Policy frameworks on disasters and human mobility tend to focus on the role of governments in responding to displacement and on state-based mechanisms for facilitating relocation. However, Pacific states face a number of governance constraints in responding to disaster-related human…
Eleven coal ships were due to collect their cargo from Newcastle in Australia during the daytime of 17 October 2014. Only one ship succeeded in doing so. The other ten were turned away because thirty Pacific Islanders and hundreds of…
Samoa, located in the southern Pacific Ocean and with a population of around 190,000 people concentrated on two main islands (Savaii and Upolu), is very vulnerable to climate change with at least 70% of the population and infrastructure located in…
Both the colonisation process and the mandate and trusteeship systems developed in the aftermath of the first and second World Wars had a profound effect on regional mobility in Oceania. They provided the foundations for a multiplicity of sub-regional ‘clusters’…
The complexity of the drivers that displace communities increases the risks associated with future natural hazards, while exacerbating their existing vulnerabilities. Communities can reduce their vulnerability to displacement by better preparing for disasters and climate change; if displacement does occur,…
The global narrative of the impacts of climate change on islands often presents island communities as refugees in waiting. This popular discourse is at odds with the local perceptions of climate change in Lakshadweep, a group of islands off the…
Assam state in north-eastern India experiences annual floods which displace people, destroy crops, kill livestock and damage infrastructure. Dependence on natural resource-based livelihoods in an area that is also less developed makes local households vulnerable to floods. Lakhimpur district of…
In the Greater Mekong Subregion[1] there is a strong correlation between people’s perception of negative environmental changes and decisions about migration. However, it is also clear that other factors are equally if not more important in decisions about migration, and…
The difficulty of isolating environmental factors from other drivers of migration[1] still exists but no-one now seems to deny their importance as a driving force of displacement. The concept of ‘environmental migration’ is now a common feature in migration studies,…
The Nansen Initiative focused initially on cross-border displacement in the context of natural disasters and climate change. In practice, though, as the initiative has evolved, its focus has broadened, in recognition that to consider cross-border displacement it is also necessary…