Learn about research and developments in the Island Lives, Ocean States project
In this blogpost, Ernst Nordtveit draws upon legal perspectives to discuss projections of sea level rise and reflect upon regional strategies in the Pacific that view maritime boundaries “not as ambulatory but as fixed borders”. Read More …
A perspective from low laying atolls brings climate discourses and practical realities together. Tokelau experiences with political intervensions employed by overseas agents range historically from instruments of demographic control to more recent measures related to transport and access to revenue from the EEZ. Tensions between different ways of being with the ocean are increasingly apparent. Read More …
In this blogpost, Milla Vaha provides an analysis of state sovereignty and maritime borders with a focus on the large ocean states of the Pacific, that are “powerfully exercising their right to self-determination” through a reinterpretation of international law and statehood in the age of climate change and sea-level rise. Read More …
In this post, Håkon Larsen discusses the crucial role of coastal resources in Fiji during the COVID-19 pandemic, by drawing on some of the materials from his master’s thesis “The Organic Island” that explores the creative and resilient dimensions of subsistence economics. Read More …
Vehia Wheeler introduces the Ma’ohi Nui project, a collaboration with the Island Lives, Ocean States project aiming to uplift voices, knowledge and perspectives on the ocean among indigenous populations in Mā‘ohi Nui (French Polynesia). Vehia is co-founder of Sustainable Oceania Solutions and was elected Obama Foundation Asia-Pacific Leader for Tahiti in 2020. The OceanStates project Read More …
PhD candidate Ashneel Chandra offers a brief outline of his recently published paper, co-authored with his Master’s degree advisor at The University of the South Pacific (USP), Professor Sushil Kumar, on their study of tropical cyclones TC Pam (Vanuatu 2015) and TC Winston (Fiji 2016). In a new paper published in the American Meteorological Read More …
Written by Miriam Ladstein, this post draws attention to the work and contributions of Pacific youth in local and global arenas where decisions concerning ocean and climate action are made. This January, I spent a few weeks with members of the OceanStates team in Fiji’s main capital, Suva. Suva is an eclectic city and a Read More …
In this post, anthropologist Dr. Camilla Borrevik offers some insights into events and developments that took place at COP25 in Madrid (December 2019), with special attention to the connection between ocean and climate in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Hopes were high ahead of the United Nations (UN) climate talks at the Read More …
In this post, Matthew Simpson draws attention to sea-level rise projections for the Norwegian coastline and offers some thoughts on how Norwegian scenarios might contribute to – and benefit from – research in the OceanStates project. What sea level information do we need to plan for the future? That’s a really big question. But it Read More …
Written by Edvard Hviding and Camilla Borrevik. Prior to the UNFCCC COP23 climate change conference held in Bonn, Germany in November 2017 (and hosted by Fiji as COP23 Presidency), new research from Australian ocean and climate scientists showed that in Solomon Islands, rates of sea level rise up to three times the global average, coupled Read More …