Response to "The trouble with deficits: a commentary" by Elizabeth F. Hall and Todd Sanders
The comment by Hall and Sanders raises some issues we are able to clarify. These authors also criticize our study for its omissions, something we regard as inevitable in a one-off study of this nature. We contend that neither of these concerns invalidate our study's conclusions. Hall and Sanders's first criticism concerns sampling and interpretation and is prefaced by the rhetorical question "of whom can the authors legitimately speak?" At the time of the study, both authors had interacted with both communities in the Rewa Delta for more than 20 years, each author speaking one of their two vernacular languages (Fiji Hindi and Bauan-Fijian) and being intimate with their cultural mores, attributes that allowed us privileged access to these communities for the purpose of the study. Interviewee selection was not "haphazard". In both study sites, we were constrained in this by gender, age, language, relatedness, status, and religious affiliation, all of which affected our ability to freely speak to those we might have targeted had we not been so encumbered yet we are satisfied that the 64 people we interviewed (selected by age, gender and residence time) represented a cross-section of the target population in each community. Full details of interviewees are given in Lata's MSc thesis (Lata 2010), which was referenced several times in our paper (Lata and Nunn 2012). We are indeed somewhat "startled" that Hall and Sanders overlooked this. A requirement that potential interviewees must have been continuously resident in our sample locations for 30 years is not "troubling" to us. We used a 30-year figure because (1) our experience of gathering environmental-change data from Pacific Island communities suggests that this was the optimal period needed to comprehensively exclude persons who might give misleading information2 and (2) flood data in particular suggest that this is the period within which recent climate-change effects are detectable, something on which we sought to allow our informants to comment. As we explain in our paper, "although the specific data analysed in this paper were obtained from individual interviews, these were supplemented by focus-group discussions in appropriate cultural situations for the purposes of understanding both the broader context and canvassing group views" (Lata and Nunn 2012: 174).
Climate Change and Pacific Island Countries
Since being first settled by humans more than 3000 years ago, the Pacific Islands region has experienced innumerable changes in climate that have affected livelihoods, something that underlines the sensitivity of such comparatively small and resource-constrained landmasses to extraneous change but also helps explain why their inhabitants developed resilience strategies that remain important today. During the past 100 years, the region has been affected by increased temperatures and sea-level rise, together with other climate-linked changes including variability in ENSO periodicity and tropical-cyclone frequency. Owing to the increasing pace of globalisation in the region during the same period, together with growing populations and demands on island resources, it is difficult to isolate changes ascribable to climate change; some of the clearest of these are the increases in coral bleaching, incidences of coastal flooding and shoreline erosion. Despite knowledge about the causes and effects of climate-related environmental (and related) changes in the region, supported by considerable financial aid and other external assistance, the awareness of most Pacific people about climate change and the extent of community buy-in to appropriate adaptation agendas have been negligible. Many governments have been unable to effectively disseminate awareness about climate-change stressors and adaptive solutions; most community-level decision-makers are unable to make informed decisions about long-term adaptation to observed changes. Warming and sea-level rise are both expected to accelerate within the next 100 years or so, causing profound changes to environments, societies and development aspirations within the region. Re-location of people from vulnerable to less-vulnerable locations within the region is unavoidable and should be planned for sooner rather than later. International partners of Pacific Island nations should become more aware of the pathways for embedding effective adaptation in the region. Regional agencies and governments should challenge and re-define their roles in promoting and disseminating climate-change adaptation strategies within the region. Awareness-raising should focus on persons of influence in Pacific Island communities to allow them to make informed and sustainable decisions about the environments they occupy.
Of Giant Fish and Shaken Islands: Geological Interpretations of Euhemeristic Myths Concerning Underwater Eruptions and Abrupt Land Movements in the Pacific Islands
Many Pacific Island myths are euhemeristic, based on historical events. Two types of relevance to reconstructions of geological events are described here. Myths from the Pacific describing how islands were fished up are widespread. Most contain details that refer to the fish-island thrashing and agitating the ocean water as it emerges, details that are likely to be based on observations of shallow-water volcanic eruptions, particularly in Tonga. Another group of myths refers to a god stamping his foot on a low island in order to raise it, often successively. These myths are interpreted as incorporating details that come from observations of earthquakes that cause land to rise (coseismic-uplift events) that are common in many southwest Pacific Island groups. The importance of recording Pacific Island myths that have never been written down is clear, as are their potential practical uses in disaster risk reduction.