The Pacific Ocean and Climate Assessment (POCCA) report has given a platform for communities to elevate their collective voices on to the global stage when it comes to living with the impacts of climate change. Especially if small vulnerable island states are at the receiving end of some of these impacts.
Those were the sentiments shared to the POCCA team during their recent country re-visit to Tuvalu where they met with various stakeholders from communities and government to present the findings and outcomes of the report.
In addressing the importance of the report, Mr. Luka Selu the Director for the National Disaster Management Office, Tuvalu believes that the community voices captured in the report will be critical when formulating policies.
“Often times, there’s an oversight in the commitments and engagements at least required for the communities to participate”.
“So, the work that the team have done is very critical and necessary for the government in terms of policy development and formulating sustainable development policies for the future,” he added.
“We’d be using this information as a baseline information for the government as well and how we can better enhance the commitment at the national level and also building our resilience at the community level”.
Also acknowledging the POCCA report and the work that the project has done, Mrs. Moe Saitala Paulo, the Environment Impact Assessment Officer at the Department of Environment, Tuvalu believes that the report has given communities a voice especially in capturing indigenous knowledge that is now often relied upon to help adapt and mitigate the climatic changes communities are facing.
“What the POCCA project has done is one, giving the opportunity for the communities to speak out and two, is recording traditional knowledge because it’s something that we lack mostly”.
“It has also allowed communities to have that ownership of their thoughts and to know that what they shared has been well recorded and validated,” she added.
Funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT), New Zealand, the three-year POCCA project is a collaborative effort between the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) through The University of the South Pacific’s, Centre for Sustainable Futures (CSF) and the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury.
