Tourism is vital to NZ and small economies in the Pacific. But as the Samoa Tourism Authority’s CEO says, “we can always get money back, but once there’s a loss of life you’ll never have that back”.
Siouxsie Wiles, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
New Zealanders should expect new border entry restrictions to stay in place for some time, but the measures are important to control the spread of coronavirus in New Zealand and the Pacific.
Fish are attracted to floating objects, especially with dangling ropes or nets.
WorldFish/Flickr
Fishers who hunt wild tuna use fish’s natural attraction to floating objects to lure them to known positions near GPS-equipped rafts. However, these rafts are attracting increasing concern.
While most Fijian settlement is coastal, new research into mountain settlements can teach us about this country pre-colonisation. Pictured is the Seseleka hill fort, 420 metres above sea level.
Patrick Nunn
New research casts light on the pre-colonial mountain settlements in Fiji.
The inability to meet Pacific Island expectations on climate change will erode Australia’s leadership credentials and influence in the region.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Australia ensured its official communique watered down commitments to respond to climate change, gaining a hollow victory.
Boys play on a beach in Kiribati in 2014. Cuba is training doctors to tend to people on the Pacific island nation, struggling with disease amid the worsening effects of climate change.
(Shutterstock)
Cuba is offering a compelling example of how we can take care of each other during the climate crisis with its work training doctors on Kiribati, a nation that is being devastated by climate change.
Rising sea levels are an urgent problem facing island nations across the Pacific.
Emma Kemp/AAP
Pacific countries are eager for assistance in securing their future, whether sourced from old friends like the US and Australia, or new enthusiasts like the Chinese.
A king tide breaching a defence wall at Sabai Island in the Torres Strait, 2011.
AAP Image/Suzanne Long
The entire Cocos (Keeling) Island group is a little more than twice the size of the Melbourne CBD. So it’s hard to envision 414 million debris items washed up there.
Looking out from Ontong Java settlement at the mouth of the Mataniko River, Honiara.
Alexei Trundle (2017)
Pacific island nations are often framed as remote atolls facing rising seas and cyclones. But their cities are growing fast, so are efforts to help the most climate-vulnerable people hitting the mark?
Deep sea mining could supply valuable rare minerals to green technology, but one project in the south-west Pacific is invoking the wrath of local spirits.
Lone Sharks supporter Scott Morrison gives out Wallabies rugby jerseys to Pacific Islands leaders after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Port Moresby. There will be fewer hand-outs in future.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
The strength of Australian aid is that it has been fully grant-based. Offering Pacific nations debt-based development financing instead is no way to win friends.
Mother and children in Tanna, Vanuatu. Australia’s investment in the Pacific care sector would bring a broad range of positive outcomes.
Shutterstock
Thirty years after deadly protests erupted in Australia’s close neighbour, New Caledonians head to the polls again to vote on whether to remain a part of France.
A raised fist carving on a highway at Touho, Grand Terre. Kanaks, New Caledonia’s Indigenous people, have struggled for independence for over 150 years.
Michael Webb
Indigenous New Caledonians, who will vote in an independence referendum next week, have been struggling since French colonisation in 1853. Through songs, they have chronicled past traumas and resistance heroes.
Locals in Kiribati building a sea wall to protect the low-lying Pacific island from rising sea waters.
Elise Scott/AAP
Australian aid to the Pacific has been criticised for not focusing enough on infrastructure. But rising Chinese influence is bringing a shift of priorities.
Nauru’s people are struggling in the face of environmental change.
Anja Kanngieser
Nauru is best known as a site of Australian offshore asylum detention. But everyone on the island - not just refugees - is struggling with the issue of environmental change that threatens their lives and homes.
Environment Minister Melissa Price is accused of insulting Kiribati’s former president, saying he was only in Australia “for the cash”.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Faculty Member, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University; Visiting Fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University., Georgetown University