Handling Weather Disasters: The Resilience and Adaptive Capacity of Pacific Island Communities

Abstract

Handling weather disasters through the lens of earlier disasters, as well as recent ones such as Cyclone Winston in Fiji, and other recent floods, the resilience and adaptation of peoples are examined here. How people prepare for, then cope with disasters, utilizing indigenous knowledge systems is shown as still having significance in the contemporary era. Modern disaster planning needs to take account of such knowledge and especially acknowledge that people have far more awareness of how to prepare than planners often give communities credit for. The need to understand customary management practices, including land tenure systems and leadership should not be ignored.