As the seas rise and the fish decrease, this faithful village finds new ways of adapting

In the village of Nagigi, Fiji, the ocean is not only a resource – that is part of the identity of the community. But in recent years, the villagers have seen the sea behave differently. The tides grow inside the land. Once abundant, fish are now more difficult to find. The sandy beaches and the cocolles were swept away.

Like many coastal communities, including those in the Pacific Islands region, this village is now undergoing real pressure of climate change and the drop in fish stocks. Fishing methods are no longer guaranteed, while extreme weather conditions and coastal erosion threaten houses and land. As a villager told us:

We do not easily find fish, not compared to previous times […] Certain species of fish that we saw before are no longer there.

When stories like this get advertising, they are often formulated as a story of loss. Pacific islanders can be described as passive victims of climate change.

But Nagigi’s experience is not just a matter of vulnerability. As our new research shows, these are the actions that people are undertaken to deal with changes already here. In response to the fall in the number of fish and to diversify livelihoods, women leaders have launched a new aquaculture project, and they replanted mangroves to slow down the lead.

Adaptation is uneven. Many people do not want or cannot leave their homes. But as climate change intensifies, change will be inevitable. Nagigi’s experience highlights the importance of communities that work collectively to respond to threats.

An undesirable change is there

The communities on which we concentrate, the village of Nagigi (630 inhabitants) and the colony BIA-I-GAKE (60 years old) are located in the Bay of Savusavu in Vanua Levu, the second largest island of Fiji. Fishing and marine resources are at the heart of their livelihoods and food security.

In 2021 and 2023, we led group discussions (known as talk) and interviews to discover the changes seen and the adaptations carried out.

Nagigi residents have noticed unwanted changes in recent years. As a woman told us:

Sometimes the sea goes further on land, so there is a lot of sea intrusion into plantations, even flooding on the ground where it had never been

In 2016, the devastating tropical cyclone Winston destroyed houses and forced certain residents of Nagigi to move inside the land to the custom postpone land belonging to their clan.

As a resident said:

Our relocation was fluid because […] We have just moved to our own land, our Mataqali land.

But some residents did not have access to this land, while others did not want to move away from the coast. A man told us:

Leave us here. I think that if I don’t feel or hear the ocean for a day, I would be devastated.

Adaptation occurs

A striking aspect of the adaptation to Nagigi was the management of women, especially in the small bia-i-Gake colony.

In recent years, the Bia-I-Irake Women’s cooperative has launched a small-scale aquaculture project to cultivate Tilapia and carp to fight against the fall of fish stocks in the ocean, fight growing food insecurity and create new livelihoods.

The women of the cooperative built fish ponds, learned to raise the fish to a good size and started selling the fish, including by streaming the sale live. The project was supported by a small subsidy of the United Nations Development Program and the Fiji Women’s Fund.

Recently, the women of the cooperative moved into the replanting of mangroves to slow it down coastal erosion and build a greenhouse to cultivate new cultures.

As a woman told us, these efforts show that women “have the capacity to build a sustainable, secure and prosperous community”.

The community’s responses are based on traditional structures and social values, such as respect for vanua – the faithful and peaceful concept of the way in which land, sea, people, customs and spiritual beliefs are interconnected – as well as the stewardship of natural resources and collective decision -making by clans and elders, women and men.

Nagigi residents have moved to temporarily close certain usual fishing grounds to give fish populations a chance to recover. The village also plans to declare a locally managed marine area (called tabu). This is a response to climatic impacts as well as damage to reefs, pollution and overfishing.

For generations, the village residents have protected local ecosystems which in turn support the village. But what is new is how these practices are reinforced and formalized to meet new challenges.

Adaptation is uneven

While adaptation produces successes, it is unevenly widespread. Not everyone has access to customary land for relocation and all households cannot afford to rebuild damaged houses.

What Nagigi teaches us, however, is the importance of local adaptation. Villagers have demonstrated how a community can anticipate risks, react to change and threats, recover damage and take advantage of new opportunities.

Small communities are not only passive sites of loss. These are collectives of force, agency and ingenuity. As adaptation efforts are evolving in the Pacific, it is important to recognize and support local initiatives such as those of Nagigi.

The sharing of effective adaptation methods can give ideas and hope to other communities under the actual pressure of climate change and other threats.

Many communities do their best to often adapt to an adaptation led by the community, even despite the limited access to the Pacific nations to global climate finance.

The example of Nagigi shows that climate and environmental changes are already only among the grasics. But it is also a question of finding ways to live well in an uncertainty and to climb the risks by using the place, the tradition and the community.

The authors recognize the support of the inhabitants of Nagigi and Bia-I-Gake, and in particular the cooperative of women Bia-I-Gake, to share their time and their ideas.