Pacific Islands are at the frontline of climate change impacts. Given our proximity to the ocean, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and warmer temperatures have already begun to harm our ecosystems. Many Pacific nations, such as Vanuatu, Kiribati, and Fiji are constantly discussed by the mainstream media as they are rapidly being “swallowed up” by the sea. While it is important to highlight that Pacific Islander communities are some of the first to face devastating impacts, we are rarely discussed outside of the context of vulnerability. In reality, we have a long tradition of living in sustainable ways, unlike the US and Europe.

Historically, Pacific Islanders have contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions compared to any other region. Our ancestors taught us to live in a lifestyle in harmony with the Earth, constructing our houses out of locally sourced materials like coconut palms, and sustaining ourselves from fish, vegetables, and fruit that naturally grow. We were taught to never take more than we need, and not to waste the food that we had. Our traditional lifestyles can serve as a large lesson for the US and other European countries, who often live in a culture of materialism and overconsumption, alienated from the land they occupy and the food they eat.

Climate solutions in America rarely recognize the sustainability that is embedded within our cultures. Instead, most climate-oriented action revolves around green technologies, like electric cars and solar panels. The problem with these technologies, however, is that they rely on extracting resources like cobalt from countries in Africa and Asia, exposing workers to high levels of toxins. Companies like Tesla and other electric vehicle manufacturers, which model themselves as sustainable, exploit the labor of Africans in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo. True sustainability does not mean the displacement of harm onto other people, nor does it mean continuing to maintain a system that is only perpetuating the climate crisis. So, instead of relying on band-aid “solutions” through green tech, we should also look towards solutions that already exist. In other words, the ways Pacific Islanders and other Indigenous societies have been living for thousands of years in peace with the planet.

Pacific Islanders are not helpless victims when it comes to climate change. Rather, we must be leaders, innovators, and educators. We must empower our traditional values of protecting the land and the sea, and teach other societies on how they can form lasting relationships with the environment. Many Pacific Islanders are already doing so.

Efforts to revitalize traditional seafaring are a major milestone in both honoring the ways of our ancestors, as well as decarbonizing our transportation methods. Already, Pacific Islander navigators are modernizing the uses of our traditional canoes to ship necessary goods and medical supplies. Transportation between islands doesn’t need to require expensive, heavily polluting flights. Instead, we can do it how our ancestors always have.

In Papua New Guinea, high energy prices prompted Islanders to come up with cheaper, more sustainable alternatives. They found a way to power cars with coconut oil instead of diesel, utilizing the power of coconuts which naturally grow in abundance, and are free and accessible to residents.

All of these examples, using both old and new techniques, represent the unique position of Pacific Islanders to apply traditional knowledge on the most pressing contemporary crisis. As climate change continues to threaten Pacific futures, we must take initiative in protecting our islands by passing on the lessons of our ancestors and incorporating them in our day to day practices.

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