DEAR EDITOR, on a day when an international report says rapid, far reaching and unprecedented changes are needed in all aspects of society to limit global warming, we are told that climate aid money is not reaching the most vulnerable in the Pacific.

Quoting from today’s Radio New Zealand’s news bulletin, 8 October 2018.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said limiting warming to 1.5 degrees compared to 2 degrees is necessary to ensure a more sustainable and equitable society.

“The report provides key scientific evidence ahead of the December climate change conference in Poland, when governments review the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.

“It said every extra bit of warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5 degrees or higher increases the risks of long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some ecosystems.

“The lower limit would reduce sea level rise by 10 centimetres by the end of the century, the Arctic Ocean would be free of sea ice in summer just once a century instead of once a decade, and coral reefs would decline by around 70 percent rather than be completely lost.

“It says “rapid and far-reaching” transitions are required and CO2 emissions will need to fall by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030.

“The report is clear that avoiding a warmer future above 1.5 degrees will bring significant benefits for millions of people who will face significantly reduced risks of flooding, food insecurity and climate stress, including Pacific communities,” said Associate Professor Bronwyn Hayward from Canterbury University, one of the report’s authors.

“The world is already seeing the consequences of 1 degrees of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, the report said.

“The IPCC noted good news in that some of the kinds of actions needed to limit global warming to 1.5ºC were already underway, but they did need to accelerate, with current decisions vital to ensuring a safe and sustainable world.”

Copyright @ 2018, Radio New Zealand.

Meanwhile, also quoting from Radio New Zealand, we learn that around the world money is being poured into helping vulnerable countries fight climate change.

But Caritas New Zealand director Julianne Hickey said finance was not getting beyond large institutions and government structures.

“We’ve heard time and time again from the Solomon Islands through to Tonga, to Papua New Guinea, that it is not reaching those who need it most and those who’ve done the least to cause the issues of climate change.”

Caritas Australia Pacific manager Stephanie Lalor said preparedness was where money was best spent.

“We know for every one dollar invested in mitigation, preparation activities at community level, we save ten dollars in the cost of actually then responding to the impact of a disaster.”

Sad to think, as many in the Pacific countries are saying, the people have become the victims of a problem others had caused.

DEAR EDITOR, quoting Radio New Zealand – 5 October 2018

“Climate change experts and Pacific Islands leaders say indigenous views must be included when it comes to creating regional policies on the issue.

“The importance of western and indigenous perspectives uniting when it comes to tackling climate change in the region was highlighted at a recent conference in Auckland.

“For all the lengthiness of its title, the “Climate Change and Conflict in the Pacific: Prevention, Management and the Enhancement of Community Resilience” workshop had a simple message: don’t forget about the Pacific.

“Despite being on the frontline of climate change impacts, Pacific Islanders’ own views on the issue are often absent from the current policy-making process.”

“Those claims are echoed by people like Reverend Dr Upolu Vaai from the Theological College in Fiji, who experiences the impact of climate change effects on the ground every day.

“The narrative, the climate change narrative has been dominated by either the scientific world view or perspective or the economic perspective where the indigenous perspective and indigenous world views are often excluded.”

“Building on the traditional wisdom and Pacific people’s understanding of their own environment is a challenge that Professor Kevin Clements, the Director of the Toda Peace Institute, said couldn’t be ignored.”

Copyright @ 2018, Radio New Zealand.

DEAR EDITOR, in contributing this piece I feel rather like one of Joab’s comforters but the threat we face from climate change, and especially in the Pacific, is a story that has to be told.

 My reference to Joab is because in the bible it is said three of Joab’s friends tried to make him feel better but only made things worse.

Joab answered his friends and said, “I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.” Job 16: 1-2 KJV.

Just a few days ago, Anoti Tong, the former President of Kiribati spoke about the growing threat of climate change to his nation.

He is widely reported to have said:

“Increasingly frequent king tides and storm surges, floods and longer droughts are new, unwelcome additions to our way of life on Kiribati.

“Sea level rise is turning our freshwater resources salty, rendering the land unable to grow staple crops such as coconut and taro, and eating away our shoreline.

“We are being told that we may have to abandon our islands, the places where our ancestors have been buried, where our children have a home and an identity.

“If this disastrous outcome comes to pass, my people will need a place of safety to move to. Rather than be regarded as “climate refugees” – a term that has no definition or status in the international legal system – I seek migration with dignity for my people.”

Quoting from an article in the US Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts Jr is quoted to have made a spectacular claim in a story he entitled, ‘We only have 10 years to save ourselves from climate change.”

In his lengthy piece, I will quote just one or two extracts.

“You see, something remarkable happened last week. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists working under the aegis of the United Nations, issued a report on our planet’s health. Turns out its worse than we thought. Barring prompt — and politically unlikely — measures to drastically cut carbon output within the next decade, they say we’ll begin to see worsening droughts, wildfires, coral reef decimation, coastal flooding, food shortages and poverty beginning as soon as 2040.

“You can expect mass evacuations from the most heavily impacted areas. As one of the report’s authors, Aromar Revi, director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, told The New York Times, “In some parts of the world, national borders will become irrelevant. You can set up a wall to try to contain 10,000 and 20,000 and 1 million people, but not 10 million.”

The commentary is necessarily subjective analysis, but Mr. Pitts seems to stand by it

 What is clear is the world is still lacking environmental leadership despite the forthright and best efforts of several Pacific Islands leaders in highlighting the very real dangers already evidenced by climate change.

DEAR EDITOR, the Solomons National Referral Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr John Hue said, recently, the country’s top causes for blindness and visual impairment is cataracts.

He said, “The top causes of blindness and visual impairment in the Solomon Islands in the age group of 40 years and above are cataracts meaning clouding of the natural lens in the eye.”

Other leading causes are refractive errors, he added.

Knowing that the Fred Hollows Foundation in New Zealand was responsible for the establishment of the Referral Eye Centre in Honiara and where much good work is being done daily to deal with patients with eye problems, I was interested to learn what the Foundation is currently doing to further aid the Solomon Islands Government and those suffering from visual impairment.

Laura McPike, the Project Officer from the Foundation, kindly responded to a query I made and referred me to the Foundation’s website from which I will quote to give readers an insight of what the New Zealand charity has done to appraise the situation of eye care needs and what is currently being done by way of training support.

Here are the relevant aspects:

“The Solomon Islands has a local eye care workforce who were trained by us at the Pacific Eye Institute in Fiji and operate from various hospitals and eye clinics across the country.

“All Foundation-trained eye doctors and the majority of the Foundation-trained nurses are based at the Regional Eye Centre in Honiara which we built in 2015.

 “With this facility providing increased surgical capacity, the team is working towards eliminating the backlog of cataracts and helping to address other eye conditions.

 “An outreach team from Honiara provides support to the other eye nurses placed across the country, helping deliver eye care services to their communities.

“The clinic is off-the-grid, producing more energy than it can use through its solar panel system.”

 “In the Solomon Islands last year:

·         “Foundation-trained Dr Claude Posala, now Head of Department for Ophthalmology at the Regional Eye Centre, completed the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology’s Leadership Development Program in March 2017.

·         “A national survey assessing the rates of avoidable blindness was conducted in 2017. The results from this survey will provide valuable information which will help us assess the impact The Foundation has had on eye care in the country to date and inform the development of our programme going forward.

·         “Two doctors have begun training in ophthalmology at the Pacific Eye Institute. These doctors are expected to graduate in 2019 and 2021.

·         “We expect to meet our training targets for eye nurses by the end of this year. These targets are based on international standards using population size then adjusted according to the geographic spread of the population.”

The Fred Hollows Foundation’s aid is much appreciated and the Foundation thanked for the great work being done in the Solomon Islands.

 I will very much look forward to learning that the backlog of cataract cases has been cleared and the patients that have suffered for so long with cataracts are able to see again and go about their daily activities with restored vision.

Yours sincerely

Frank Short

DEAR EDITOR, a report recently commissioned by the Solomon Islands’ ministry of finance suggested that if logging continues at its current pace, natural forests will be exhausted by 2036.

“The hugely unsustainable rate of logging, the high risks of illegality and the fact that the industry does little to benefit local people all create a bleak picture.

“Global Witness used satellite imagery and drone photography to determine the rate at which logging is taking place in the Solomon Islands.

“These images revealed vast swathes of deforested land, as well as over 12,000 km (7456 miles) of logging roads criss-crossing the tiny nation.

“One in every 20km of logging road in the Solomon Islands is above 400m in altitude, despite specific efforts by the government to limit deforestation in these zones.

“In their report, Global Witness highlighted China as a particularly worrying player in this situation. The Solomon Islands the second biggest source of tropical logs to China, after Papua New Guinea, the large Asian nation requires no checks to ensure these imports are legal or sustainable.

“As their investigation found these was a high risk that logging companies were not seeking permission from many local landowners or avoiding prohibited places, Global Witness concluded that some of the timber leaving these islands is likely illegally sourced.”

In a separate reported released by Radio New Zealand today (Thursday)the environmental group Global Witness is calling for a moratorium on all logging operations in the Solomon Islands.

“The report said logging companies are operating without the permission of local landowners, in prohibited places and without paying taxes owed.

“Global Witness Campaign Leader, Beibei Yin, said both China and the Solomon Islands need to put in place better protections.

DEAR EDITOR, according to a recent article published in the Island Sun newspaper and from which I quote.

“The Office of the Auditor-General has conducted a Performance Audit on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies. This was in recognition of the impact that Climate Change has and will have on islands in the Solomon Islands.”

Arising from that report the article went on to say –

“The National Climate Change Policy needs to be updated. There needs to be a Food Security Policy developed. There needs to be sufficient budget provision from Parliament to ensure effective policies exist and to ensure that ministries have sufficient resources to implement them effectively and in full. “Solomon Islands cannot stop the rise in sea level but it can become one of the best prepared countries in the world to deal with its consequences and ensure that its people can not only survive but prosper in the post-climate change world.”

When it comes to adaption it should be understood that only when there is likely to be a slow-onset in prolonged environmental changes that communities will have time to react and possibly adapt, but should climate change bring about rapid environmental events, such as frequent cyclones, increased sea levels and inland flooding, people will rarely have any other option but to move to higher ground, if possible, or to migrate.

Already in Kiribati increasingly frequent king tides and storm surges, floods and longer droughts are new, unwelcome additions to the islander’s way of life

Sea level rise has turned freshwater resources salty, rendering the land unable to grow staple crops such as coconut and taro, and eating away the shoreline.

Islanders are being told that they may have to abandon their islands, the places where their ancestors have been buried, where their children have a home and an identity.

Small Pacific nations are increasingly under threat from climate change not of their own making and it is time that those nations, corporations and leaders accept the science and lower carbon emissions, as outlined and agreed upon at the Paris Climate Conference.

If they value the continuing betterment of all nations and an interconnected world, they must take the action that is necessary to preserve the way of life for future generations to enjoy.

DEAR EDITOR, at a time when the Solomon Islands Government has past enabling anti-corruption legislation to curb corruption and the Prime Minister has gone out of his way to assure business and world leaders that the Solomon Islands is ensuring accountable and honest government, a rather disturbing report surfaced today in the Island Sun newspaper written by local veteran journalist Alfred Sasako.

In the article, Mr. Sasako, said, in an opening paragraph:

“When the Government introduced the ‘Preferred Supplier’ policy in 2016, no one ever thought one supplier would be raking in the lion share of the controversial Constituency Development Fund (CDF) grants controlled by Members of Parliament.”

His article went onto to make further allegations, and I will quote.

“A special investigation by Island Sun found that one company (name withheld) has picked up handsomely from government funding.

 “Figures obtained by Island Sun show the company, which sells vehicles, vehicle parts, Lucas mill and other hardware, clocked up more than $233 million between 2012 and September this year.

“In 2012 for example, payments to the company were slightly more than just $1.6 million. The following year, however, payments to the company skyrocketed to more than $10. 4 million. From then on, the increased payments simply continued skyward.

“A woman spoken to could not say whether Members of Parliament bought vehicles from the company as the boss was away overseas.

Whether the allegations raised by Mr. Sasako are true or not, it surely must be in the interest of the Solomon Islands Government to have such alleged ‘corruption’ actions investigated and appropriate and swift action taken if substantiated.