Culturally-appropriate planned relocation policies are critical to enabling climate adaptation, particularly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans where rising sea levels and intensifying hazards threaten communities. Fiji and Vanuatu are frequently cited as international leaders in relocation policy, yet there has been limited critical analysis of the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of their policy frameworks. We analysed 27 institutional instruments guiding climate-induced relocation and displacement in Fiji and Vanuatu and assessed each instrument's contribution to community resilience across three dimensions: means, equity, and tradition. While both countries have developed a suite of policies that collectively support relocation, tradition – encompassing cultural heritage, attachment to place, and customary governance - is underrepresented. Successful relocation policy requires the integration of cultural and traditional dimensions alongside material and procedural considerations, particularly in Indigenous contexts where culture, identity and land are intertwined. Strengthening internal policy design capacity and fostering cross-sectoral integration will contribute to just, sustainable, and culturally-grounded relocation processes and outcomes. Insights from Fiji and Vanuatu offer valuable lessons for other nations developing culturally-inclusive relocation policy in response to climate risks.

Investigations of a 3000 m2 shell-dense island surrounded by mangroves off the coast of Culasawani, a very lightly inhabited part of northern Vanua Levu Island in Fiji, suggest it is likely to be a 'midden island' rather than a (tsunami) wave deposit. Building an island that reaches 60 cm above mean high tide, the shell-dense deposit (70%-90% shell) averages 20-40 cm thick and appears unstratified, characteristics that initially suggested that it was a wave deposit. Subsequent investigations included four 1 & times; 1 m test pits and showed all shellfish remains in the island sediments to be from edible species and associated with pottery fragments. Ten radiocarbon ages cluster around a median age of 1190 cal BP (760 CE/AD) with a range of 1530-910 cal BP (420-1040 CE/AD). The clustering of these ages and the nature of the shellfish remains lead to the preferred interpretation of this shell-dense island as a true 'midden island', created either by people living on/above the site or by people who processed shellfish there before transporting its flesh elsewhere for consumption. If the Culasawani island is a midden island, then this is the first to be recorded in the South Pacific west of Papua New Guinea.

Through a study of Ra Province (northeast Viti Levu Island, Fiji) involving both archival research and community engagement, we highlighted a long history of Indigenous population mobility. Many coastal settlements have mostly undocumented histories of relocating inland due to shoreline retreat and land loss over recent decades. Studies of Navutulevu and Vunitogoloa use oral histories and nineteenth-century accounts to show this. More recent autonomous relocations, identified through field surveys in Madhuvani and Navuniivi, are regarded as ‘invisible’ because such major adaptation responses are not usually included in most formal or published reviews of community relocation in the Pacific. Based on our results and a broader understanding of societal evolution in the Pacific Islands region, we concluded that population mobility and settlement relocation have historically been common on (comparatively small and remote) oceanic islands, often in response to changing environmental conditions. Therefore, the possibility of future relocation might seem less intimidating for many coastal residents because of this history. The idea that future relocation is rare and therefore requires extensive funding and policy support, rooted in post-globalization norms, is inaccurate. In reality, it could undermine the resilience of Pacific Island communities by dismissing their histories of autonomous adaptation.

Reconstructions of Quaternary environmental change using high-resolution proxies are important for testing and refining climate models to enable better adaptations to current and future global changes. Giant clams ( Tri- dacnidae spp.), the largest bivalve mollusc in the Indo-Pacific region, comprise important palaeoenvironmental archives, being characterised by a long lifespan, rapid growth rate, and wide distribution habitat, and possessing shells that preserve a high-resolution growth pattern and stable geochemical composition. In this paper, we review all sclerochronology studies of giant clams published between 1986 and 2023. These studies show that isotopic and trace elements proxies, including delta 18 O, delta 13 C, Sr/Ca, Mg/Ca, Ba/Ca, and Fe/Ca, can reliably reconstruct palaeoclimate records including sea surface temperature, dissolved inorganic carbon, insolation, extreme weather events and primary productivity at ultra-high resolution. These proxies have been successfully employed for palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from the Miocene to the present across a range of shallow marine areas including southern Japan, northern Australia and the Red Sea. These studies have shed light on changes in interannual climate cycles, climate variation, and human migrations over thousands to millions of years. They have generated quantitative records that are valuable for testing and refining numerical climate models, understanding the relationship between past climate cycles and future climate variability, and providing insights into human-environment interactions over time. This review paper also addresses some of the challenges of employing Tridacnidae proxy analysis, and we provide recommendations for future research. Specifically, we highlight gaps in our understanding of the influence of microstructure on the shell, age dating of fossil samples, uncertainty in proxies, the need for tank experiments, and access to ultra-high resolution palaeoenvironmental records.

As climate change accelerates, there is a growing need to ensure that sustainable adaptive solutions are effective and equitable, especially in the Global South where many countries depend on external funding to attain water security. Perceptions of vulnerability and need among Pacific Island Countries are not always based on a region-wide evidence base. This study examines ten Western Pacific Island countries (Federated States of Micronesia [FSM], Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia [French dependency], Palau, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu) that include both high-island groups and low-island (atoll) groups. This study evaluates the equitability of the distribution of external funding for attaining water security. Needs are evaluated in terms of (a) population densities and growth compared with water and land availability and (b) the uneven distribution of water-focused livelihood stressors across this region, specifically those linked to climate variability, sea-level rise, tropical cyclones, and geophysical phenomena. Measures of comparative exposure of people in these countries show that those living along high-island coasts, especially in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, are considerably more exposed than their counterparts elsewhere, especially in atoll nations which have received greater amounts of per capita climate funding for water security. Results show that there is a ‘perfect storm’ brewing in the high-island nations of the Southwest Pacific resulting from their comparatively high exposure to livelihood stressors. This could be addressed by reassessing the distribution of external climate funding within the Western Pacific region. Key findings are the importance of aligning need with assistance and the foundational role of water in livelihood sustainability, both having implications for the hundreds of coastal communities forced to relocate, mostly locally on the same island, in the next few decades. The imperative of addressing such deficiencies in an era of accelerating climate change and declining levels of global support is clear.

Pacific Islands, many relatively remote and small, have been occupied by people for more than 3000 years during which time they experienced climate-driven environmental changes (both slow and rapid onset) that challenged human survival and led to the evolution of place-based coping strategies expressed through traditional knowledge (TK). In today's globalized Pacific Islands region, into which western worldviews and global adaptation strategies have made significant inroads, most plans for coping with climate-changed futures are founded in science-based understandings of the world that undervalue and sideline TK. Many such plans have proved difficult to implement as a consequence. This paper reviews the nature of extant Pacific TK for coping with climate change, something that includes TK for anticipating climate change (including climate variability and climate extremes) as well as ancillary TK associated with food and water security, traditional ecological knowledge, environmental conservation, and settlement and house construction that represent coping strategies. Much of this TK can be demonstrated as being effective with precedents in other (traditional) contexts and a compelling plausible scientific basis. This study demonstrates that Pacific Islands TK for coping with climate change has value and, especially because of its place-based nature, should be central to future climate-change adaptation strategies to enhance their uptake, effectiveness and sustainability. To this end, this paper proposes specific ways forward to optimize the utility of TK and ensure it has a realistic role in sustaining Pacific Island communities into the future. This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge Paleoclimates and Current Trends > Modern Climate Change Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Observed Impacts of Climate Change

Abstract Covering almost one-third of the earth’s surface, the region of the Pacific islands is subject to a range of environmental stressors—including those deriving from volcanoes and earthquakes, and of course those attributable to atmospheric and oceanic processes. Most people living on the islands, peppered across this vast ocean, occupy island coasts, where food and water are generally most readily obtainable but where the impacts of many hazards focus. While popularly viewed as particularly vulnerable to disasters and climate change, Pacific Islanders have evolved formidable bodies of traditional and local knowledge (TLK) that have enabled their survival on comparatively small islands often thousands of kilometers from continental shores. While it is largely place-specific, this TLK is wide-ranging. It includes ensuring water and food security (especially in the aftermath of disasters), predicting and surviving extreme events (especially tropical cyclones), creating traditional pharmacopoeias, learning how to sail across thousands of kilometers of open ocean, and developing cultural resilience that could be adapted to changing circumstances. Detailed accounts are given of the use of Pacific TLK in disaster management and in climate-change adaptation. While much TLK has been lost and has suffered from being overwhelmed by a flood of outsider (science-based) solutions, it remains a potent force among many rural communities in the Pacific islands. Owing to its demonstrable effectiveness, its place-based nature, and its ability to accommodate change, Pacific TLK should be at the heart of future plans for helping Pacific Islanders cope with future climate change.

It has long been recognized that the Pacific Small Island Developing States are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, emphasizing the urgency with which adaptation planning and efforts need to be realized. History supports the resiliency of Pacific peoples, though a number of challenges to adaptive capacity have been noted in the previous literature, which has largely focused on low-lying atoll nations. To provide a different perspective, we interviewed 71 Indigenous and other traditional Fijians living in rural villages across a range of geographical locations to collect information on observed environmental changes, and adaptation efforts and challenges. Following an inductive thematic analysis, results identified changing patterns of consumption and production related to unpredictable and extreme weather patterns, with impacts on both overall food security and the financial viability of these communities. A number of physical adaptations to the villages themselves had been effected, which were costly and met with equivocal success. Consideration of migration to different geographical locations was minimal and undesirable. We provide recommendations for the culturally responsive, co-production of knowledge, resilience building, and adaptation planning with Indigenous and other traditional communities that meaningfully integrates scientific knowledge and respect for the wishes of these communities.

The impacts of climate change are particularly strong in Pacific Small Island Developing States. However, empirical data on mental health and well-being in the context of climate change and climate anxiety in the region remains limited. The aim of this research was to understand the emotional experiences of climate change and its impact on well-being in rural Fiji. Seventy-one Indigenous and traditional Fijian adults from seven rural villages were interviewed. Data were analyzed using an inductive latent thematic analysis. Evident was the experience of ecological grief among Indigenous and traditional Fijians. In particular, grief experiences were related to losses of species and resources, which impacted ways of life and led to the loss of culture, traditions, and customs. Anticipatory grief was also evident, relating to the loss of lifestyle for future generations, and the loss of traditional and ancestral homes through potential migration. Results provide new data from the Global South and contribute to the limited exploration of mental health in relation to climate change in the Pacific region. The results highlight the experience of ecological grief among Pacific Islanders, and underscore the significance of culture loss due to climate change and anticipatory grief.

In a recent Correspondence in The Lancet Planetary Health, Sampaio and Sequeria1 state that “climate anxiety is not yet considered a mental health disorder” and might be a risk factor for mental disorders, which is something that we contest. The authors further claim that “climate anxiety occurs mainly in lower-income countries located in areas that are more directly affected by climate change”,1 which we regard as doubly incorrect: first, there are no substantial differences in climate anxiety between countries with different average incomes,2 and second, it is misleading to aver that lower income countries are more directly affected by climate change.

From the fourteenth to the nineteenth century the port of Calicut on the Malabar (Kerala) coast of western India was well known to ocean-going traders and others.Two contrasting sets of descriptions of Calicut exist and it has been universally assumed they refer to the same place and characterise its rise and fall.It seems clear that there have been two Calicuts, one (named here 'Calicut at Beypore') being the original city and port, the other (named here 'Calicut at Kozhikode') being that described in the later part of the period.Two events of note are deduced from analysis of fourteenth-to nineteenth-century accounts of Calicut.First is that Vasco da Gama visited the 'wrong' Calicut, requiring the Zamorin (King) of Calicut to hasten there from the 'real' Calicut to receive the Portuguese delegation.Although this mistake was corrected a few years later, 'Calicut at Kozhikode' became a growing focus for foreign trade thereafter, something aided by an unknown catastrophe that destroyed the functionality of 'Calicut at Beypore', leading it to be abandoned by the Zamorin for the other Calicut.The absence of any port here and the comparatively poor condition of its site, compounded by largely Portuguese attacks, saw the rapid decline of this 'Calicut at Kozhikode'.The catastrophe that destroyed 'Calicut at Beypore' is deduced to have occurred in the second half of the sixteenth century and most likely involved an earthquake that led to abrupt subsidence and tsunami waves that washed across the site.Evidence of similar events from elsewhere along the Malabar coast support this explanation and underscore the role of catastrophe in human affairs, as well as the need to critically appraise assumptions made about place in historical accounts.

People on oceanic islands are disproportionately affected by climate change: Today, in the future, and in the past. The range of possible response options for island peoples is not as broad as it is for people occupying larger landmasses. Understanding how island peoples responded to past climate change before they had significant contact with the outside world can help understand optimal future responses by recognising the special characteristics of such comparatively small isolated places. Studies of Fiji's hillforts (koronivalu) suggest they were initially constructed as a response to growing conflict caused by climate-driven coastal-resource depletion, an argument that appears tenable for other island contexts in the Asia-Pacific region. Data from studies of hillforts in four areas of Fiji are presented – Sigatoka Valley (Viti Levu Island), Ba Valley and Vatia Peninsula (Viti Levu Island), western Bua Province (Vanua Levu Island and Yadua Island), and Kadavu Province (Ono Island). Using available radiocarbon ages from hillforts, the key insights from each of these areas are explained and evaluated as responses to climate-driven environmental change. An overview of past responses to climate change on oceanic islands is outlined, informed by insights from the study of Fiji's hillforts and key lessons for the future identified. Principal among these is that the need for transformational adaptation becomes evident on islands earlier than it might on continents owing to the contrast in the numbers of available adaptation options.

Petrographic analyses of sand tempers in Pacific Island potsherds reveal information about ancient human interactions within archipelagic contexts. By comparison with bedrock mineralogy, analyses of 45 sherds from the Lapita settlement at Naitabale on Moturiki Island (central Fiji) show that most sherds were manufactured locally but that a minority is exotic. Using ternary plots of LF-QF-FM (LF-lithic fragments; QF-quartz + feldspar; FM-ferromagnesian), it is shown that exotic material (either pots or temper sands) most likely came from elsewhere in Fiji, probably southeast Viti Levu Island, central Lau, Lomaiviti and Kadavu. Geoscientific analyses of archaeological samples therefore gives us insights into how people likely interacted within the Fiji Archipelago three millennia ago.

Sixteen hillforts constructed and occupied perhaps several centuries before contact in the early nineteenth century are described from Bua district in northern Fiji. These hillforts represent inland settlements in fortifiable locations on high volcanic islands, plausibly established in response to the outbreak of sustained conflict. The chronology and functions of these hillforts were investigated through mapping, excavation, and collection of oral traditions. Four groups of hillforts are recognized. The Seseleka and Yadua (Island) groups represent single polities, comprising a mountaintop site surrounded with fortified narrow steep-sided basalt ridges with tributary sites at lower levels functioning as lookouts and/or food-processing sites. The Northwest Bua group comprises mountaintop sites occupied only when aggressors threatened, and are otherwise characterized by occupation around their bases. The Inland Bua group ranges along one of the highest ridges in the area and were all reportedly in conflict with each other. The Buan hillforts represent those found elsewhere in Fiji and on other high Pacific Islands. Insights from the study of these hillforts illuminate this period of Fiji history and help interrogate broader questions about drivers and proximate causes of the conflict that may have seen hillforts established near simultaneously on high Pacific Islands during the last millennium.

A study of various defining aspects of 11 rural communities along the cross-island road on Viti Levu (Fiji) shows diversity attributable largely to their peripherality, proxied by distance along this 200-km long road. Strong relationships are found between peripherality and both community size and the dependency ratio (percent of young/old dependents), as well as traditional medicine usage (and percent traditional healers), and autonomous community coping after disasters. Two measures are calculated to capture community autonomy, both of which proxy peripherality. Results show the usefulness of peripherality as a way of measuring community diversity in developing-country contexts. Peripherality also correlates with community autonomy, more-peripheral communities having greater autonomous coping abilities/capacity than near-core (less-peripheral) communities. Results also show the unhelpfulness of the default '"one-size-fits-all'" approach to communities implicit in many external assistance programs. Yet while traditional coping in such communities may not be able to fully overcome future climate-change challenges, the conservation of the traditional knowledge underpinning this should be encouraged, mainly because of the likelihood that external funding for future adaptation in such communities will be inadequate. The best hope for effective and sustainable adaptation to future climate change, focused on sustaining livelihoods, lies in strengthening autonomous community coping.

Over the past few decades, attempts at adaptation to climate change (current and future) in the Pacific Islands have largely failed to be either effective or sustained. Among the many reasons for this failure may be that most adaptation strategies have been designed and driven by outsiders rather than by persons familiar with island contexts and diversity, especially the sociocultural nuances of particular situations. In a series of eight thematic case studies, written by scientists with an intimate understanding of the Pacific Islands, this chapter explores the reasons behind adaptation failure and explains what needs to improve in the future for adaptation to be both effective and sustained. Case studies focus on rural seawalls, relocation and peripherality as a proxy for autonomous community coping, climate finance, island food systems, adaptation project design, livelihood sustainability and inter-island resettlement. The goal of this chapter is to inform stakeholders how to optimise outcomes from future adaptation interventions, something that is becoming daily more urgent as the pace of twenty-first century climate change increases.

For the Pacific Islands, community-based adaptation activities are crucial, and yet it remains uncertain whether they are effectively promoting long-term adaptive capacity. Here we evaluate the performance of 32 community-based adaptation initiatives across 20 rural communities in the Pacific. We find that initiative appropriateness was a strength while sustainability was a consistent issue, locally funded initiatives and those implemented by non-governmental organizations were more likely to perform better, and climate awareness-raising initiatives and those integrated with ecosystem-based adaptation performed best. We also identify four multidimensional and interdependent optimization points for future community-based adaptation initiatives: local approval and ownership, shared access to and benefit from initiatives, integration of local realities, and systems-thinking and forward planning. Our analysis suggests the need for a praxis shift whereby adaptation is locally led, communities drive their own agendas, and donors and implementers become facilitators that resource the diverse capacities of communities and help achieve local objectives equitably. Community-based adaptation, in principle, leverages existing local knowledge, capabilities and priorities, but it is unclear what factors drive its success or lack thereof. Here the authors evaluate 32 community-based adaptation initiatives in the Pacific Islands and identify key optimization points for future initiatives.

The Green Climate Fund, donors, governments and non-governmental organisations, among others, are pouring vast amounts of financial and human capital into community-based adaptation across the developing world. The underlying premise is that the world's majority-who have the minority of financial capital-are living on the margins and are the most vulnerable and at risk from climate change. Such a reality, coupled with a deficit understanding of the majority world, is resulting in significant implications for how the 'adaptation industry' (those that fund, design and implement projects) go about their work. Drawing on research evaluating 15 community-based adaptation projects in Vanuatu we found that despite genuine attempts, projects invariably fell short of success, longevity and sustainability. We argue that the indifferent, albeit variable, success of most projects is attributable to the construction of the geographical scale of 'community-based' and the deficit view flowing down to the 'community' through hubris policy, funding guidelines and individual implementers. Our findings show that 'experts' are working in Pacific communities, conducting assessments that involve asking what 'community' needs are, going away to design projects, coming back and implementing projects, which communities are inevitably challenged to sustain once funding has ceased. We postulate that these limitations stem from such a formation of adaptation work that pejoratively fails to see Pacific Islanders in situ as the best litmus test of their own agendas, needs, aspirations and futures and in the best position to make decisions for themselves about what and how they might become more resilient. We claim from a growing body of evidence and new frontiers in research that, rather than adaptation being 'community-based', it needs to be 'locally led', not limited to 'communities', and should take place across different entry points and incorporate, as appropriate, elements of autonomous/Indigenous peoples ownership.