Sunday, 22 January 2017

What Makes the Pacific Resilient?


What makes the Pacific so resilient? Often times, too much of the discourse on resilience focuses on the policy and strategy level - at the global and national levels. This is important because it raises awareness of the issues at hand. But policy and strategy don’t actually make people resilient.

There were two fantastic articles on resilience which change the nature of the discussion out recently. The first looked at how resilience is actually just about ‘small victories’ in adapting to new situations on the ground - at the local level. Which is really what it’s all about, isn’t it?

The second looked at how people ‘learn’ to become resilient. We treat and talk about resilience like it's a new idea, like it's something we’ve never encountered before. In fact, it’s something that has existed since the beginning of time - it’s about strengths and weaknesses and survival. What about us as individuals and communities makes us capable of adapting? Is resilience about how vulnerable we are or about how proactive and protective we are?

These articles give a lot of insight into why the Pacific is so resilient - it’s community-based and it’s forward looking. The culture of being ‘victims of vulnerability’ never really established itself, although certainly communities and individuals have been victimized on many occasions. When it comes to things like natural disasters and climate change, people prepare and then they get on with it. In many parts of the world, people prepare and then wait for someone else to get them back on track. They never have a chance to use their own skills and knowledge to adapt to a crisis or changing circumstances. Being isolated, as the Pacific is, waiting for someone to come ‘fix things’ has never been an option.

The Pacific is highly vulnerable to so many things, most importantly disasters and climate change. But it is simultaneously tremendously resilient because its people have had no other choice but to be so - resilience may be ‘learned’ but in the Pacific it just is. It’s a positive thing - it’s a strength rather than a weakness and it’s a lesson that the development and humanitarian community need to export to other regions of the world.

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