Logos: Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology, COSPPac – Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific, SPREP, presents
Traditional Knowledge of Weather and Climate in the Pacific
“Accessing the Living Library” Increasing Community Resilience to Climate Extremes and Natural Disasters
[Voiceover]
Weather and climate traditional knowledge in the Pacific remains a significant source of information for decision-making in today's changing climate.
Through long term observations of their local environment, Pacific Islanders have developed techniques that have allowed them to make their own weather and climate predictions.
Tagaloa Cooper-Halo, Director, Climate Change Resilience, SPREP: Traditional knowledge is important to us as Pacific Islanders because it's ... it’s about who we are. Our cultures, our customs, our language, are all associated with the knowledge that we have.
When we apply the traditional knowledge to natural resources, that's how we have medicines, how we build our resilience, and how we know when to crop and when to plant different crops that are more resilient to the different seasons, and also when to fish and where to fish.
[Voiceover]
This knowledge has been passed orally from generation to generation and they are often in the forms of songs, stories, rituals, or practices.
Some of the traditional knowledge or stories we hear are often related to response technique for food preservation or where to collect water from in times of droughts.
[Spoken in local language]
Mulipola Titimaea, MNRE, Meteorological Division, SAMOA: Traditional knowledge has been used by our ancestors for many generation to predict the weather. This was before scientific forecasts.
Salesa Nihmei, Meteorology & Climate Officer, SPREP: Weather determines a lot of activities that we do.
So traditionally a lot of our ancestors have come up with ways of trying to predict the weather using the behavior of plants and animals. And a lot of it has been correct and is still being used today as indicators that indicate the type of weather or certain severe event, that communities will then prepare for.
[Voiceover]
The traditional knowledge on weather and climate projects was developed in response to increasing concerns that traditional knowledge of weather and climate in the Pacific was rapidly disappearing, and with it the potential to strengthen community resilience to extreme climate events.
Batick Heal Maurisco, Kaljoral Senta, VANUATU: In the northern part of Vanuatu the population use mainly traditional knowledge. They rely more on traditional knowledge than scientific knowledge.
Kila Kila, National Weather Service, PNG: Traditional and science – they look to give a better focus.
Seluvaia Finaulahi, Meteorological Services, TONGA: Traditional knowledge helps simplify and get the message across clearly to the public.
Lee Jacklick, Weather Office Majuro, MARSHALL ISLANDS: The Marshallese people are … were known to be very good skill in navigation and in meteorology but it is unfortunately, a dying art.
[Voiceover]
Traditional knowledge contains information that is useful and can be used for forecasting weather and climate events or can be used by communities during disaster preparedness.
Grace Sisilia Talagi, Farmer, NIUE: The yam grows it is expected to climb up the trees or up a pole that is shows that all is well there is no expected weather event. The yam creeps around the ground it's a very reliable indicator that major weather event is expected during the cyclone season or during the very high rainy season.
[Voiceover]
Traditional knowledge on weather and climate plays an important role in making the community resilient to climate extremes and geologic hazards such as droughts, flooding, severe weather events and tsunamis.
Lloyd Tahani, Meteorological Services, SOLOMON ISLANDS: Elderlies, they use traditional knowledge. By watching the currents around the island, the unusual movement, according to their wisdom, it tells them about a tropical cyclone coming. And also seeing the birds, seagull birds flying at the coastline of the island, facing the ocean. It tells them that strong wind is coming. And because of this traditional knowledge they prepare themselves and then they evacuate. They went into caves and hid themselves and when this Ca t5 Tropical Cyclone Joy hit, there were no casualties. And that is a tremendous outcome of using their traditional knowledge.
[Spoken in local language]
Mulipola Titimaea, MNRE, Meteorological Division, SAMOA: We need to record these information on traditional knowledge in a database in order to do research to verify its accuracy.
Tauraki Raea, Korero o Te Orau, COOK ISLANDS: With the collection of all this information and teaching them to the future generation, it gives them some sense of who they are, where they come from and things like that.
Salesa Nihmei, Meteorology & Climatology Officer, SPREP: For a lot of knowledge that we use in the Pacific especially for weather and climate probably needs further studies to be to be able to determine and come up with a relationship on why they behave that way. But for a lot of the communities they have been accurate and that's why they have been used different flowering behavior of different plants, the behavior of certain animals, insects they have been able to link it to a certain type of weather or severe weather event.
Tagaloa Cooper-Halo, Director, Climate Change Resilience, SPREP: We are not the experts in traditional knowledge. Our elders are the experts and we are here to learn from them. Because we don't want a library to burn when an elder dies. We want to be able to, to you know, take information, receive information, from our elders to build the resilience of the Pacific that we have now and the Pacific that our children will inherit.
[Caption: The COSPPac TK Team acknowledges the Pacific Elders, Climate/Weather Observers and everyone who played an important role in advancing this work including those who are no longer with us. We remember your valuable contributions and we acknowledge greatly your support]
[Voiceover]
This project is funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Climate and Ocean Support Program in the Pacific. Implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, in collaboration with the National meteorology services and national partners.
Produced by Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program in collaboration with Australian Bureau of Meteorology and National Meteorological Services of: Niue, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Republic of Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia.
Funded by Government of Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Filmed with permission at COSPPac Regional workshop on the Role of Traditional Knowledge, in building community resilience to, climate extremes and geo-hazards, Hotel Elisa, Apia, Samoa, 12–14 June 2018.
Thank you, Tagaloa Cooper-Halo, Salesa Nihmei, Kila Kila, Seluvaia Finaulahi, Lee Jacklick, Tauraki Raea, Lloyd Tahani, Grace Sisilia Talagi, and Mulipola Titimaea.
Video coordinated by COSPPac Team, Siosinamele Lui, Lynda Chambers, Production WT Media.
Traditional Knowledge of Weather and Climate in the Pacific
“Accessing the Living Library” Increasing Community Resilience to Climate Extremes and Natural Disasters
[Voiceover]
Weather and climate traditional knowledge in the Pacific remains a significant source of information for decision-making in today's changing climate.
Through long term observations of their local environment, Pacific Islanders have developed techniques that have allowed them to make their own weather and climate predictions.
Tagaloa Cooper-Halo, Director, Climate Change Resilience, SPREP: Traditional knowledge is important to us as Pacific Islanders because it's ... it’s about who we are. Our cultures, our customs, our language, are all associated with the knowledge that we have.
When we apply the traditional knowledge to natural resources, that's how we have medicines, how we build our resilience, and how we know when to crop and when to plant different crops that are more resilient to the different seasons, and also when to fish and where to fish.
[Voiceover]
This knowledge has been passed orally from generation to generation and they are often in the forms of songs, stories, rituals, or practices.
Some of the traditional knowledge or stories we hear are often related to response technique for food preservation or where to collect water from in times of droughts.
[Spoken in local language]
Mulipola Titimaea, MNRE, Meteorological Division, SAMOA: Traditional knowledge has been used by our ancestors for many generation to predict the weather. This was before scientific forecasts.
Salesa Nihmei, Meteorology & Climate Officer, SPREP: Weather determines a lot of activities that we do.
So traditionally a lot of our ancestors have come up with ways of trying to predict the weather using the behavior of plants and animals. And a lot of it has been correct and is still being used today as indicators that indicate the type of weather or certain severe event, that communities will then prepare for.
[Voiceover]
The traditional knowledge on weather and climate projects was developed in response to increasing concerns that traditional knowledge of weather and climate in the Pacific was rapidly disappearing, and with it the potential to strengthen community resilience to extreme climate events.
Batick Heal Maurisco, Kaljoral Senta, VANUATU: In the northern part of Vanuatu the population use mainly traditional knowledge. They rely more on traditional knowledge than scientific knowledge.
Kila Kila, National Weather Service, PNG: Traditional and science – they look to give a better focus.
Seluvaia Finaulahi, Meteorological Services, TONGA: Traditional knowledge helps simplify and get the message across clearly to the public.
Lee Jacklick, Weather Office Majuro, MARSHALL ISLANDS: The Marshallese people are … were known to be very good skill in navigation and in meteorology but it is unfortunately, a dying art.
[Voiceover]
Traditional knowledge contains information that is useful and can be used for forecasting weather and climate events or can be used by communities during disaster preparedness.
Grace Sisilia Talagi, Farmer, NIUE: The yam grows it is expected to climb up the trees or up a pole that is shows that all is well there is no expected weather event. The yam creeps around the ground it's a very reliable indicator that major weather event is expected during the cyclone season or during the very high rainy season.
[Voiceover]
Traditional knowledge on weather and climate plays an important role in making the community resilient to climate extremes and geologic hazards such as droughts, flooding, severe weather events and tsunamis.
Lloyd Tahani, Meteorological Services, SOLOMON ISLANDS: Elderlies, they use traditional knowledge. By watching the currents around the island, the unusual movement, according to their wisdom, it tells them about a tropical cyclone coming. And also seeing the birds, seagull birds flying at the coastline of the island, facing the ocean. It tells them that strong wind is coming. And because of this traditional knowledge they prepare themselves and then they evacuate. They went into caves and hid themselves and when this Ca t5 Tropical Cyclone Joy hit, there were no casualties. And that is a tremendous outcome of using their traditional knowledge.
[Spoken in local language]
Mulipola Titimaea, MNRE, Meteorological Division, SAMOA: We need to record these information on traditional knowledge in a database in order to do research to verify its accuracy.
Tauraki Raea, Korero o Te Orau, COOK ISLANDS: With the collection of all this information and teaching them to the future generation, it gives them some sense of who they are, where they come from and things like that.
Salesa Nihmei, Meteorology & Climatology Officer, SPREP: For a lot of knowledge that we use in the Pacific especially for weather and climate probably needs further studies to be to be able to determine and come up with a relationship on why they behave that way. But for a lot of the communities they have been accurate and that's why they have been used different flowering behavior of different plants, the behavior of certain animals, insects they have been able to link it to a certain type of weather or severe weather event.
Tagaloa Cooper-Halo, Director, Climate Change Resilience, SPREP: We are not the experts in traditional knowledge. Our elders are the experts and we are here to learn from them. Because we don't want a library to burn when an elder dies. We want to be able to, to you know, take information, receive information, from our elders to build the resilience of the Pacific that we have now and the Pacific that our children will inherit.
[Caption: The COSPPac TK Team acknowledges the Pacific Elders, Climate/Weather Observers and everyone who played an important role in advancing this work including those who are no longer with us. We remember your valuable contributions and we acknowledge greatly your support]
[Voiceover]
This project is funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Climate and Ocean Support Program in the Pacific. Implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, in collaboration with the National meteorology services and national partners.
Produced by Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program in collaboration with Australian Bureau of Meteorology and National Meteorological Services of: Niue, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Republic of Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia.
Funded by Government of Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Filmed with permission at COSPPac Regional workshop on the Role of Traditional Knowledge, in building community resilience to, climate extremes and geo-hazards, Hotel Elisa, Apia, Samoa, 12–14 June 2018.
Thank you, Tagaloa Cooper-Halo, Salesa Nihmei, Kila Kila, Seluvaia Finaulahi, Lee Jacklick, Tauraki Raea, Lloyd Tahani, Grace Sisilia Talagi, and Mulipola Titimaea.
Video coordinated by COSPPac Team, Siosinamele Lui, Lynda Chambers, Production WT Media.