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Climate change and community resilience in Samoa
Climate Change Resilience
Available Online

Binns, Tony

,

Latai‐Niusulu, Anita

,

Nel, Etienne

2019
Being resilent in the face of climate change seems especially important for island societies, which face the effects of rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, changing wind patterns and sea level rise. To date, most studies of adaptation and resilience among Pacific island communities have used indicators and methods rooted in Western science and neo-classical economics. These have been criticized as being locally irrelevant and inadequate to appreciate the dynamic nature and social structures of island communities and their capacity to adapt. This paper challenges the paradigm that defines resilience as a return to equilibrium, by using a non-equilibrium, cultural ecological lens. The non-equilibrium view of resilience sees the social systems of island nations as highly dynamic and undergoing persistent adaptation in the face of changing environmental factors. Field-based research undertaken in eight villages in Samoa found that , through constant exposure to environmental change over extended periods of time, communities have become resilient and are in a position to adapt to future changes. In developing future policy in relation to climate change, Pacific island government need to develop a more nuanced understanding of islanders' perceptions and historical actions in the context of both their physical locations and their dynamic socio-cultural systems
Strategic environmental assessment for invasive species management on inhabited islands.
BRB
Available Online

Russel, J.

,

Taylor, C.

2019
Over the past decade the challenges of managing invasive species on inhabited islands have clearly become limiting factors to scaling-up the area of invasive species eradications. Step-change is required to unleash the conservation and restoration potential of biodiversity on inhabited islands around the globe and avoid the pitfalls previous attempts to eradicate invasive species on inhabited islands have fallen into. Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is a systematic decision support process, aiming to ensure that environmental and other sustainability aspects are considered effectively throughout policy, plan and programme making. Within the framework of SEAs, on target islands eradication planners could implement a number of tools including stakeholder engagement, social impact assessment and economic cost benefit analysis alongside existing environmental impact assessment. Such a suite of assessments captures the immediate impacts of an eradication operation on a range of values, alongside predicted long-term changes in these tightly coupled socio-ecological systems. In this paper we outline what SEA is, and then contrast invasive species management attempts occurring outside an SEA framework on two similar but also contrasting UNESCO World Heritage islands; Lord Howe Island, Australia and Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. We then demonstrate how an SEA approach to invasive species management would assist planning in New Zealand to eradicate introduced mammalian predators from two large off shore islands in New Zealand; Aotea (Great Barrier Island) and Rakiura (Stewart Island). We conclude with future prospects for applying SEA to invasive species management on inhabited islands.