Two of the main issues in disaster response, which are relevant throughout Fiji and Tonga, but especially for remote islands, are transport and
communication. One aid organisation representative estimated that 30-40% of villages and communities in Vanua Levu (the second main island in Fiji) are accessible only by boat. However, few aid organisations use this form of transport and fewer still ever make it to the isolated islands. I was told that there are no aid organisations specialising in going to the outer islands, and most focus only on the two main islands, relying on government to assist everywhere else. Neither aid organisations nor the government departments responsible for disaster risk management own boats for use in disaster response or risk reduction work, so they rely on navy, local businesses and individuals to provide transport for them. This means that there are many villages and
communities that are either inaccessible, or for which transportation is very difficult all the time, let alone after a disaster. Some disaster risk reduction work is done on outer islands, but this is dependent on donor funding, and the willingness of those donors to pay the higher costs involved in working in isolated areas.
From the villagers’ perspective, being on an outer island has both
advantages and disadvantages. Having a reliance on the sea and fishing to fall back on after a disaster was recognised as an advantage of their island,
compared with isolated communities on the main islands. However, the length of time it takes for help to reach their island is a source of angst, with some believing that it was not worth the wait. One person said that they should receive money as aid after a disaster, because it represents fuel to reach the mainland.
The government in Fiji recognised the apparent double standard in the provisions supplied to evacuation centres on the main islands compared with outer islands. However, it was justified as being about the distance evacuation centres are from home. On outer islands, evacuation centres are by definition, within the communities. A government representative argued that on the main islands, being in an evacuation centre often requires being completely removed
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from your community or village. However, most evacuation centres throughout Fiji are schools, community halls or churches, which are located within
communities. Therefore, it will not be everyone at an evacuation centre who is a long distance from their home. Equally, the school on the island I studied in Fiji was located in one of the villages, but served both, as well as villages in neighbouring islands. Clearly, not all villages in the outer islands have evacuation centres co-located.
In Tonga, the contrast between outer and main islands was certainly less, probably because there are fewer aid organisations involved in the whole country, and because there is at least one, Mainstreaming of Rural
Development Innovation (MORDI) specialising in remote communities. Their goal is “to improve the sustainable livelihoods of the poor people in rural areas and isolated islands in Tonga”. Another, the Tongan National Youth Congress acts as an outreach services for other aid organisations into the remote
communities through their youth representatives in every village. However, there is still a common perception that isolated islands do get left out by aid organisations, donors and governments.
One aid organisation representative, talking about climate change adaptation project funding said:
So the government are only doing this for the capital of Ha’apai, and the capital of Tongatapu. Maybe the donor ignore all the islands, and also the government ignore the islands. So they protect the capital only. All the donor come to Pangai, all the donor come to Nukua’lofa. Or maybe the donor come and the government said Pangai or said Nukua’lofa. They ignore the isolated island like this (Tonga, aid organisation representative).
The community members too noted that being on an outer island changes the experience of disasters:
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It’s different. We live in the island, and it’s away from the main island. That’s the one problem. If we have some cyclone and some problems, it’s different to…the main island, to Pangai. So what thing we looking for, we pray,
kai (food) or not (Tonga, male villager aged 35-44
years).
Recognition of the resilience of those on remote islands came from government, aid organisations and the community itself in Tonga. Aid organisations spoke of main islanders viewing those on the outer islands as
having more traditional knowledge about warning signs and fale building, as
well as the resilience brought about by getting food from the sea. There were also comparisons made with the experience of western countries in disasters (as depicted in media reports), from the perspective that Tongan need to hang on to their resilience:
I mean that we’ve all been proud of in the past. When people have cyclone comes, we hit, then we got and built up and move on. We don’t want to see like when Cyclone Katrina hit the United States. The people were
completely lost. You remove the supermarket from them, and completely lost. They have no resilience whatsoever. People crying, I don’t know what to do with my babies now, I’ve got no milk, there’s no water. When I look at that kind of things, I think, well, I’m glad I’m Tongan
(Tonga, government representative).
How should aid work in this instance, and what is sustainable into a climate changed future of increased disasters? Should provisions be supplied to
evacuation centres that can easily be reached under a ‘we’ll do what we can’ scenario? People in other centres that are less accessible will have to fend for themselves and that is just the way it is? Those who are not helped in this way must be more prepared and self-reliant. Every dollar spent on this aid is a dollar not available for some other kinds of aid. So if those in isolated areas can look after themselves in the immediate aftermath, should those in regional and urban areas be expected to also? Or should greater efforts by made to reach
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isolated communities and outer islands sooner? Who is really more in need? Those in remote areas are more likely to have farms and crops but in regional and urban areas, people are more likely to have access to money and shops. The picture changes when we are talking about medical help for people who have been injured or killed in a disaster, especially on a remote island when communication and transport are disrupted. Is the response able to make this shift in urgency? The issue is complex, with no simple solutions. However into the future, with an increasing demand on post-disaster recovery efforts, money should be spent where it will have the most impact.
There is almost unanimous agreement that this is in disaster risk reduction and community education, not disaster response. Perhaps the policy focus should shift from doing the most possible for the highest possible number of people as quickly as possible, to embracing and expanding the self reliance and preparation people on outer islands have no choice but to exhibit. Rather than being the forgotten minority, the outer island communities may be a useful starting point. At the moment, people on the outer islands wait two to three weeks for aid to arrive and, according to aid organisation and government interviewees, those in the main islands are in outcry if two to three days have passed before aid arrives. Meeting somewhere in the middle may be more sustainable into the future, rather than continuing and expanding the current main islands approach.