Paita and Noumea, November 2016: encounters with Kiribati and Tuamotu





Abstract

Recognized as being among the most resilient in the world, the Pacific islands people are, in a new way now, facing the need to adapt to climate change (CC). Their land, water and marine resources, their cultural heritage and identity but also their territories and thus their right to live on the lands occupied by their ancestors for centuries are more than ever threatened by climate change whose effects are manifested in more and more unexpected, sudden and violent ways.
The islanders' traditional knowledges and methods related to life and to changes in their environment are of an exceptional richness. They now constitute a major resource in the development of participatory strategies for climate resilience.
At the same time, tools provided by Western science on projections, measurements, analysis, understanding, modeling and forecasting of climate phenomena have never been as elaborate and precise as they are today.
In this context, our FRAGILES project aims to develop tools from the interconnection between these modes of plural knowledges.


General aims

- To educate and inform the affected populations with the support of scientific data.
- To provide local actors (elected and customary authorities, NGOs and people in general) of Kiribati, Tuamotu and New Caledonia with tools adapted to local cultures and localized natural configurations and easy to implement to evaluate and possibly strengthen the livelihoods in the context of environmental changes in the existing legal frameworks for local and national development, in the small Pacific islands.