-wave listeners and internet users around the world tune in directly to RNZ Pacific content which can be received as far away as Japan, North America, the Middle East and Europe.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A strong 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Vanuatu today, US geologists said, severely damaging a number of buildings in the capital, crushing cars and briefly triggering a tsunami warning.

Witnesses described a “violent shake” and widespread damage to Port Vila, located about 1900km northeast of the Australian city of Brisbane.

The Pacific island nation is ranked as one of the world’s most at-risk countries from natural disasters and extreme weather events, including cyclones and volcanic eruptions.

Michael Thompson, an adventure tour operator based in the capital, said the quake was “bigger than anything” he had felt in his 20 years living in Vanuatu.

“I was caught in the office with my colleague,” he told BenarNews. “When we came outside, it was just chaos everywhere. There have been a couple of buildings that have pancaked.

“You can hear noises and kind of muffled screams inside.”

Video footage taken by Thompson outside the US embassy showed the bottom floor of the building in downtown Port Vila had partially collapsed. Its windows are buckled and the foundations have been turned to rubble.

“It looks dangerous’
“We stood there yelling out to see if there was anyone inside the building,” Thompson said. “It looks really dangerous.”

The building also hosts the British, French and New Zealand missions.

Just down the main road from the embassy building, search and rescue teams were trying to force their way into a commercial building through the tin roof, Thompson said, but at the pace they were going it would be a “24 hour operation”.

Bottom line: It’s bad. People died, and many more were hurt. Some have lost their home, and many will find it hard to get back to work. Repairs will likely stretch for years, as they always do in the wake of disaster.

— Dan McGarry (@VanuatuDan) December 17, 2024

“We need help. We need medical evacuation and we need qualified rescue personnel. That’s the message,” he said.

The quake was recorded at a depth of 43km and centered 30km west of the capital Port-Vila, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The US Tsunami Warning System cancelled an initial tsunami warning for coastal communities in Vanuatu within 300km of the epicenter.

The quake hit the island nation not long after midday, coming into peak tourist season, when the streets of Port Vila were packed with people shopping and eating in restaurants, Thompson said.

One dead body
He had seen at least one dead body among the rubble.

“The police are out trying to keep people back,” he said. “But it’s a pretty big situation here.”

In other videos posted online people can be seen running through the streets of the capital past shop fronts that had fallen onto cars. Elsewhere, a cliff behind the container port in Port Vila appears to have collapsed.

Dan McGarry, a Port Vila-based journalist, described the earthquake on social platform X as a “violent, high frequency vertical shake” that lasted about 30 seconds, adding the power was out around the city.

Vanuatu, home to about 300,000 on its 13 main islands and many smaller ones, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because it straddles the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire.”

Vanuatu’s government declared a six-month national emergency early last year after it was hit by back-to-back tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin and a 6.5 magnitude earthquake within several days.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is an important story to be told behind the story Aotearoa New Zealand’s mainstream media has been reporting on in Kanaky New Caledonia. Beyond the efforts to evacuate New Zealanders lies a struggle for indigenous sovereignty and self-determination we here in Aotearoa can relate to.

Aotearoa is part of a whānau of Pacific nations, interconnected by Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. The history of Aotearoa is intricately woven into the broader history of the Pacific, where cultural interactions have shaped a rich tapestry over centuries.

The whakapapa connections between tangata whenua and tagata moana inform my political stance and commitment to indigenous rights throughout the Pacific. What happens in one part of the South Pacific ripples across to all of us that call the Pacific Ocean home.

Since the late 1980s the Kanak independence movement showed itself to be consistently engaging with the Accords with Paris process in their struggle for self-determination.

The Nouméa Accord set out a framework for transferring power to the people of New Caledonia, through a series of referenda. It was only after France moved to unilaterally break with the accords and declare independence off the table that the country returned to a state of unrest.

Civil unrest in and around the capital Nouméa which has continued for two weeks, was prompted by Kanak anger over Paris changing the constitution to open up electoral rolls in its “overseas territory” in a way that effectively dilutes the voting power of the indigenous people.

Coming after the confused end of the Nouméa Accord in 2021, which left New Caledonia’s self-determination path clouded with uncertainty, it was inevitable that there would be trouble.

Flew halfway across world
That France’s President Emmanuel Macron flew across the world to Noumea last week for one day of talks in a bid to end the civil unrest underlines the seriousness of the crisis.

But while the deployment of more French security forces to the territory may have succeeded in quelling the worst of the unrest for now, Macron’s visit was unsuccessful because he failed to commit to pulling back on the electoral changes or to signal a meaningful way forward on independence for New Caledonia.

Paris’ tone-deafness to the Kanaks’ concerns was evident in its refusal to postpone the last of the three referendums under the Nouméa Accord during the pandemic, when the indigenous Melanesians boycotted the poll because it was a time of mourning in their communities. Kanaks consider that last referendum to have no legitimacy.

But Macron’s government has simply cast aside the accord process to move ahead unilaterally with a new statute for New Caledonia.

As the Kanaky Aotearoa Solidarity group said in a letter to the French Ambassador in Wellington this week, “it is regrettable that France’s decision to obstruct the legitimate aspirations of the Kanak people to their right to self-determination has led to such destruction and loss of life”.

Why should New Zealand care about the crisis? New Caledonia is practically Aotearoa’s next door neighbour — a three-hour flight from Auckland. Natural disasters in the Pacific such as cyclones remind us fairly regularly how our country has a leading role to play in the region.

But we can’t take this role for granted, nor choose to look the other way because our “ally“ France has it under control. And we certainly shouldn’t ignore the roots of a crisis in a neighbouring territory where frustrations have boiled over in a pattern that’s not unusual in the Pacific Islands region, and especially Melanesia.

There is an urgent need for regional assistance to drive reconciliation. The Pacific Islands Forum, as the premier regional organisation, must move beyond words and take concrete actions to support the Kanak people.

Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism
The forum’s Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism for regional responses to crisis management and conflict resolution. The New Caledonian crisis surely qualifies, although France would be uncomfortable with any forum intervention.

But acting in good faith as a member of the regional family is what Paris signed up to when its territories in the Pacific were granted full forum membership.

Why is a European nation like France still holding on to its colonial possessions in the Pacific? Kanaky New Caledonia, Maohi Nui French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna are on the UN list of non-self-governing territories for whom decolonisation is incomplete.

However, in the case of Kanaky, Paris’ determination to hold on is partly due to a desire for global influence and is also, in no small way, linked to the fact that the territory has over 20 percent of the world’s known nickel reserves.

Failing to address the remnants of colonialism will continue to devastate lives and livelihoods across Oceania, as evidenced by the struggles in Bougainville, Māo’hi Nui, West Papua, and Guåhan.

New Zealand should be supportive of an efficient and orderly decolonisation process. We can’t rely on France alone to achieve this, especially as the unrest in New Caledonia is the inevitable result of years of political and social marginalisation of Kanak people.

The struggle of indigenous Kanaks in New Caledonia is part of a broader movement for self-determination and anti-colonialism across the Pacific. By supporting the Kanak people’s self-determination, we honour our shared history and whakapapa connections, advocating for a future where indigenous rights and aspirations are respected and upheld.

Kanaky Au Pouvoir.

Teanau Tuiono is a Green Party MP in Aotearoa New Zealand and its spokesperson for Pasifika peoples. This article was first published by The Press and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Rogue police officers have been alleged to be part of last Wednesday’s uprising of opportunists leading to looting and ransacking of more than 20 shops and loss of businesses in the capital of Port Moresby.

Prime Minister James Marape said last week’s “Black Wednesday” unrest had led the government to consider the Vagrancy Act and complete the national Census.

Marape said the 14-day State of Emergency orders included “no movement of large crowds”.

“There is no curfew and limited movement of large crowds will be stopped,” he said.

“Police will be supported by the PNG Defence Force and they will be allowed to stop anyone and check them.

“We are taking a soft approach to the SOE for the next 14 days,” Marape added.

Meanwhile, Brian Bell Group chair Ian Clough has made an impassioned plea to the government for assistance to rebuild its business because the company’s losses suffered in the Black Wednesday plunder were not covered by insurance, reports Claudia Tally.

He said that all businesses which suffered the “indignity of huge losses” through theft, arson and looting were not covered by insurance companies.

Brian Bell suffered losses of 50 million kina (NZ$21.5 million) million) after its warehouse in Port Moresby’s Gerehu Stage 6 was completely emptied by looters during the citywide plunder of businesses on January 10.

An emotional Clough said all businesses were not covered by insurance for civil unrest. This situation needed to be treated as a “natural disaster” where the government
must step in to assist.

Gorethy Kenneth, Miriam Zarriga and Claudia Tally are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SPECIAL REPORT: By Matthew Scott

The beach is vanishing, one day at a time. The sea approaches the coastal village. It will not be negotiated with.

With seawater flooding the water table, crops that have fed the islanders for centuries are losing viability. The problem is invisible, under the people’s feet. But it demands change.

Each year, the cyclones have seemed to get more volatile and less predictable. What used to be a cycle of weathering the storm and rebuilding has become a frenetic game of wits with the elements.

In 2012, 3.8 percent of the total GDP of the Pacific Islands region was spent on the rebuilding efforts needed after natural disasters.

In 2016, that number had risen to 15.6 percent.

The effects of climate change are increasing the volatility and unpredictability of tropical cyclones in the Pacific.

That number has nowhere to go but up.

This story is playing out all over the Pacific, where economically vulnerable nations are some of the first to become victims to the encroaching climate crisis. Countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu, which have contributed least to the carbon emissions driving climate change, are on the brink of becoming its first casualties.

With millions of lives in the balance, this is a moral issue. New Zealand has responded according to its conscience.

Or at least it appears so.

The New Zealand Aid Programme sends 70.7 percent of its aid to countries in the Pacific. This is a higher proportion of our foreign aid budget than any other country. As such, New Zealand is inextricably entwined with funding and encouraging processes of climate adaptation and mitigation in the region.

However, recent findings from the studies of Professor Patrick D Nunn from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, suggest that the most common forms of climate aid to Pacific nations breed economic dependency and fail to help them create a sustainable and self-reliant future.

On the surface, New Zealand’s climate aid policies seem like a life preserver to its drowning neighbours. But when the programme is considered in the long-view, does that life preserver come with a dog collar?

Ruined sea walls line the beaches of the South Pacific, a visual reminder to the people of the islands that the promise of help is sometimes broken.

Why should NZ help?
New Zealand has long played a custodial role in the Pacific. A shared colonial history and geographical location has created a familial bond between New Zealand and countries like the Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga.

Employment opportunities stimulated immigration to New Zealand after World War Two, when the NZ government opened its doors to the Pacific to fill labour shortages. Soon, the industrial areas of New Zealand cities were centres of the Pacific diaspora.

Nowadays Auckland is the biggest Pasifika city in the world.

But there was always a two-faced element to New Zealand’s treatment of the Pacific. It welcomed Pacific people in on the one hand, but then punished them and sent them away with the other.

Norman Kirk’s government introduced the Dawn Raids in 1973, when crack police squads stormed homes and workplaces looking for overstayers – countless migrants from the Pacific were separated from their families, lives and livelihoods.

Between 2015 and 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade provided $200 million in climate aid to the Pacific.

Does the same flavour of double-dealing hang over New Zealand’s climate aid programme?

“People argue that aid is buying influence,” says Professor Patrick D Nunn. “I don’t think they are far off the mark.”

New Zealand’s motivations for climate aid in the Pacific are murky when the communication within the government bodies responsible is studied.

“The region is also that part of the world where our foreign policy ‘brand’ as a constructive and principled state must most obviously play out,” wrote NZ’s Ministry of Foreign  Affairs and Trade (MFAT) in its October 2017 Briefing to an Incoming Minister.

This suggests an ulterior motive to the helping hand. The MFAT website says that strengthening New Zealand’s national “brand” is in order to promote New Zealand as a “safe, sustainable and stable location to operate a business and to invest”.

So New Zealand may have self-interest at the heart of its movements in the Pacific. As a capitalist nation holding its breath through a decades-long wave of neoliberalism, this is no surprise.

Where is the money going?
But that doesn’t mean that New Zealand’s climate aid in the Pacific cannot have altruistic effects. Surely it is the outcome rather than the intention that ultimately matters.

However, it is still necessary examine where New Zealand’s money is going.

A 2020 study from Professor Nunn and a group of other academics casts doubt on whether current modes of climate adaptation can effectively promote long-term solutions for the islands.

“It’s unhelpful in the sense that it’s implicitly encouraged that Pacific Island countries don’t build their own culturally-based resilience,” Professor Nunn says. “It’s encouraged that they adopt global solutions that aren’t readily transferable to a Pacific Island context.”

One of the more visible examples is the ubiquitous sea wall. Sea walls protect coastal communities from rising sea levels throughout New Zealand, so it seems obvious that they could do the same job for Pacific neighbours.

But New Zealand invests in building its walls to stand for the long-term, and the country has access to the capital and human resources needed to maintain them.

This is not always the case in the developing countries of the South Pacific.

“Usually there’s not enough data to inform the optimal design of sea walls,” says Professor Nunn. “So the sea wall collapses after two years. Then the community struggles to find funds to fix it because they are not part of the cash economy.”

Professor Nunn blames this recurring issue on the short-sightedness of foreign aid programmes from the governments of developed countries in the region.

“You can’t uncritically transfer solutions from a developed to a developing country context – however obvious they seem.”

Academic and journalist Professor David Robie, the recently retired director of the Pacific Media Centre, sees New Zealand’s relationship with the Pacific as neocolonial.

“We build sea walls where they would plant mangroves,” he says. Mangroves, of course, don’t require upkeep, and they are a solution that people in the Pacific have used for centuries. They might not always fulfil the urgent interventions required during the climate crisis, but as New Zealand seeks to advance our “brand” in the Pacific, do we give them due consideration, or do we fall back on our own western solutions by default?

“It would have been better to not have had such a neocolonial approach,” says Professor Robie. “We could have encouraged the Pacific countries to be a lot more self-reliant.”

Short-term solutions for long-term problems
According to an MFAT Official Information Act release on climate change strategy, climate aid consists of 190 different activities across the Pacific. Of these activities, the largest focus is put on agriculture (25 percent), followed by energy generation and supply (20 percent) and disaster risk reduction (12 percent).

With the long-term projections of sea levels rising, are these areas enough to safeguard our Pacific whanau long into the future?

Professor Nunn spoke about plans by Japanese foreign aid to divert the mouth of the Nadi River in Fiji in order to stop the growingly frequent flooding of Nadi town.

“It would be far more useful for the Japanese government to develop a site for the relocation of Nadi town,” Professor Nunn said. “Somewhere inland, somewhere in the hinterland. Put in utilities and incentivize relocation of key services – because the situation is not going to improve. In 10-15 years, large parts of Nadi town are going to be underwater.”

So it goes across the Pacific.

New Zealand’s strategies of capacity building and disaster management are noble on the surface, but are we arranging deck chairs on the Titanic?

Climate change is an epoch-defining force that is inevitably going to render swathes of the globe uninhabitable. We can fund short-term adaptation to these issues and feel better about ourselves and our Pacific “brand”, but the real solutions lie in establishing humane systems of relocation around the Pacific.

Some of this comes in the form of increasing New Zealand’s own quota for climate migrants seeking asylum in New Zealand. For countries that consist of primarily low-lying atolls such as Kiribati, leaving their ancestral homeland will one day sadly be the only option.

Other nations such as Fiji and Samoa have the capacity to weather the storm if development is focused in the right direction – the gradual relocation of population centres inland, away from the risks of increasing flood frequency and rising tides.

MFAT has stated in an Official Information Act release of July 2019 that three quarters of their investment into climate aid “will go towards supporting communities to adapt in situ to the effects of climate change, which will enable them to avert and delay relocation”.

These goals are stuck in the short-term. This is procrastination on an international scale. The effects of climate change are no longer just theories, or nightmares that may or may not come true.

There is a clear road map to a future in which many areas in the Pacific are in peril. New Zealand has a moral duty to make sure that the effect of its aid helps not just the current members of Pacific whanau, but also the generations to come.

Examining NZ’s aid
In July, 2019, an inquiry was launched by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee into Aotearoa’s Pacific aid. The committee examined every facet of how the lion’s share of our foreign aid budget is spent. With Pacific aid, this means a discussion of climate change is inevitable.

Their findings were released last August.

Overall, the committee paints the picture of a considered approach to foreign aid, with New Zealand making an effort to take responsibility as the most developed economic power in our geopolitical bloc to bring about a world in which people have social mobility and human rights are protected.

Much of the report, however, centred around the committee’s recommendations as to how MFAT should proceed.

Some of these recommendations shine a light on the potential problems inherent to our regime of climate aid.

They recommended that the aid programme take steps to “more deeply engage with local communities, ensuring all voices within those communities are heard, and their viewpoints respected.” This suggests a certain level of overhanded detachment coming from New Zealand’s aid programme.

They also suggested that MFAT places a heightened emphasis on social inclusion step up efforts to make sure development is centred around locally-owned industry.
The committee also asked for public submissions.

Some of these provided perspectives that the committee themselves may have glanced over.

“Pushing New Zealand values into the Pacific—particularly when tied to monetary support—could be viewed as a renewed form of colonialism,” submitted one anonymous member of the public. Another raised that “greater engagement is needed with local communities to ascertain both their values and needs, and for aid to be appropriately tailored.”

These criticisms are not definitive proof of missteps on the part of the ministry. However, they are talking points that the ministry themselves seem unwilling to address.

When questions of neo-colonialism and unsustainable aid programmes were raised to the ministry, a spokesperson provided answers that glossed over the criticisms.

“Four principles underpin New Zealand’s international development cooperation: effectiveness, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability,” said an MFAT spokesperson when asked if there was a risk of breeding economic dependency via New Zealand forms of aid.

“Their purpose is to guide us and those we work with in our shared aim to contribute to a more peaceful world, in which all people live in dignity and safety, all countries can prosper, and our shared environment is protected.”

It sounds admirable, and it places New Zealand on the right side of history. But it doesn’t answer the specific concerns that have been levelled at the aid programme – the fact that deliberately or not, New Zealand may be guilty of building a relationship of dependency with countries in the Pacific.

Are answers like these just a further attempt to bolster the “brand” that New Zealand is trying to sell to the Pacific, and indeed the rest of the world?

Pouring money into the problem
When New Zealand signed the Paris Agreement in 2016, we were putting ourselves forward as one of the countries committed to strengthening the global response to the burgeoning climate crisis. John Key pledged to provide up to $200 million in climate aid over the next four years. Most of this was focused on the Pacific.

The Paris Agreement recognised that the Pacific was indeed one of the world’s most vulnerable regions when it comes to the effects of climate change – this is for a multitude of reasons. There are the obvious, such as the fact that countries consisting of low-lying atolls such as Kiribati and the Marshall Islands are the most at risk from rising sea levels, but the reasons are as numerous as they are insidious.

Small populations reliant on a narrow array of staple crops and food sources put the people of the Pacific in a particularly precarious position. The effects of colonisation have left these countries socio-economically deprived and in thrall to developed countries like Australia, New Zealand, the United States and China.

So the reasons why the Pacific is so vulnerable to the crisis are complex and various. It therefore follows that the solutions to the crisis are as well.

Chief among these is shifting from expensive answers to the problem to those that don’t cost anything at all. Cashless adaptation could come in the form of education or placing a greater emphasis on indigenous solutions to climate change.

Steering the ship towards cashless adaptation would reduce vulnerable countries’ reliance on their wealthier neighbours.

Another solution is the slow relocation of coastal cities into the hinterlands of the countries, such as Fiji’s Nadi, where flooding in the central business district is becoming more and more frequent.

Foreign aid can play a part in encouraging and funding such projects, but at the end of the day, it is the governments of these countries themselves that hold the reigns. The city of Nadi will not be moved without the constant efforts of the Fijian government over the course of generations.

In their 2019 paper “Foreign aid and climate change policy”, Daniel Y Kono and Gabriella R Montinola claim that while foreign aid for climate adaptation and mitigation is on the rise, the manner in which it is employed may render it toothless and unable to make changes for the people of the Pacific in the long term.

The main reason for this conclusion is that there has been little to no evidence that foreign climate aid in Pacific nations can be correlated with Pacific governments enacting policies addressing the crisis.

It is arguable whether foreign aid can be expected to affect the policies of recipient governments. However, it is undeniable that solutions to climate change require the synchronised action from both suppliers and recipients of this aid.

Help comes on NZ’s terms
In order to plant the seeds for long-term viable responses to climate aid, New Zealand’s approach must consider the worldview of people in the Pacific.

Professor Nunn sees this as another form of developed countries employing neocolonial tactics in order to build relationships of dependency with countries in need.

“You cannot take your worldviews and impose them on people who have different worldviews and expect those people to accept them,” he said.

On many of the islands of the Pacific, the scientific worldview does not hold automatic precedence over spiritual and mythological views, as it does in the secular West.

Low science literacy and a stronger connection to nature through cultural tradition and ritual such as religion mean that if the sea level rises, people in the Pacific often tend to consider it a divine act.

Practitioners of foreign aid need to show cultural competency if their approach is going to be picked up by the people of the Pacific.

“You’ve got to understand why your interventions are failing,” says Professor Nunn. “You go in there and argue on the basis of science. Nobody in rural Pacific Island communities gives a stuff about science. What they understand is God. To ignore that and pretend that it’s not important is just going to result in a continuation of failed interventions.”

Understanding is the route to developing a system of long-term and sustainable examples of climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Pacific.

“Empowering Pacific Island communities means understanding them,” says Professor Nunn. “Not just what their priorities are, but also how they’ve reached those priorities.”

With crisis comes opportunity
Prior to 2020, climate change was on its way to being a top-priority issue to governments all over the world – particularly those in highly-affected regions like the Pacific. Then 2020 happened.

Covid-19 has dominated public talk for months and there are no signs of this changing any time soon. Big ticket issues like social inequality and climate change found themselves on the back-burner during the New Zealand election, and the same could be said in societies around the world.

The virus has brought global tourism to a standstill and threatened the safety of many already vulnerable indigenous populations. Both impoverished and tourism-reliant nations in the Pacific have been placed in drastically uncertain financial straits.

Although the rates of infection have been fortunately low across the Pacific, countries like Fiji and the Cook Islands have lost their main source of income – holidaymakers seeking a sun-soaked patch of white-sand beach.

The beaches are there waiting, but the planes haven’t begun to land yet.

With the threat of economic ruin hanging over their heads, Pacific nations’ climate change options have been reduced even further.

But from the perspective of analysing the problematic elements of New Zealand’s climate aid programme, there is a silver lining.

In April, MFAT reported that almost two-thirds of their development programmes had been affected by covid-19 in some way. In the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee’s Inquiry into New Zealand’s aid to the Pacific report, it is said that recovery from this will require a range of responses, including stopping, reassessing and adapting, or re-phasing projects on an individual basis.”

Herein lies the opportunity.

The aid programme is on the verge of a massive shake-up, as MFAT reanalyses the best approach in a covid-stricken world. Now is the time for reassessment of our position as aid donors with the work of Professor Nunn in mind.

The committee’s report went on to say “the ministry pointed out that travel restrictions due to covid-19 mean that it will need to rely more heavily on local staff and expertise to provide aid. The ministry also hopes to move to a more adaptive and locally-empowered model.”

So it may be the virus that forces our hand and has the end result of more of the authority placed locally across the Pacific.

If we are indeed guilty of perpetuating a neo-colonial system of foreign aid, this could certainly be part of the remedy.

We are being given a nudge, if not a shove – an impetus to change. We can resist that or take the opportunity in our hands.

Now is the time to change, and ask the government for more equitable and sustainable forms of climate assistance in the Pacific.

Matthew Scott is an Auckland-based journalist for Newsroom who is interested in New Zealand’s place in the Pacific. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and his stories can be seen here.  Twitter: @mnscott1992

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

On Friday at 6am I woke up in Covid Level 3 Auckland to news of a big earthquake around 100km east of East Cape, at about 2:30am. While many people in Auckland had apparently felt it, many more had uninterrupted sleep. Descriptions on Radio New Zealand’s Morning Reportsuggested that this was an earthquake similar to one that I had felt from the Kapiti Coast in 1968; the Inangahua (Buller Gorge) Earthquake. Certainly, it was a quake that suggested danger, but at a sufficient distance for coastal dwellers to evacuate from without panic. Certainly, an earthquake itself is the best message of a possible tsunami. (Though many of the worst tsunamis in natural history did not arise from earthquakes.)

By 7:30am I was eating breakfast in front of The AM Show – as I do – when breaking news came through of an entirely new earthquake, near the Kermadec Islands (of which Raoul Island is the largest). I knew these islands to be 1,000 km to the northeast of the North Island. But I suspect not too many other people knew that, and media coverage of the new event was both slow and confused. Over an hour later, while doing the laundry, I heard about the magnitude 8+ earthquake, also near Raoul Island.

By now I was quite alarmed. The 11 March 2011 earthquakes off northeast Japan were initially reported as magnitude 7 followed by magnitude 8. (The big one off Japan was later upgraded to magnitude 9.) And I think we all remember the carnage created in Japan – ten years ago this week. New Zealand is not immune from such an event, nor is Australia.

The events were enough for the television and radio media to abandon their schedules, giving wall to wall coverage of the tsunami threat, but only focussing on the areas covered by the New Zealand Civil Defence alert. The alert barely changed as a result of the huge Kermadec quakes; quakes which probably nobody on the planet actually felt. The area for evacuation remained basically the same (Matata in the Bay of Plenty, to Tolaga Bay on the East Coast), though a fraction of the Northland east coast was added (with Aupouri Peninsular somewhat later again). And Great Barrier Island. The alerts continued to emphasise the importance of feeling earthquakes as primary civil defence alerts, and continued to give the impression that these three earthquakes were part of a cluster off East Cape. (Indeed, see this report Tsunami warning for Australia following New Zealand earthquake from Nine News in Australia, which shows only the east of East Cape location on its main graphic.)

Still worried this could be a serious event, I looked for information about what people on the Bay of Plenty coast between Great Barrier and Matata should do (and people north of Great Barrier but south of Whangarei). Anybody with Google Maps on their phone should have been locating the Kermadec Islands, and seeing their orientation towards New Zealand. There was no guidance to these people, and all the reporters seems to be at the places that were on the evacuation list. The undermentioned eastern Coromandel and western Bay of Plenty districts look distinctly vulnerable from the Kermadecs. This includes Tauranga, a city of 150,000 people.

Were people in Tauranga evacuating? Don’t know, the New Zealand media phone was off the hook. I saw a man in Tauranga reporting for Al Jazeera, but he was really only relaying news from the New Zealand media; news more focussed on Whatatane and Whangarei. There was no sense that Tauranga itself might be in danger. I did hear – however – that many people in Mangawhai did evacuate, despite their town not being in the notified evacuation zone. And, I hope that the people of Pukehina Beach also evacuated, despite being west of Matata. It would have a long walk to higher ground for those without cars; though Aucklanders with baches there were supposed to be in Auckland.

I looked up the Pacific Warning Centre (based in Hawaii). While there were warnings throughout the south and west Pacific – including South America – the only warnings I saw predicting a wave over one metre high were for New Caledonia and Vanuatu. (The second time I looked, at about 11:30am, New Caledonia had been downgraded.)

Today I did a couple of Google searches to see what the chatter was in Brisbane; after all, a tsunami hitting New Caledonia from Raoul would be expected to continue on to the long Queensland Coast (though a category 5 hurricane – tropical cyclone Niran – was in the way). I found a story – Tsunami Warning Sends People to High Ground in French Polynesia – about people heading for the hills in French Polynesia. And I saw this – The Informer: A tsunami warning, a review and an apology – just another Friday in 2021 – claiming all three earthquakes were at the Kermadec Islands (“our neighbours”), and while there was no threat to Australia a 64cm wave was recorded on Norfolk Island. Looking at the map, Norfolk Island is in the middle of a straight line from Raoul Island to Brisbane (at 23 degrees latitude).

Overall, the Australian coverage seems to have been complacent to the extreme.

For those not on the hills, most of the rest of us – whether at Covid19 emergency level Two, or Three – settled excitedly, to watch the notified government press conference from the Beehive bunker. We love to hear the stage-managed ‘word’ from the top. Then, just as Kiri Allan was starting to speak, Aucklanders got the mobile phone alert. On my phone I press OK to make the noise go away, and the messages disappear as well. Possibly not ideal!? On my partner’s phone, the message remained, so I read it there.

These NZ Herald articles give the general tone: Earthquakes trigger tsunami warning: Government update on threat to coastal New Zealand, and ‘I just want to give her a big hug’: How New Zealand’s tsunami scare unfolded.

Three points to note about the Auckland message. First, it looked like a message mainly for the west coast beaches, such as Piha. That’s the only bit I saw before unintentionally erasing the message. Then, while the message itself only indicated action from those on the beaches or in boats, it gave little guidance about what people not on the beaches or boats should do. Twenty minutes after the alert, relatives living on low ground but not living at a coastal address, turned up – to my surprise – at our front door. It was nice to see them, and certainly the tsunami alert provided socialising opportunities for otherwise locked-down Aucklanders. Apparently, some the roads in suburban Auckland at 11:45am were much busier than normal for a city in pandemic lockdown, despite no evacuation notice given. The third point was that the message ended with a request to ‘pass this message on’. But, even on my partner’s phone, the message could neither be forwarded nor copied and pasted into an email.

I would hate to think of how wrong things would have gone in Auckland and Tauranga had an event on the scale of Samoa in 2009, let alone the scale of Japan in 2011, eventuated. (Further, it was high tide.) If Aucklanders and Taurangans were to face a major tsunami without fatalities, the evacuation should have begun within half an hour of the magnitude 8+ earthquake (ie around 9am, in this instance). (The people on eastern Australia would have had more time – Brisbane is the same distance from the Kermadecs as is French Polynesia.) I do not mention Australia in jest; after all, in 2004 nearly 300 people in Somalia died as a result of the Indonesian tsunami that Boxing Day. Distance is not necessarily a measure of risk. The Kermadec seismic zone is potentially capable of generating similar size waves. Indeed Southeast Queensland faces one-in-five chance of a tsunami in the next 50 years, according to an article published in the Brisbane Courier on 16 November 2017.

Re Auckland, I heard mayor Phil Goff saying that Great Barrier Island (Aotea) is not called ‘Great Barrier’ for nothing, implying that Aotea shelters Auckland from tsunamis. However, this Newshub (21 November 2016) story Mega-tsunami: Would Auckland survive? suggests caution. “One of the great urban myths in Auckland is that the two main islands adjacent to the city would protect most sea-side suburbs and the CBD from significant tsunami damage. Dr Nandasena [tsunami expert] believes Waiheke and Rangitoto could actually amplify tsunami waves coming into Waitemata Harbour.” Presumably this is true of Aotea as well as Waiheke and Rangitoto.

Some context about why the general tone of scientific messages was somewhat unconcerned, came through only towards the end of Friday. In Earthquake swarm: NZ just tasted a ‘regional source’ tsunami: What are they? (NZ Herald, 5 March), Dr Jose Borrero, of Raglan-based marine consultancy eCoast Ltd said “Anything that happens along the Kermadec Trench affects us less and less the further north it is – and this morning’s earthquake was about 1000km north of us. … Energy from the tsunami goes out perpendicularly to the fault line. The fault line runs north to south, so the energy goes east to west – and we’re to the south.” I wish we had had a good explanation much earlier as to why the people of Tauranga and Auckland were in no danger.

So, re the Kermadecs, humanity may be uniquely lucky. Firstly, the quakes there are usually just not quite big enough to unleash really dangerous waves. Second, the directions that are perpendicular to the huge faultline lead either to ’empty’ parts of the Pacific Ocean (to the east-southeast), or towards New Caledonia (which is aligned to minimise damage from the Kermadecs) and from there towards the Great Barrier Reef (west-northwest) of Raoul Island where the geography probably favours a dissipation of large waves before they reach the north Queensland coast or the island of New Guinea.

New Zealand’s tsunami risk remains mostly from local events on the East Coast of the North Island, south of East Cape. Less likely but potentially lethal events that could hit Auckland or Tauranga would be major undersea volcanic eruptions in the Hauraki Gulf or Pacific Ocean, or an underwater landslide from Hawaii. Indeed, there is evidence of an ancient 100 metre tsunami on the cliffs near Wollongong, Australia. That tsunami probably hit Auckland and Tauranga too.

————

Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland.

contact: keith at rankin.nz

In the wake of mass destruction caused by Indonesia’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake and the subsequent tsunami, survivors in Palu and Donggala in Central Sulawesi have been scrambling to salvage food supplies and other items, as aid from the central government began to trickle into the region.

Yesterday, many survivors blocked trucks carrying aid to plunder the contents as many have gone hungry and thirsty for days.

A video circulating on Twitter, said to have been taken in Donggala regency, also shows people intercepting a relief aid truck.

VIEW MORE: Drone video footage shows scale of Palu tsunami devastation

The Jakarta Post’s correspondent saw people waiting for fuel at a Pertamina gas station asking the entourage of journalists and officials from Jakarta for drinking water.

“Drinking water, drinking water, please,” some survivors said to passing motorists.

“I ran into a mother and her child at the airport who asked me to share some of my water with her child,” correspondent Andi Hajramurni said.

“Just a little, enough for my child,” Hajramurni quoted the mother as saying to her.

Upset over aid
A pregnant woman was also found exhausted outside the airport. She said she was upset to see aid being unloaded from the planes but none reaching the survivors waiting to leave the city at the airport.

Thousands crowded Mutiara Sis Al Jufri airport to leave the devastated city while staving off hunger and thirst under the scorching heat.

The survivors have been waiting for a chance to flee the city since Saturday, camping outside on mats or cardboard. They were hoping to catch a plane to Makassar to later go to their respective hometowns.

“What is important is to get out of Palu. We have agreed to meet Papa in Makassar and then go to Jakarta,” Paramita said. The 29-year-old, who sustained an injury to her leg from falling concrete debris, is taking her two sisters with her.

Desperate and impatient, the survivors were occupying part of the runway.

An airport official, Syaeful, said that on Sunday night, about 5000 people had waited for a plane at the airport. “The number keeps increasing,” he said.

Some businesses, such as at Masomba traditional market, have opened for businesses and some survivors have bought food supplies.

“I bought some fish,” the Post’s correspondent Ruslan Sangadji, who is also a survivor of the quake, said.

Food, clean water scarce
However, food and clean water are scarce and many are desperate.

In Buluri subdistrict, Ulujadi district in the western part of Palu, survivors blocked roads to intercept trucks carrying food supplies. Police officers in the area are reported to be unable to hold off the crowd.

Similarly, residents in Tawaeli district in central Palu have taken to a nearby port to intercept government aid arriving on ships. The police were also reported to be unable to ward off the desperate crowd.

A handful of residents even looted nearby convenience stores for any life-sustaining item they could find, since aid from the government had not yet arrived.

Many also attempted to siphon fuel from gas stations around the city over the weekend as none of the city’s gas stations were in operation following the earthquake and tsunami that hit the city on Friday.

Jokowi’s message
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Sunday asked quake survivors to be patient as they wait for aid to be distributed upon arriving in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi.

Jokowi said it would take one week to prepare the airport so airplanes carrying the supplies could land safely.

“I’m aware there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved as soon as possible, and I hope the people will remain patient in this situation,” he told the reporters.

Yesterday, Jokowi said he would send “as much food as possible” immediately.

Several people also reportedly robbed ATMs and jewelry shops. Twitter user @MpuAnon posted a video showing gold shops that looked like they had been looted.

“Gold shops. Post-looting,” the Twitter user said in the caption.

The police are reported to have ordered a shoot on sight policy against such robbers.

Guards on gas stations
In an attempt to maintain and restore order in the region, the National Police and the National Military have employed personnel to guard several gas stations and convenience stores across Palu, according to the police’s head of communication Brig. Gen. Dedi Prasetyo.

Previously, Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo advised against looting – not even in the wake of a natural disaster – as the act is considered criminal.

“There’s no justification whatsoever for looting. Everyone’s equally affected by the disaster; their shops destroyed, shopping malls devastated,” Tjahjo said during a televised interview, as quoted by kompas.com.

Prior to Sunday’s statement, news spread on social media that the government had approved of the looting at convenience stores and that the expenses would be covered by the state.

However, Tjahjo denied it, saying that what the government had approved was the transfer of aid funds to the Central Sulawesi administration, to be used for food supplies for survivors.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The content of the Boe Declaration, signed at the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru earlier this month, is not widely known. However, a statement from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern suggests that it declares climate change as a security issue.

“The Boe Declaration acknowledges additional collective actions are required to address new and non-traditional challenges. Modern-day regional security challenges include climate change,” she said in a statement.

Both the Leaders Communique and the declaration itself affirm the fact that climate change is a real issue. However, it is discussion of gender in light of that is lacking.

READ MORE: Nauru 2018 and the new Boe on the block

According to a report by Oxfam, men survived women 3 to 1 in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) suggests that this was because women were trapped in their homes at the time of the disaster “while men were out in the open”.

The agency also suggest that a cultural or religious custom can restrict a woman’s ability to survive a natural disaster.

“. . . the clothes they wear and/or their responsibilities in caring for children could hamper their mobility in times of emergency,” a UNDP report says.

Caregivers and providers
Figures from the United Nations show that 80 percent of those displaced by climate change were women. This, they argue, is caused primarily by their roles as caregivers and providers of food.

London School of Economics research indicates that women and girls are definitively more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than their male counterparts.

In societies where women are considered to be lower on the metaphorical food chain, “natural disasters will kill . . . more women than men,” the report says.

The two researchers could find no biological reason why women would be at more risk than men.

Based on this research, and other research like it, many public figures have called for attention to be paid to the issue.

“More extreme weather events. . . will all result in less food. Less food will mean that women and children get less,” dystopian author Margaret Atwood told a London conference in June.

The author of books like The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake said that climate change “. . . will also mean social unrest, which can lead to wars and civil wars . . . Women do badly in wars”.

Primarily burdened
When asked about the issue at an event at Georgetown University in February, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “. . . women. . . will be . . . primarily burdened with the problems of climate change”.

Earlier this month, former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark told a crowd of about 200 people at the National Council of Women (NCW) conference that the world was close to missing the opportunity to tend to the issue of climate change and women were most likely to be affected by it.

“Everything we know tells us that women are the most vulnerable in this,” she said. “If you look at the natural disasters caused by weather. . . more women die”.

According to Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, President of the Marshall Islands, women are more affected by climate change than their male counterparts but are also “less likely to be empowered to cope”.

“Women aren’t making enough of the decisions, and the decisions aren’t yet doing enough for women,” she wrote in The Guardian.

The UNDP argues it is because of a woman’s place in the household that she is in prime position to affect change when it comes to this issue.

“. . . knowledge and capabilities [regarding reproduction, household and community roles] can and should be deployed for/in climate change mitigation, disaster relief and adaptation strategies,” the report says..

Feminist solution
“A feminist solution” is what former Irish President and UN Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson argued for in June.

She explained that “feminism doesn’t mean excluding men, it’s about being more inclusive of women and – in this case – acknowledging the role they can play in tackling climate change”.

She’s not the only, nor the first, to make such a suggestion.

A whole feminist environmental movement, known as ecofeminism, has sprung up over the decades since the 1970s.

At its most basic level, ecofeminism is exactly what it sounds like: It argues that there is a relationship between environmental damage – such as that done by climate change – and the oppression of women and their rights.

For example, in her 2014 book This Changes Everything, journalist Naomi Klein argues that it is hypocritical that the self-same lawmakers who claim to be “pro-life” are also the ones who push for whole industries surrounding drilling, fracking and mining to not only survive but thrive.

Business confidence
“If the Earth is indeed our mother, then far from the bountiful goddess of mythology, she is a mother facing many great fertility challenges,” she writes.

In New Zealand, leader of the opposition National Party Simon Bridges, who is opposed to the idea of removing abortion from the Crimes Act, is also vehemently opposed to the idea of stopping oil and gas exploration in the Taranaki region.

His concern is that “It will have an effect on business confidence,” he said back in April.

The truth of climate change, as with most global issues, is that there can be no one-size fits all solution.

For some, like Helen Clark, it requires long-term mass movements. For others, it requires being invited to the conversation.

Time will tell as to which one wins out.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Jeremaiah M. Opiniano in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte

Howling winds and heavy volumes of rainfall brought more than a third of the Philippines and its 103 million citizens to a standstill at the weekend with at least 25 people dead.

The width of this typhoon dubbed Mangkhut (local name: Ompong) —900 km in radius— hit communities far and near the eye of the storm, which passed by this province nearly noon yesterday.

Paved streets, mountain systems and agricultural plains here in this municipality are largely unsafe to walk due to the gusty winds and heavy rainfall.

READ MORE: Philippines death toll rises as Typhoon Mangkhut barrels towards China

San Nicolas is a microcosm of what hit the Philippines’ largest island of Luzon.

Mangkhut is perceived to be stronger than 2016’s third strongest typhoon worldwide: Haima (local name: Lawin). Lawin was tagged a “super typhoon” given recorded sustained winds of 225 kph (10-minute standard) and wind gusts of 315 kmh.

Ompong reached its highest sustained winds of 205 kph (just under the 220 kph minimum sustained winds to be tagged technically as a super typhoon), say Filipino meteorologists.

But Mangkut’s width was larger than Haima’s 800 km.

Heavily-hit provinces
Heavily-hit provinces were in Luzon’s northern and north-western parts like the province of Cagayan (where its municipality of Baggao was where Mangkhut first made landfall at dawn yesterday).

Then Mangkhut passed by Ilocos Norte, driving a swathe of rain and gusty winds from 10 am to 12 noon.

About 11:45 am, the eye of the storm —the calm portion of the typhoon with no rain and wind for some 15 to 30 minutes — can be seen in neighbouring Batac City, 15 km from San Nicolas.

Nearby provinces Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Kalinga and Apayao felt the strong winds and rain.

However, television and radio reports showed that even provinces and communities that are at least 300 kms south of Cagayan and Ilocos Norte provinces felt the strength of Mangkhut’s rains and winds. That included the Philippines’ capital region, Metro Manila.

Reports are still being collected from across Luzon as to how many people died and are missing.

Estimated damages to crops and property will come after the storm leaves the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) tomorrow morning.

Death, damage estimates
As in every natural disaster, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRMMC) collects reports from local governments and provides estimates of deaths and damages to property within a week from the disaster.

Haima or Lawin left 18 Filipinos dead and damaged some 3.74 billion pesos (US$77.6 million) in damages.

It is not that Filipinos, their municipal/city/provincial governments, and the national government led by President Rodrigo Duterte were unprepared for this kind of natural disasters.

The Philippines learned bitter lessons on disaster preparedness and risk reduction the hard way when the world’s strongest typhoon Haiyan (local name: Yolanda) rammed coastal and landlocked communities in central Philippines —the Visayas group of Islands.

Haiyan left some 7000-10,000 people dead and a global outpouring of support and disaster aid to the Philippines.

Here in San Nicolas, a small hotel named Mira de Polaris felt the impact of a shattered glass and a huge SUV tyre fall down from the four-storey building.

On Friday, hotel owners had to cut down two trees in the hotel’s facade.

“We might create more damage had we not cut down those trees,” said a male receptionist.

Wrath of Haima
This place also felt the wrath of Haima: the roof a Shell gas station near Mira de Polaris, in Valdez Ave, collapsed in 2016.

This petrol station is still referred to as the “Shell station” by local jeepney drivers, but its markings as a Shell outlet are not as visible as before Haima struck.

President Rodrigo Duterte deployed department secretaries from affected areas to become the faces of national government’s support to affected typhoon victims.

Opening his third year in the presidency after his state of the nation address (SONA) on July 23, Duterte’s officials proposed to Philippine Congress that a department or ministry of disaster resilience be created.

Jeremaiah Opiniano is assistant professor of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) journalism programme. He is also a PhD student (geography) at the University of Adelaide, South Australia.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

BRIEFING: By Sylvester Gawi in Tari, Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea’s Highlands earthquake disaster has brought to light some of the many things that need to be considered in assisting those affected by disaster and restoring vital infrastructures and communication links between relief agencies and the people.

The response to the 7.5 magnitude earthquake on February 26 took almost a week for the National Disaster Centre to find out statistics of people who were affected, casualties, homes and food gardens destroyed and how to deliver relief supplies to those affected.

While a small team of medical officers in Hela and Southern Highlands provinces have been hard at work trying to reach and assist the affected communities, more deaths and injuries were reported from areas unreachable by road and telecommunications.

READ MORE: PNG quake – an invisible disaster which could change life forever

These are some of the impediments to getting accurate statistics;

• Most communities do not have schools, clinics and ward offices that will keep the records of people in their wards or communities.
• No road links to almost all the areas affected. The rugged terrain also makes it difficult for roads to be constructed and maintained.
• No telecommunication reception, or television and radio signals by which the people can be advised and educated on the disasters and how to avoid destruction.

At Timu village in Komo-Magarima, Hela province, 11 people were were killed by landslips caused by the earthquake.

Four out of the 11 bodies were recovered while the other seven bodies are still buried under the debris.

Timu village is just a few tens of kilometres away from the provincial capital Tari but it is way back in terms of basic services available for the people.

No benefits from gas pipeline
The people knew that there is a gas pipeline running through their neighbouring villages from Hides to the Papuan coastline but they have not seen the benefits from the gas and petroleum extraction in the province.

Teams of researchers and volunteers from relief agencies were tasked to collect data, informations and statistics of people who have been affected, but they can only be flown by helicopter into the affected areas.

There are no medivac helicopters to transport relief supplies and doctors into the affected communities.

The PNG Defence Force, Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) and Adventist Aviation Services were kind enough to do trips into these remote communities.

The cost of hiring a helicopter in PNG is quite expensive. Helicopter companies are charging around K5000 (about NZ2200) an hour. With most communities being isolated in the remote areas, it is costly and ineffective to attend to more than five villages in a day.

The Australian Defence Force Hercules aircraft transporting relief supplies from Port Moresby, Lae and Mt Hagen has been landing at Moro airport, then smaller aircraft bring the supplies back to Tari and offload onto helicopters to distribute.

Disaster response in PNG has been very slow and hasn’t improved from previous experiences.

Volcano displaced islanders
In February 2018, I was in Wewak when a volcanic island began releasing smoke after being dormant for more than two centuries. The Kadovar Island volcano has displaced more than 600 islanders who are now seeking refuge at a temporary care centre supported by aid agencies.

Again the experiences from the Manam volcano in Madang hasn’t helped the authorities to sort out a permanent resettlement area for the displaced islanders. Slow response from the National Disaster Centre has caused greater loss for the people in the last three years.

They’ve lost their culture and they have lost their way of life on Manam island while living at the care centre at Bogia.

The National Disaster team should be the first people on ground after the disaster strikes.

They must be the first to make contact with the affected people, not turning up a week later only to find out that people died while waiting to receive treatment.

I hope the present disaster will provide an insight into issues that need to be addressed by the Papua New Guinea government to ensure the National Disaster Centre is adequately and constantly funded to serve its purpose.

Sylvester Gawi is a National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) journalist who blogs independently at Graun Blong Mi – My Land.

• More PNG earthquake stories

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Scott Waide, EMTV journalist and blogger

Survivors in Papua New Guinea’s earthquake in the Highlands face tough challenges. And so do the relief agencies and government authorities trying to deliver support to them.

Many of the worst affected areas in Hela and the Southern Highlands provinces are in isolated spots.

The people don’t live in large villages that you see on the coast. They live in small hamlets of 5-10 houses spread out over a plateaus or valleys.

They have no road access.

Many have to walk for hours to get within line of site of a mobile telecommunications tower in order to send a text message. Data signals are too weak and problematic.

For other locations, it takes more than a day.

Some of the villages are relatively close to the LNG site. But it looks deceptively close on a map.

Difficult to reach
What you’re dealing with on the ground are terrains that are extremely difficult to reach – even within a day’s walk. That is precisely why helicopters are vital in this disaster.

In some villages, people have had to build helipads on mountainsides to allow for medical teams to land safely.

Chopper pilot Eric Aliawi, who took an EMTV crew to one of the locations, had to land on three logs that had been placed on a spot dug out on a mountain side because the helipad had not been completed.

Even after landing, the crew and the doctors had to walk for about half an hour to get to the village.

A few commentators have said that the people affected are subsistence farmers and that they still have food to eat because they plant crops.

The reality is that their gardens have been destroyed and it is dangerous for them to go into the foothills and the valleys, or mountainsides, because of the ongoing aftershocks.

Trauma of death
They are also dealing with the trauma of the death and destruction that happened in their villages. They will have to adjust to normal life as time goes by.

Their houses have been destroyed and they have moved from the locations of their hamlets to central locations like schools, airstrips and mission stations to seek help.

Congregating in large numbers in one location is unusual for them. Losing their independence and relying on someone to give them food is also not something they are accustomed to.

They need is help to get back on their feet and resume their way of life.

They need the following:
Good quality tarpaulins for shelter – They live in a high rainfall area. The temperature drops rapidly at night and without shelter, young children and older people will get sick.

Food – With limited access to their gardens, food is a priority for them.

Water – Their water sources have been polluted. They need large water containers, tanks and clean water (as an immediate need).

Cooking pots – This is important if they are to boil drinking water.

Warm clothes + blankets – Sweaters, hoodies and simple blankets will help a lot to ease their burden. It is not as important as the others mentioned, but it will help.

Children’s clothing – also not an immediate priority but it will help a lot.

6 to 15cm nails and tools – in order to rebuild their houses, they need nails and tools like bush knives, axes and hammers. It is very difficult to obtain items like this where they are.

Disposable delivery trays, disposable suture trays – during the earthquake, sterilisation equipment at the Tari Hospital was damaged. The doctors need this to send to aid posts so that health workers can handle deliveries and other treatment.

The government contacts are:

Thomas Eluh – PA for Southern Highlands

Joseph Bando – PA Hela Province

Dr Tana Kiak – Tari Hospital

Inbox Scott Waide on Facebook for contact details, or text him on +675 70300459. Or email scott.waide@gmail.com for information. This article was first posted on Scott Waide’s blog, My Land, My Country.

• More PNG earthquake reports

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SPECIAL REPORT: Shirley Mauludu in Port Moresby reports on the earthquake which hit parts of three Highlands provinces almost two weeks ago, leaving behind a trail of destruction, injuries, loss of lives and massive damage to infrastructure. She talks to economist and Institute of National Affairs executive director Paul Barker about the challenges of recovery.

At this stage, the outcome is still uncertain after the devastation and loss of life – now more than 100 – of Papua New Guinea’s Highlands earthquake.

Obviously the biggest concern remains the human impact of the earthquake – reaching the victims and providing emergency relief.

Many households and communities have no drinking water and food gardens have been destroyed.

There must be thorough mapping of the affected areas to ensure that no affected communities remain isolated or without support or relief where in need.

Also, all the landslides need to be checked, not only where they block roads, or have destroyed food gardens or houses, but also where they’ve blocked streams and rivers.

This could result in future floods or surge damage downstream when the dam is breached in future.

Economically, the earthquake has damaged food crops and cash crops, and local trade – the disruption to access roads, highways and bridges, and damage to stores and other businesses and infrastructure, including telecommunications towers, power plants and power lines.

Costing tens of millions of kina
Repairs will costs tens of millions of kina, with the government unfortunately only budgeting each year a fraction of what’s needed for infrastructure maintenance, let alone for emergency repairs and restoration.

From past experience, such as after Cyclone Guba in 2007, repairs of core bridges and infrastructure can take many years, although the presence of major resource companies, partially needing some of that infrastructure, and with their organisational and plant capacity, it can be expected that at least some of that infrastructure will be restored more promptly.

Although most of the businesses and households would have been uninsured against earthquake damage, the restoration process will generate some valuable local economic activity for the disaster-affected communities, in terms of jobs and business activity in the building and construction industry.

In terms of the larger economic impact, the major 7.5/6 earthquake of February 26 and the series of ensuing aftershocks and associated quakes, have halted or impacted several of the country’s largest businesses, notably in the extractive industries.

For example, Kutubu oil production (and associated fields), PNG LNG gas production, Ok Tedi Mine in Western and Porgera mine – notably its power generation and reticulation from Hides.

It is too early to say how major the impact is or how long the delay will be to production and exports from each of these major resource projects.

The respective operating companies are still in the process of their assessments of the core resources, wells and accessible reserves, surface and underground mine sites etc, processing/conditioning plants, power plants, pipelines, as well as transport and communications.

Epicentre near the Hela border
Clearly, the greatest damage was experienced nearest the epicentre to the main quake – near the Hela/Western Province border, including the major Komo airfield.

Extensive damage to staff quarters and other company facilities was sustained.

But that can be restored fairly promptly, compared with damage to costly and fundamental plant that may have been sustained.

One would expect some projects to be able to resume production and exports relatively soon, and some may have barely interrupted operations, for example with Porgera using a partial back-up power supply.

Although damage has been sustained by Ok Tedi and Porgera, they are likely to be able to resume full operations more readily after repairs.

The oil, but particularly LNG and condensate plants, and wells etc, may well require more extensive and costly repairs, potentially keeping some of these operations out of production for significantly longer.

ExxonMobil has declared force-majeure, enabling them to avoid their contractual supply contracts as a result of forces beyond their control.

Exports will halt
A few LNG initial shipments can presumably proceed from LNG stored in tanks in the facility near Port Moresby. But beyond a week or so, production and exports would presumably halt.

Papua New Guinea had about K25 billion worth of overall exports in 2016, of which around K20 billion was from minerals, oil and gas.

If K11 billion was oil and gas, and production was halted for say two months, that would comprise a loss of near K2 billion of exports.

If a major portion of mineral production was halted by one month, that could be up to another K0.5 billion of exports lost, or rather deferred.

Oil, gas and most mineral prices are largely significantly above the levels in 2016. So in 2018, the loss of exports earnings would be higher than the figures stated here.

The LNG is not currently contributing to foreign exchange receipts but the mineral and oil exports largely are. So it would significantly reduce needed forex receipts.

Although company tax revenue was well below K100 million from the mining/oil/gas sector in 2017, it was expected that this figure would have been up (to K89.5 million, still a very low figure, considering the level of exports), particularly coming from Ok Tedi and Porgera.

Cut back in tax receipts
These tax receipts would be cut back if production was significantly halted, and the companies have to reinvest heavily in major repairs and new plant.

Dividends have been received, however, from the state’s equity in PNG LNG, and oil and mining operations, which would also take a cut, if production was heavily reduced, and major expenditure incurred, which seems inevitable at this stage, all adding to
the already very tight fiscal situation the government faces this year.

With major expenditure required by the government as its contribution to restoration of infrastructure and services in the affected areas (K450 million has been committed, although it is not known the basis of this number of the source of the allocation) then that clearly adds further to the fiscal pressure.

Shirley Mauludu is a journalist with The National daily newspaper. The article has been republished under Creative Commons.

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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By David Robie in Semarang, Indonesia

A vast coastal area of the Indonesian city of Semarang, billed nine months ago by a national newspaper as “on the brink of ecological disaster”, is fighting back with a valiant survival strategy.

Thanks to a Dutch mangrove restoration programme and flexible bamboo-and-timber “eco” seawalls, some 70,000 people at risk in the city of nearly two million have some slim hope for the future.

An area that was mostly rice fields and villages on the edge of the old city barely two decades ago has now become “aquatic” zones as flooding high tides encroach on homes.

Onetime farmers have been forced to become fishermen.

Villagers living in Bedono, Sriwulan, Surodadi and Timbulsloko in Demak regency and urban communities in low-lying parts of the city are most at risk.

Residents have been forced to raise their houses or build protective seawalls or be forced to abandon their homes when their floors become awash.

Environmental changes in Semarang have been blamed by scientists on anthropogenic and “natural” factors such as tidal and river flooding – known locally as rob, mangroves destruction since the 1990s, fast urban growth and extensive groundwater extraction.

Climate change
This has been compounded by climate change with frequent and extreme storms.

It has been a pattern familiar in many other low-lying coastal areas in Indonesia, such as the capital Jakarta and second-largest city Surabaya.

In February, The Jakarta Post reported that both Jakarta and Semarang faced environmental crises.

Citing Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) researcher Henny Warsilah, a graduate of Paris I-Sorbonne University in France, who measured the resilience of three coastal cities – Jakarta, Semarang and Surabaya – the Post noted only Surabaya had built sufficient environmental and social resilience to face natural disasters.

Jakarta and Semarang, Warsilah said, “were not doing very well”. Although Surabaya was faring much better with its urban policies.

The fate of some five million people living in Indonesia’s at risk coastal areas – including Semarang — was also profiled in the Indonesian edition of National Geographic magazine last month under the banner headline “Takdir Sang Pesisis” – “The destiny of the coast”.

The introduction asked: “”The disappearance of the mangrove belt now haunts seaside residents. How can they respond to a disaster that is imminent?”

Ongoing reclamation
According to The Jakarta Post, Semarang “has ongoing reclamation projects in the northern part of the city, which threaten to submerge entire neighbourhoods in the next 20 years”.

“The more [the city] is expanded, the more land will subside because the region is a former volcanic eruption zone, and it is a swamp area,” says Warsilah.

“With the progression of the reclamation projects, the land is not strong enough to withstand the pressure.”

With a team of international geologists and researchers attached to Semarang’s Center for Disaster Mitigation and Coastal Rehabilitation Studies (CoREM) at Diponegoro University, I had the opportunity to visit Timbulsloko village earlier this month to see the growing “crisis” first hand.

City planners might see the only option as the residents being forced to leave for higher ground, but there appear to be no plans in place for this. In any case, local people defiantly say they want to stay and will adapt to the sinking conditions.

One woman, a local shopkeeper, who has a three-generations household in the village with water encroaching into her home at most high tides, says she won’t leave with a broad smile.

I talked to her through an interpreter as she sat with her mother and youngest daughter on a roadside bamboo shelter.

“I have lived here for a long time, and I am very happy with the situation. My husband has his work here as a fisherman,” she said.

A local storekeeper with her mother and youngest daughter – three generations live in her Timbulsloko village home. Video: David Robie’s Café Pacific.

‘We don’t want to leave’
“We live with the flooding and we don’t want to leave.”

She also said there was no clear viable alternative for the people of the village – there was no plan by the local authorities for relocation.

Later, she showed me inside her house and how far the water flooded across the floors. Electrical items, such as a television, had to be placed on raised furniture. The children slept on high beds, and the adults clambered onto cupboards to get some rest.

The village has a school, community centre, a mosque and a church – most of these with a sufficiently high foundation to be above the seawater.

However, the salination means that crops and vegetables cannot grow.

The community cemetery is also awash at high tide and there have been reports of eroded graves and sometimes floating bodies to the distress of families.

Timbulsloko’s village cemetery. Video: David Robie’s Café Pacific

We were warned “don’t touch anything with your hands” as the flooding also causes a health hazard.

Research projects
The situation has attracted a number of research projects in an effort to find solutions to some of the problems, the latest being part of the 2017 World Class Professor (WCP) programme funded by the Indonesian government.

Two of the six professors on the University of Gadjah Mada’s WCP programme, in partnership with Diponegoro University, are working with local researchers at CoREM.

They are geologists Dr Magaly Koch, from the Centre for Remote Sensing at Boston University, US, and Dr David Menier, associate professor HDR at Université de Bretage-Sud, France, who are partnered with Dr Muhammad Helmi, also a geologist and director of CoREM, and Dr Manoj Mathew. Both Dr Mathew and Dr Menier are of LGO Laboratoire Géosciences Océan.

“At the regional scale, the rate of subsidence is related to the geological and geomorphological context. North Java is a coastal plain that is very flat, silty to muddy, influenced by offshore controlling factors (e.g., wave, longshore drifts, tidal currents, etc.) and monsoons, and surrounded by volcanoes,” explains Dr Menier.

“Locally, anthropogenic factors can play a serious role as well.”

He says that coastal plains are dynamic. However, human activities are fixed – “the first contradiction”.

“Humans want to control and continue their livelihood, and are reluctant to accept changes related to their own activities or natural factors.”

Dr Menier says the subsidence is due to many factors, but some key issues have never been studied.

On a long term scale, the active faults of the area need to be examined in a geodynamic context and also volcanic activity with Mt Urganan and Mt Muria/Medak.

“We need to have a better understanding of the age of the coastal plain in order to reconstruct the past, explain the present-day and predict the future,” he says.

“Colonisation in the 17th century-Dutch period probably led to destruction of ecosystems (mangrove) and fine sediment usually trapped by plants has been stopped.”

Dr Koch adds: “Subsidence rates and their spatial distribution along the coastal plain need to be studied in detail using InSAR techniques. Groundwater abstraction (using deep wells) is probably happening in the city of Semarang but not necessarily in Demak.”

Mangrove restoration
Mangrove restoration and mitigation has been used successfully to restore coastal resilience and ecosystems in Timbulsloko.

While noting that “high failure rates are typical” due to wrong special being planted and other factors, Dr Dolfi Debrot, of a Dutch project consortium, argues “given the right conditions, mangrove recovery actually works best without planting at all.”

The consortium involves Witteveen+Bos, Deltares, EcoShape, Wetlands International, Wageningen University and IMARES.

However, community planting is also a strategy deployed in the lowland villages.

Mangroves revitalise aquaculture ponds for crab and shrimp farming.

A “growing land” technique borrowed from the muddy Wadden Sea in the Netherlands has also been used successfully at Timbulsloko and other villages.

Semi-permeable dams are built from bamboo or wooden poles packed with branches to “dampen wave action”. In time, a build up of sediment settles and allows mangroves to grow naturally.

“These eco-engineering seawalls are better than the concrete fixed barriers,” says Dr Helmi. “The permanent seawalls in turn become eroded at their base and eventually fall over.”

Dr David Robie is on the WCP programme with Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz