Ni-Vanuatu women: leaders of climate action

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However, climate change isn’t just an environmental problem. As many researchers have pointed out, climate change is a matter of human security. The term human security recognises that there are multiple factors that make people insecure: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security.

 

Human security basically says that all of these factors are connected and can create a domino effect. Human security is an extension of the phrase 'act locally, think globally'. It's about securing and improving individual lives to make countries, regions and the entire world more resilient. 

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Climate change undermines peoples’ rights to life, security, water, food, health, shelter and culture.

 

Due to this, the media often portrays Pacific islanders as ‘vulnerable victims’ of climate change. Pacific islanders are not passive victims. They are resilient trailblazers who are leading the rest of the world in terms of climate action.

 

Pacific women in particular are often framed as victims of climate change. Instead, you’ll find that Pacific women are quite the opposite. In this article, I showcase Ni-Vanuatu women who epitomise the term 'resilience'. They are using their own experiences to empower women in politics, media and everyday life to act on climate change. 

 

One of the key climate change impacts is increasing severe weather events. In March 2015, Vanuatu was struck by category five Tropical Cyclone Pam (TC Pam)- one of the most destructive Pacific Ocean storms in history.

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Kizzy Kalsakau

 

Buzz 96FM Vanuatu journalist Kizzy Kalsakau experienced the full force of TC Pam from her home on Ifira island.

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“I remember two o’clock in the morning, me and my brother, we accommodate some neighbours and my nephew and his wife and their two babies…,” she said.

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“… I just couldn’t hold back because everything, my fridge, everything in that house, ended up in the air and we couldn’t find it. Everything dumped in the sea….”  

 

Following a harrowing night for thousands across Vanuatu, Kizzy said the community began to rebuild the very next morning.

 

“…we didn’t sleep… in French we say Nuit Blanche, it’s a white night, you don’t sleep you stay awake, for 24 hours you stay awake,” she said.

 

“And then as soon as it's daylight... and they would just walk around and the people pick up everything that they lost or was damaged, and we started to rebuild on the same day.

 

“I visited my neighbours, I visited the village, we’re all running around and even through there was still wind, people want their belongings to be collected, brought back to their yard and rebuild the same day.

 

“We’ve got a little shelter, it’s not like before, but at least it’s a little shelter.”

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Kizzy and her community are not passive, vulnerable victims of climate change. Across the 83 islands of Vanuatu, communities have been adapting to the changing climate for decades using Indigenous knowledge.

 

This traditional knowledge, passed through generations, has allowed Pacific islanders to survive through varying weather and climatic conditions while maintaining access to the basic needs of food, water, energy and shelter.

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Fern Napwatt

 

Vanuatu Daily Post journalist Fern Napwatt grew up on three different islands: Santo, Tanna and Efate. The 26-year-old said she has seen the environment change before her eyes.

 

“We’ve been to some islands north of the country and I’ve seen plains where there was once water, but then due to the dry season there’s no longer water,” Fern said.

 

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Due to climate change and natural disasters, displacement has become an important issue in Vanuatu. When displacement occurs, communities and families become separated, livelihoods are ruined.

Land is also extremely important to ni-Vanuatu. Tradition and kastom mean ancestors are usually buried on land that is passed through generations. The loss of land is much more than a physical loss. 

 

Family means safety and security in Vanuatu. When that is lost, it exposes people to new risks. In September 2018 a new policy on National Climate Change and Disaster-Induced Displacement was launched. It's too early to know whether this policy will make a real difference to people's lives however, it is a step in the right direction by the Vanuatu government. 

 

This policy came following the most recent and ongoing displacement crisis on Ambae Island, where 11,000 people have been displaced due to a volcanic eruption. Displacement also occurred following TC Pam.

 

The effects of climate change have been causing displacement in many Pacific island nations. People living in Kiribati have been experiencing displacement for a number of years. Those who have been displaced are stripped of their community and family, their safety-nets, and forced to lead new lives on several different and unfamiliar islands.

 

UN statistics show that 80 per cent of people displaced by climate change are women. In Vanuatu women garden, cook, wash, clean and look after the children. Fern said ni-Vanuatu women are significantly affected by the impacts of climate change.

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“Now, they have to walk for distances to get to a river, just to get water or just to do their laundry- that’s some distance for them to walk,” she said.

 

“Not only that, every time it’s them. The women and the children, whereas the men are in the villages, sitting somewhere, telling stories and it’s the women who do the hard work: carrying jerrycans of water and actually taking their children down (to the water) and taking them for a bath…it’s hard.

 

"Women, they are affected by climate change. Not only that, the activities that they used to do at times before where I think, to me, life was much easier back then, but then due to climate change they’re facing difficulties right now.

 

“Basically water, that’s a big one. Even if there's no food, but then if there’s no water, you can’t do anything. Water is really important.”

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Jocelyn Usua

 

‘Woman Tanna’ Jocelyn Usua said natural disasters and the ongoing effects of climate change are adding to the existing tension caused by unequal, gendered division of labour in communities.  She said the rate of gender-based violence increases at times when resources are scarce. 

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“Women here they’re good women, but sometimes men are just lazy, but when we women talk too much this is when men 'give slap',” she said.

 

“Women have to do everything and that’s why women start to complain. When you start to complain and then hot pressure comes up.”

 

Climate change is more than just an environmental issue. It is impacting relationships and negatively affecting some of the more hidden social, political and economic issues in traditional societies.

 

Despite the fact that homes are mostly run by women, men are typically the ones that make decisions at a higher level. 

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Anita Roberts

 

Ni-Vanuatu climate change reporter Anita Roberts said gender inequality is a major issue in Vanuatu.  

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“In politics last general election, we (women) do not have candidate that’s elected to parliament, and women are also not represented in economic activities,” she said.

 

“In Vanuatu, women are like the managers of our homes… in terms of food security they know what our families need and they know how to manage our families.  

 

“In terms of climate change, there’s no gender equity in terms of decision-making at all levels.

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At 25-years-old Anita is an inspiring and passionate advocate for change.

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Ketty Napwatt

                                                                                                                            

Former Secretary General Ketty Napwatt is also a strong believer in empowering women. Ketty said kastom and tradition are responsible for gender roles in Vanuatu.

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“We grew up with traditional values and we are reminded of our roles as women in the traditional setting,” she said.

 

“It is the way we adhere to those values… how much we respect those values that make a difference.”

 

It’s important to understand that the gender roles informed by ni-Vanuatu kastom, tradition and culture are not necessarily negative. Ketty believes it depends on an individual’s interpretation.

 

“As a woman, I think it depends on how you feel about yourself, how you see yourself and what your views are about everything in general,” she said.

 

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The label of women as passive and reserved is universal. Ketty sees straight through that and encourages women to break that stereotype.

 

“We women because of our gender, sometimes we hide behind that instead of coming out strongly and being confident and confidently doing what we’re doing…,” she said.

 

“…sometimes we use it as an excuse to hide, not to allow our strengths to come out, we give up easily when there is an obstacle, we retreat and then we blame the males for being obstacles.

 

“But I find a lot of the time we are our own obstacles, we create those obstacles ourselves.

 

“I believe that we women can do a lot, I think we’re just holding back.”

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As Secretary General, Ketty had the ability to create sizeable change and influence the decision-making process, particularly in Tafea.

 

“I quite enjoyed my position as Secretary General… you had the authority that was vested in you by the government through the public service to do a lot of things. To be able to assist a lot of development down there,” she said.

 

“That was my role, just coordinating all government civil servants on the ground, liaising with the central government through my ministry and department, and with all other stakeholders and even our donor funders.

 

“I really enjoyed what I was doing, I didn’t leave because I didn’t like that responsibility… I could have stayed on if the environment was alright, because I saw and I realised, and I did a lot of things I couldn’t have done being somebody else other than the Secretary General.”

 

Ketty’s experience is far from the usual media frame of women as 'vulnerable victims' in the Pacific. Women like Ketty are building resilience to climate change by voicing their fight for equality and representation in formal sites of power and at a community level.

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Jocelyn Usua

 

Jocelyn Usua has been speaking to local women and advocating for women’s rights for many years.  

 

“The women work very close with me, we’ve been to 16 communities and we have no money, we have no fund, but I told them we need to work,” Jocelyn said.

 

“We are mobilising the women with their rights to tell them that it’s not only men to be there (in parliament).

 

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 “We need to walk from distance to distance so the women see the importance of putting somebody in the parliament for them right down here.”

 

Kastom and tradition are extremely important to ni-Vanuatu. However, Jocelyn said some things are changing.

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“We are changing from time to time and kastom, well we can preserve some of the good things.”

 

“Last year, I invited the President for the Council of Chiefs and I asked him if he could come for dinner with my husband, my advisor and two other men. I said, ‘what is kastom? Give me the definition for kastom.’ So we started to debate it and I told him, ‘does kastom change?’ he said, ‘no’. I said, ‘okay now you take out the trousers and the shirt you are wearing and put on the nambas (traditional penis sheath)’,” she said.

 

Jocelyn’s story shows that gender relations are changing, even within kastom and tradition. The fact that Jocelyn- a woman, was able to debate the definition of kastom with the President for the Council of Chiefs- an authoritative male figure, is a powerful statement in itself.

 

Tradition and kastom continue to be important in ni-Vanuatu modern life, but they are adaptable.

 

As the wife of Chief Sam Usua, Jocelyn said it would be impossible to be a strong advocate for women without her husband’s support.  

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“In Tanna they say, ‘women you are there and boys you go there and you play with ball’,” she said.

 

“But today women from Tanna they play football, this mentality started to change, this is not a kastom no, it’s just the mentality in the society you are brought up.

 

“Women can do whatever they want now, my daughter, she acts like a boy now and I’m very proud.

 

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 Kizzy, Anita, Ketty, Fern, Jocelyn and many more ni-Vanuatu women are leading community development in the face of climate change. Vanuatu and Pacific island nations contribute very little to climate change. Even so, Vanuatu has banned plastic bags, straws and polystyrene containers.

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Pacific island nations are doing much more than Australia to combat climate change, yet Australia is one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters.

 

As the world’s leading coal exporter, Australia has the power to make a significant difference to the emission of greenhouse gases.

 

Australia has a responsibility to people like Kizzy, Anita, Ketty, Fern and Jocelyn. In fact, Australia has a responsibility to the entire human population. Drastic action against climate change needs to happen and it needs to happen now.

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