Exploring Potential Cultural Constraints to Climate Change Adaptation in the Manus Province of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The impacts of climate change threaten to exacerbate existing social inequities worldwide. For many populations, particularly those within island developing nations, the detrimental impacts of environmental changes are already being experienced and pose direct risks to people’s lives and their livelihoods. Accordingly government and non-governmental organisations are increasingly engaged in the process of planning for and implementing projects aimed at reducing the risks posed by climate change and enhancing the capacity of populations to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Papua New Guinea (PNG), the case study for this thesis, is a small island developing nation identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to its physical location (consisting of numerous islands some of which are low-lying), exposure and sensitivity to a wide range of climate impacts (including tropical cyclones, drought, and sea-level rise), and low adaptive capacity (including persistent poverty and limited resources). However, there is limited empirical research on how the impacts of climate change, in interaction with other social and ecological processes of change, are affecting PNG communities, how local communities are responding to changes within their local environment, and what can (or should) be done to ensure equitable, effective, and sustainable climate adaptation. This thesis aims to partly address the gap in the literature and focuses on community-based climate change adaptation initiatives introduced to two communities in PNG. In this thesis I explore the implementation of climate change adaptation initiatives in PNG in two locations, Andra Island and Tulu 2 communities, which are both in the Manus Province. The livelihoods of most people in both communities are highly dependent on local ecosystems and are therefore perceived to be highly sensitive to variable and changing climate conditions. In addition both communities continue to maintain their cultural beliefs, practices and traditions, despite ongoing westernised development projects in the province, and hold unique cosmological understandings of human-environmental relations that are radically different from western (Anglo- European) worldviews. Over the last five years several climate change adaptation projects have been introduced by NGOs into both communities with the aim of improving the capacity of communities to adapt to climate change. My research takes a case study-based approach to investigate the extent to which cultural values, governance arrangements, and belief systems are taken into account by government and NGOs efforts to assist communities’ adapt to the impacts of climate change. My research reveals that in both communities’ climate adaptation projects are being designed and run largely by external agencies, which lack a detailed appreciation of cultural values, place and livelihood attachments, and broader social structures. This failure to appreciate not only different cultural values and beliefs, but also the nature of governance arrangements, is serving to constrain the effectiveness of climate adaptation projects. Furthermore, inappropriate adaptation actions may potentially undermine the capacity of households and communities’ to respond to the impacts of climate change in the future by creating new vulnerabilities or reinforcing existing vulnerabilities (most notably by rearticulating gender inequalities). I identify three key constraints to climate change adaptation in the context of my case study sites: (i) livelihood preferences; (ii) lack of understanding of people’s worldviews, and, (iii) gender roles in decision making. This thesis raises questions about how adaptation projects are being designed, implemented and evaluated both in PNG and globally. In addition to a failure to consider different worldviews and value system in adaptation planning and actions, there is a fundamental lack of appreciation and critical reflection about the gendered nature of decision-making (and knowledge-production) in PNG (and elsewhere) and how women’s voices are largely excluded from both policy-making and practical actions. This thesis, therefore, contributes to the broader climate adaptation and sustainable development scholarship by challenging some of assumptions that underpin current indigenous-focused climate change adaptation, which often emphasis “culture” and “traditional knowledge”, without appreciation of social inequities and complex power dynamics at work in communities.