Community participation, situated knowledge and climate change (Mal-) adaptation in rural island communities: Evidence from artificial shoreline protection structures in Fiji

Small Island Developing States like Fiji are climate change hotspots. Adaptation to climate change is thus paramount. Research has underlined the importance of indigenous or local knowledge and community participation for island communities to successfully adapt to the effects of a changing climate, such as sea-level rise and shoreline change. Yet, indigenous knowledge and community participation are not enough. We here point to the need to combine indigenous and scientific knowledges. We use the example of seawalls in rural Fiji communities to illustrate our argument. Although seawalls are very popular throughout the Fiji archipelago (and beyond), they are largely ineffective and unsustainable solutions to a long-term problem. Particularly in rural locations, seawalls fail to reduce shoreline erosion and groundwater salinization, or to protect infrastructure and settlements from flooding. Although the decision-making process is participatory and bottom-up, and although local knowledge inputs to decision-making may be considerable, integration of local and scientific knowledge to create adaptive, situated knowledge and to build climate resilient communities is generally lacking. Successful climate change adaptation requires informed investigation of the local context, the drivers of change, and local inhabitants’ awareness of the consequences of different response measures. To create such situated knowledge through community participation, scientific information on climate change as well as the advantages and disadvantages of various coping strategies must be effectively communicated to community decision-makers and integrated with existing local cultural knowledge. Real empowerment requires appropriately skilled persons with both a scientific understanding of climate change combined with a sense of locality and a vested interest in the long-term security of its inhabitants