Tiny islands looking to make big waves in climate fight

The closest I’ve ever come to paradise on Earth is Vanuatu.

- ROSIE DIMANNO

A young boy walks through the ruins of his family home in Port Vila, Vanuatu, in the aftermath of cyclone Pam in 2015. This week, Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa, islands on the front lines of the destructive forces of climate change, made a formal proposal at the International Criminal Court to recognize "ecocide" as a prosecutable charge alongside genocide and war crimes.

The volcanic archipelago, in the South Pacific, doesn’t have the exotic island allure of Tahiti or Fiji. So it doesn’t have the invasive resorts and mutating pleasure sprawl to accommodate mass tourism either. Though it does draw a steady flow of vacationers from Australia and New Zealand, globetrotters who appreciate Vanuatu’s largely unsullied delights: pristine waters, starfish-studded lagoons, lush rainforest, beaches of black sand and an oft-belligerent volcano on Tanna. Spewed ash, sulphur and boulder-sized rocks when I tried climbing it.

Some cruise ships have recently invaded Vanuatu — formerly called New Hebrides, “discovered” by Capt. James Cook in 1774 (it had been settled by natives since 2000 BC), reached by loyal remnants of Capt. William Bligh’s HMS Bounty after the mutiny, descended upon by missionaries (eaten, as delectable “long pig”), subsequently territorially claimed by France and the United Kingdom, gained independence in 1980.

Poor enough, as a nation, that it’s on the UN’s “least developed category” list, entitling Vanuatu to preferential market access and capacity building.

But ni-Vanuatu (people of the archipelago’s 83 islands, population 330,000) understand the biosphere of their frail world deep in their bones, the confluence of nature and humanity, the tenuous ecosystem of their existence, the dire impact of climate change and environmental destruction, both existentially and societally in a country where fishing is the main occupation and citizens subsist on an annual average income of merely $3,420 (U.S.).