The human rights struggles of the Banaban community offer important lessons for climate mobility policy and the impact that climate change has on marginalized groups, including Indigenous communities and women and girls. As a community forcibly removed from their homes due to the devastating impacts of colonial phosphate mining in 1945, they have already experienced the displacement and dispossession that will become common across the Pacific Islands and other low-lying regions in the coming years and decades. Their demands and their story is an essential one that we have been working to bring to the global stage.
We're thrilled to share that our first-ever art exhibition in Auckland, which was centered around highlighting the struggles facing the Banaban community, was a huge success. The co-created exhibit Justice for Rabi: The Story of Banaba was visited by over 600 guests and featured 80 new commissioned artworks from the Banaban Womens Organization and Banaban students.
The feedback from the exhibition was inspiring. One visitor shared: "I was blown away by the stories and history of the Banaban community, before this exhibition I did not know New Zealand’s involvement in the mining and how our agricultural industry is thriving because of this exploitation." Another shared: "How could society have let this happen to the Banaban people? Thank you for sharing your stories. May they never be forgotten."
As part of the exhibition, we invited a visiting delegation of eight Banaban dancers and choreographers and three Rabi Council representatives to Auckland. One of the dancers spoke at the Global Climate Strike with the group of dancers standing behind him, bringing their story to the climate justice space.
As part of our advocacy, we also launched a petition which has received nearly 400 signatures, and will soon be bringing it to the Government of New Zealand. The petition calls on New Zealand to claim responsibility for the harm caused to Banaba and take steps to support their human rights – including ensuring the community has access to basic food supplies and clean water. We also published a policy brief to increase global awareness to their struggle.
The Justice for Rabi exhibition and event was covered in media outlets including The Spinoff, Radio New Zealand and 95bfm. We've put together a highlight reel of the exhibit so you can take a look, and we're excited to announce that the artwork will be featured in a virtual gallery coming soon!
Your continued support for our climate + gender justice project is what makes it possible for us to continue to support the Banaban community and marginalized groups across the Pacific that are fighting for their rights. We are so grateful for your partnership and generosity as we work together to build a more equitable future.
The Banaban Working Group is contributing a case study to ICAAD's Right to Life with Dignity project to ground our understanding of relocation and the implications for cultural, national and social identity.
The forced displacement of the Banaban people because of phosphate mining in 1945 has resulted in human rights violations at many levels. The experience of the Banaban people in terms of lack of legal protections, and the protracted citizenship struggles that continue to this day, is a localized policy challenge and offers a suite of lessons for impending climate-induced displacement across the region.
To support the Banaban community, ICAAD and the Banaban Womens Organization have co-created an art exhibit that bringing the struggles of the Banaban community to the global stage, providing them with a platform to share their history and demands for action from the governments of Fiji and Kiribati to safeguard their human rights.
Through 9 March, Tamaki Makaurau Auckland’s Silo 6 exhibition space is featuring handicrafts, photos and videos from Banaban artists and storytellers that highlight their culture and history.
Local Change Maker on Rabi shared: “As the Banabans commemorate 77 years this year on Rabi, the sad reality is that nothing major has happened in terms of development to uplift this community to thrive in their new home and in their homeland, Banaba.
“This exhibit not only highlights what went wrong with the Banaban story of displacement, but more importantly how policymakers, legislators, politicians and advocates can use the story of my people to craft future policies and laws that actually work for climate-induced displaced communities of the future. For us Banabans, we have a long way to go, and this project is an important step in the right direction.”
The art exhibition allows for audiences to explore Banaban history, the impacts of mining on communities, and stories of resistance.
In order to better safeguard the human rights of Banabans, ICAAD and the Banaban community have set out a series of recommendations for the governments of Kiribati and Fiji.
These recommendations would begin to close the gap in human rights protections that Banabans currently face. The community is asking for the public’s help in amplifying their message by sharing their story online using the hashtag #JusticeforRabi. By providing greater visibility, the exhibit aims to provide a platform for change.
On October 19, ICAAD joined the group of powerful Pacific civil society advocates to sign the historic Kioa Climate Emergency Declaration. Unlike similar declarations, delegations gathered together in one of the communities on the frontlines of the climate emergency, Kioa Island. Ten miles from Rabi Island, where Banabans were forcibly relocated in 1945, Kioa was purchased by Tuvaluans from the island of Vaitipu in 1947. As opposed to holding high level dialogue overseas, the Declaration brought the conversation to the community: in the village hall, evacuation center, and into the very homes of Kioans.
Key Demands
Over three days of deliberation, ICAAD assisted in the drafting of the Declaration which features the demands most pressing for frontline communities in the Pacific, including:
Delegates from displaced communities including Rabi, Kioa, Cogea, and the Torres Strait Islands spoke of displacement and the need for “migration with dignity to be protected by law and promoted in policy.” For ICAAD’s Right to Life with Dignity project, the Declaration brings a sense of urgency to expanding legal protections at the international level. With the Rabi delegation, ICAAD’s Erin Thomas presented on the project as well as the continued work on Rabi.
COP27 and the Power of Collective Action
The Kioa Climate Emergency Declaration will be taken to COP27 in Egypt this November, to bring the demands from the frontlines to the international platform. Lawrence Nikotemo, Kioa Council Chairman, shared: “We now realize that we are not alone in this fight. After 75 years of being in Kioa, our commitments and strengths continue to grow because we know what it feels like to start with nothing in the land we now call home. The journey was not easy but today we have seen the fruit of our commitments. Our tears of resilience have brought us this far, political will and strong collective actions are needed to reverse the climate crisis. We have faith in the work of young people taking our stories to COP. This is a historic day for our people.”
In June 2022, the ICAAD team participated in the Pacific Climate Change Migration and Human Security Regional Dialogue held in Nadi, Fiji. The dialogue brought together civil society and non-state actors for the first two days and then invited the Pacific Islands Forum member states for the last two days. The dialogue began with a review of the zero draft of the regional framework on climate mobility which was produced over the last two years through consultations and research coordinated by the Kaldor Center based in New South Wales, Australia.
The ICAAD team, alongside other civil society partners, brought in insights from our Right to Life with Dignity project including from the 18 virtual discussion series events over the last year and a half. On day one of the dialogue, the presentations and discussions resonated with many of the sentiments raised in the discussion series with other frontline climate activists. Issues around spiritual connection to land, the nuances of rights-based approaches in the Pacific, and the challenge of building accountability to the framework all came up consistently. One of the main sentiments expressed by civil society was that as the framework is coming from the Pacific and will impact and represent the Pacific, they want to be able to smell, hear, feel, and see the Pacific within the framework.
We submitted a written statement resulting from the discussions with other partners, suggesting the addition of the Right to Life with Dignity legal standard as well as adding clarity around who the framework applied to. Our virtual discussion series regularly addressed the status of communities and individuals who have already been displaced. The clarification that the framework would apply to those who have already been displaced was added to the subsequent draft.
We are grateful for the opportunity to connect with our partners and build new relationships with those in the regional climate space. Looking ahead, the framework will continue in the consultation process with the outlook of endorsement by the Pacific Islands Forum leaders by mid-year 2023.
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At the 21st session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues last month, Chair Dario Jose Mejia Montavlo of the Zenú people of San Andrés Sotavento, Colombia, commented: “We share a holistic relationship with nature, where rights are not anthropocentric.” Indigenous populations protect the vast majority of the world’s biodiversity, but are among those most acutely facing climate impacts. Climate displacement is already taking place in regions like the Pacific, with frontline local and Indigenous communities facing human rights violations due to climate inaction.
Virtual Discussion Series
This Forum raised important reminders for our Right to Life with Dignity Project, as we convened our new series of virtual discussions with local and Indigenous climate activists across the Pacific. Ensuring that our design approach resonates with Indigenous knowledge has been a key component of our project. In May, we hosted four discussions with 14 new collaborators in total. Collaborators joined from Fiji, Samoa, Kiribati, Tokelau, and Pacific diaspora communities in the U.S. and New Zealand.
In the series, we dove into the legal standard and discussed the challenges around measuring the loss of life, identity, and culture as we look to propose new legal protections for those displaced. Collaborators pointed out how the sense of urgency is often lost on policymakers and how, as difficult as it is to talk about the impacts of the climate crisis, it’s important for us to be prepared with legal protections in place for climate migrants. These insights will be incorporated into the Policy Brief which is soon to be released.
Pacific Climate Change Migration and Human Security Program: Regional Dialogue on Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility
Later this month, we’ll be joining the regional dialogue in Fiji on the draft Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility which has been a multi-year project by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Many of our project collaborators will be in attendance, and we will continue discussing the Right to Life with Dignity legal standard as we prepare to launch the Policy Brief.
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