Over decades, the small community of Walande has seen their offshore home in Solomon Islands battered by cyclones, storm surges and sea level rise. Relocating to the mainland of Malaita—the nation’s most populous island—the community still faces uncertainty and potential displacement in the
future.
The people of Walande certainly won’t be the last to be displaced by the adverse effects of climate change, and their resilience holds many lessons for communities, churches and governments grappling with this existential threat to island ecosystems, livelihoods and cultures.
Richard Kwai is a community elder in Walande, a village of around 800 people. He is one of many displaced community members who have shared their story in “There’s Just No More Land” – a new report by the non-government organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Kwai explains that their village, originally located on a small artificial island off the southern coast of Malaita, faced environmental threats that steadily built up over decades. “The first destruction to the island was in 1986 when Cyclone Namu destroyed Solomon Islands,” he said. “People escaped to the mainland and resided on the mainland for about one week while the artificial island was destroyed.
After one week, they came back and rebuilt the island again to its original size.”
Over time, other adverse effects of climate change steadily affected water supply and food security, with the island affected by flooding during storm surges and coastal erosion. “2009 was the worst time for climate change,” Kwai said. “Properties on the island were all destroyed, and houses were washed away. The sea washed through the village and destroyed the houses in the middle of the village.” He explained that by the mid-2010s, much of the community had relocated to the mainland, as the island became unliveable: “We are people migrating from one place to place. When they come to settle here, they become friends with the landowners here. They become best friends, and the best friends allow them to live in this part of southern Malaita.”
However, testimony from the community presented in HRW’s report reveals that some community members are considering yet another relocation. A young and growing population is living without enough land to support them, and the ocean is now breaching seawalls designed to protect the
mainland site, affecting their capacity to grow traditional foods.
“We are still feeling the effect of climate change in terms of food security,” Kwai explains. “Most of our gardening on the coast is already washed away. Our basic food is swamp taro. But now, I think about 80% of the swamp taro is already destroyed and people no longer have enough of that crop.”
He said that the community once lived surrounded by the ocean, but now, it’s harder to access fishing grounds: “In terms of fishing, we have the places where we used to fish; people find it difficult to catch fish now because the environment is changed. The fish habitats are already destroyed, and people move even farther to find fish.”
Already reliant on the goodwill of Malaitan customary landowners, their 50-hectare plot of land is no longer sufficient to support the community. Young people are drifting to the capital Honiara and options are limited. For Richard Kwai, “We’ll have to convince the landowners to allow us to expand the boundary. With negotiation, perhaps we can break through. It depends on the landowners – if they are willing, they can extend the boundary for us.”
For all the challenges they face, the people of Walande have successfully navigated the changing environment, drawing on community bonds and limited government support to rebuild their community on safer ground. It’s a striking example of community-initiated relocation, drawing on cultural ties with neighbours. But Walande is not the only village around the Pacific that may be forced to relocate more than once, as livelihoods and ecosystems are still threatened by the adverse effects of climate change.
Uprooted peoples
The Pacific Ocean is home to many uprooted peoples, displaced by colonial labour policy, warfare, nuclear testing, or forced resettlement by colonial states. Climate displacement echoes this colonial history, but today, global warming is recognised as a more existential security threat to people across the region, impacting low-lying atoll nations, drought-affected highland valleys, and even the Forum’s largest member, with Australian communities battered by mega-fires and repeated flooding.
Media headlines often highlight the plight of “climate refugees”, but most displaced people have not crossed an international border, and refugee law does not currently recognise climate change as creating obligations for state protection.
Erica Bowers is a climate displacement researcher and co-author of the Human Rights Watch report. She notes that with internal climate displacement, local governments and neighbouring communities bear the cost of hosting families driven from their home.
“The climate crisis is a human rights crisis, and we see planned relocation of whole communities as an issue where considerable human rights challenges apply, before, during and after the relocation,” she told Islands Business. “There’s a lot of focus on cross-border relocation, so-called climate refugees, but the reality is that more people are moving internally through local-scale relocation.”
Forum member governments have started to address the multifaceted issues raised by community relocation, even though the issue lags behind action on emissions reductions and climate adaptation. With support from UN agencies and non-government organisations, new policies are being developed that recognise displacement involves complex issues around housing, land access, livelihoods, and property rights in a region with extensive customary land ownership.
New Pacific guidelines
Pacific governments have begun to develop formal guidelines, standards and policies to address climate
displacement in a manner that respects the culture, capacities and human rights of affected communities.
“The need for these policies is coming from the ground up,” Erica Bowers notes, “but at the same time, there is also increasing discussion at a global level, in the UNFCCC Global Task Force on Displacement, the Platform on Disaster Displacement, at IOM (the International Organization for Migration) and other agencies who are working on this policy at a global scale.”
In 2013, Displacement Solutions developed “The Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement within States”, which detailed a diverse range of issues that governments must address for displaced communities: land acquisition providing both transitional shelter and permanent housing; the preservation of social and cultural institutions, chieftainships and clan relations disrupted by displacement; equal access to public services; aiding family and community cohesion; addressing the concerns and priorities of the host community that owns land used by displaced people; and the
establishment of grievance procedures and effective remedies to address related social disruption and intercommunal tensions.
It’s a long list and hardly surprising that most Pacific governments often lack the resources and staff to assist uprooted peoples in a way that respects their human rights and cultural aspirations.
In 2018, Fiji’s Ministry of Economy and other government departments adopted the Fiji Planned Relocation Guidelines. The same year, Vanuatu’s National Policy on Climate Change and Disaster-Induced Displacement was adopted, aiming to address “displacement risks in the broader mobility context of Vanuatu, including traditional and customary land arrangements, development pressures and rural to urban migration, recognising that displacement is triggered not only by natural hazards, but also from other crises.”
In Solomon Islands, the experience of dislocated communities like Walande led to the adoption of Planned Relocation Guidelines in 2022. The policy stresses the need to support community-initiated planned relocations, maintain adequate living standards and protect people’s rights and communities’ cultures. It notes the “requirement for people centred, participatory and inclusive dialogue and decision
making at all stages of the relocation. Ensuring ownership by Affected Communities is necessary to facilitate the protection of the rights and dignity of all people involved in relocation and is essential for durable solutions.”
The Guidelines aim to ensure that all communities have a central role in outlining their future needs and aspirations with respect to relocation, climate adaptation and sustainable development, and are able to direct the relocation process before, during, and after the relocation itself.”
Intangible cultural trauma
Civil society groups have also highlighted the more intangible elements of climate displacement, as communities moved away from customary land, ancestral burial grounds and sites of cultural heritage. Moving to a new home without land rights can bring a mix of emotions and trauma, as well as the disruption of community leadership in the new location.
Recent examples of climate displacement have also highlighted the reality that there is not one affected
“community”, given different and sometimes competing interests based on age, gender and access to land. Many displaced peoples are grappling with challenges to the old order: in a new location, for example, will women get access to land rights in ways that differ from traditional ownership in their previous home? Are chiefs still chiefs if they are no longer customary landowners? What greater role can young people play in decision making, given they will live on through the worsening conditions predicted by climate scientists in coming decades?
Churches across the Pacific, which have long provided support to uprooted peoples, have been grappling with these concerns for many years. In 2004, members of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) gathered in Kiribati to develop their collective response to the climate emergency. They adopted the
Otin Taai Declaration on Climate Change, which posed the responsibility for theological, pastoral and practical support for communities affected by climate change.
Fast forward 20 years, and the PCC gathered again in Suva in May 2024 on the 20th anniversary of the Otin Taai Declaration, to revisit and update their commitment to climate action. Alongside advocacy on emissions reduction and climate finance, church leaders recognised the particular psychological, spiritual and emotional trauma resulting from climate displacement.
The meeting adopted the Tuākoi ‘Lei Declaration, using the Tuvaluan term for Good Neighbour or Loving Neighbour.
Recognising the growing need to address cultural loss through pastoral care, the updated declaration calls for “Pacific churches to work with partners to develop a network for trauma counselling that addresses the fear, worry, distress and damage caused by climate change and climate-induced
migration.”
The challenge is growing across hundreds of islands, even as overseas donors shift resources away from development assistance and climate finance towards wars and tax benefits for wealthy citizens. What support can climate displaced communities now expect from governments, even as they mobilise themselves to map community vulnerability and prepare for the rising seas?
The HRW report “There’s Just No More Land” includes a series of recommendations for Pacific governments and international donors, on how to integrate displacement and relocation into disaster planning policy. As always, more resources are needed: between 2011-2021, Solomon Islanders
received an average of US$20 per person, per year in foreign aid for climate adaptation. For Erica Bowers, “this is far, far less than what is needed. People need small, incremental but concrete assistance to address current concerns. It’s about livelihoods today, it’s about finding access to food today.”
“The landscape of funding at a global scale is changing,” she added. “It is essential that climate adaptation, especially for communities like Walande, is not forgotten or pushed off the table. There’s a lot of competing priorities right now, but reducing risks today, helping communities adapt today, will enable them in future to thrive, not just survive.”
