Transcript
Pacific Farmers are working together to share knowledge, techniques and planting materials in order to become more resilient to the effects of climate change and natural disasters.
A demonstration event held at Tanoliu community in Vanuatu's Shefa province on Wednesday brought local farmers together with their counterparts from Fiji, Solomon Islands and Tonga.
The event is based on the "Knowledge Hub" concept which was first trialled in the Solomon Islands by regional NGO Live and Learn and was exported to other countries with the help of the UNDP's Pacific Risk Resilience Program and Australian Aid.
PRRP's program manager, Moortaza Jiwanji spoke with Koroi Hawkins about the Knowledge Hubs and why they are important for Pacific farmers.
MOORTAZA JIWANJI: Well a Knowledge Hub to put it simply is a kind of soft mechanism for communities to come together around common issues. So at the moment the Knowledge Hubs that we are kind of helping to establish are really being used for farming communities to commonly address the issues of disaster and climate change. So they are really kind of informal networks if you like for communities to come together and share knowledge around specific issues that they face together.
KOROI HAWKINS: Where did the idea originate and why is it important?
MJ: In this program we are working with Live and Learn environmental education an NGO very active in the region and they were the ones that piloted this concept in Solomon Islands a few years back in the previous program. And its got a lot of traction now and so we have taken this on board and we are seeing that there is a lot of interest and appetite from communities to actually trial this concept out. And sorry your second questions was?
KH: Why is it important?
MJ: I think in the area of disaster and climate change the main reason why it is, the main reasons as to why it is important. First of all is that the impacts of disasters and climate change are showing common impacts to communities. And therefore the solutions around them there are also commonalities to that. And so it is really, its an opportunity for farming communities to find confidence and sources of new ideas and even planting equipment and supplies to actually commonly address these quite substantial impacts of climate change and disasters.
KH: Now there was a demonstration of sorts in the Tanoliu community in North West Shefa province in Vanuatu. What was that about?
MJ: Well it was very similar to what we were just talking about. TC Pam as you know hit in March and one of the things, one of the things that emerged from the community there is that look we really need support, immediate support through distribution and food security. And so what we did as a program through live and learn and their network and connections with the community was look lets, lets use this as an opportunity to actually, to build on this kind of momentum with the community that they had. They already had a kind of informal alliance amongst themselves to actually help establish this Knowledge Hub. Not only for their immediate needs but also as an opportunity to look more forward into the future. Well how can we to jointly address the future risks that were posed from disasters and climate change.
