Pacific-wide talks urged on climate migration

Transcript

All countries in the Pacific are being urged to start discussions on how to help people forced to move from low lying atoll nations like Kiribati and Tuvalu.

184 million people worldwide were displaced by disaster between 2008 and 2014 and at special meetings in Geneva last week 110 countries gave the nod to a Protection Agenda for dealing with future
migration challenges.

The experiences of small island countries which face rising seas due to climate change helped form the global action plan under the Swiss Norwegian Nansen Initiative

The Protection Agenda aims at collecting more information, improving humanitarian protection measures and better dealing with the risk of disaster back in home countries so people are not forced to move in the first place.

The Nansen Initiative's Walter Kaelin  told Sally Round there's now a toolbox that can be adapted to each region's distinct challenges and needs.

WALTER KAELIN: It is a document that brings together a lot of good, effective practices states have used, states have developed in addressing situations where they were faced with people coming from countries affected by disaster when they had to decide whether or not to admit them. But we were also looking at how to prevent displacement, for instance through integrating issues of human mobility into disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation. We're also looking at how one can help people to get out of harm's way before the disaster strikes for instance by looking at planned relocations as you have in your region. For instance Fiji is already in the process of relocating 45 villages away from eroding coastlines but then also looking at migration as a way of helping people to move out of areas that are particularly affected by the effects of climate change and disasters.

SALLY ROUND: Does it also provide a kind of legal framework or is it more about providing experiences and practices and examples for countries to learn from?

WK: This was not an exercise that aimed at setting new standards, at developing new law but rather trying to provide a toolbox to governments but also to regional organisations, so in the current situation, in future situations one could go back to the experiences made by other countries in other parts of the world and try to use that. Beyond that we feel there are huge differences from one region to the other. You in the Pacific region are not faced with a lot of cross-border displacement which does occur for instance in Africa,  the Horn of Africa and western Africa or in Central America. Your case is much more about the future prospects of some of these island states, low lying island states becoming uninhabitable and with this toolbox we hope we are able to trigger discussion at regional, sub regional, but also domestic levels.

SR: Did you have any ideas, solutions from those consultations that you've been having for the last three years around the world about how Pacific island countries can get through these major issues that they're grappling with?

WK: If you're looking at the Pacific island countries and their people, and their populations, these are people that really do not want to move. Most of them want to stay in their countries. They're attached to the land, but due to environmental factors but also other factors linked to their development or lack of development make it increasingly difficult for people. What the communities told us is 'we really don't want to become refugees' and what they meant was they don't want to have to wait til disaster strikes. They rather would prefer to have the option of being able to emigrate, be it temporarily, be it permanently at the time when they decide to do that and if you're looking at the situation in the South Pacific then for some of the islands and their people it's quite easy because of special ties. For instance in New Zealand if you're talking about Niue or the Cook Islands people can easily emigrate to your country (New Zealand). Marshall Islanders, they can go to the United States but Kiribati and Tuvalu which are the most affected, they don't have those opportunities. I think their programmes like the Pacific access quota in New Zealand or seasonal worker programmes targeting vulnerable Pacific islands that do exist in Australia are good practices, good approaches. I think it's important it's not just New Zealand and Australia, it's also countries such as Fiji and others who even might be interested to receive people from countries like Tuvalu and Kiribati because of cultural ties, because they are interested to get a workforce or increase their populations. What I think is important in the South Pacific context is a dialogue between countries on how to facilitate migration because if this is not taking place then we might end up with irregular migration or we might end up with people hit by disaster ending up in humanitarian crisis situations so it's better to start a discussion now and one framework for such discussions that is quite adequate in my perspective would be the Pacific Islands Forum.