Protecting Biocultural Diversity in Vanuatu
By Janis Steele, PhD Island Reach
Outfitted with shovels and bundles of tough vetiver grass, teams of Ni-Vanuatu men and women spread out along the shoreline of Nguna Island. They step over twisted roots of trees lying on the beach, felled by coastal erosion. Beyond, the brilliant cerulean sea is whipped up by a stiff wind. They are preparing to plant conservation grasses where sand meets soil in an effort to bind this disappearing land. These 50 men and women have come here from their island homes across the archipelago of Vanuatu to participate in an intensive week-long set of trainings to learn and share strategies for climate change adaptation. The conference is being hosted by the member villages of the Nguna-Pele Marine & Land Protected Area Network and my partner and Island Reach co-director, Dr. Brooks McCutchen, and I are attending the event to facilitate, train, and video document the activities. Such opportunities for peer- to-peer engagement among Ni-Vanuatu are vital in this country where island villages are remote and difficult to access, and the need for locally appropriate and culturally-nuanced strategies for natural resource management are of paramount importance.
Vanuatu is a small island developing state in the south west Pacific Ocean on the eastern range of the Coral Sea. The country leaped to the forefront of international news in March 2015 when Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Pam slammed the archipelago with devastating impact. Nearly a year later, communities continue to recover, a process further complicated by the current, drought-reinforcing El Niño. On a more positive note, in 2015, Vanuatu was listed in the Top Ten Ethical Travel Destinations, a recognition attributable, in part, to the region's rich biocultural diversity.
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