Understanding Environmental Decision-Making in the Rural Pacific Islands: Final Report for APN CAPaBLE Project CBA2007-03NSY

Abstract

For more than 20 years, climate-change assistance to Pacific Island countries has been predicated on the assumption that the most effective ways to raise preparedness is top-down, largely by influencing national policy and bringing it into line with international agendas. This research project was intended to understand the effectiveness of this approach by learning exactly how decisions regarding the environment and its changes were made. The approach taken was to target representative communities with experience in addressing climate-change linked decisions in representative countries of the Pacific islands region. It is clear from this research project that national policy has little or no influence on most decisions undertaken with reference to the environment in rural parts of the Pacific Islands. In fact there is very little evidence that such decisions pay attention to science or other sources of insights concerning climate change. Most such decisions are made on the basis of emulation, experience, and inferred best-practice. This is not a satisfactory situation for any organizations like APN that seek to develop strategies to minimize the undesired impacts of climate change in vulnerable parts of the world like the smaller countries of the Pacific Islands region. The suggested way forward is to engage community-level "persons of influence" and ensure that they are given the knowledge needed to make and sustain sensible decisions about the environments over which they have control well into the future.