In 2013, super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, displacing four million people. In the disaster’s wake, the government announced that, given the country’s exposure to typhoons, it would enforce ‘no build zones’ (NBZs) within 40 metres of the high water…
The cross-border labour migration scheme proposed by the Kiribati government is an example of a governmental response to climate-induced change, where the demographic focal point is at the individual or household level. Kiribati is made up of 32 atolls scattered…
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…