New Zealand is being urged to create immigration pathways for people in low-lying Pacific nations – such as Tuvalu and Kiribati – who are leaving their countries because of the increasing effects of climate change.<\/p>\n
As a number of islands in the Pacific region face ongoing effects of the climate crisis, residents are struggling to find a way to set up new lives in neighbouring countries, like New Zealand, because there is no formal migration policy for climate-related reasons.<\/p>\n
University of Auckland Dr Olivia Yates has been actively working for the oceanic communities to change the future of those migrants.<\/p>\n
She said people who migrate from the islands have to navigate through NZ’s existing and what she described as “wholly insufficient” immigration system.<\/p>\n
“As a result, community members are falling through the cracks into lives without valid visas. This is not climate justice,” she said.<\/p>\n
Carrying out her doctoral research, Yates engaged with the Tuvalu and Kiribati communities in Auckland to determine the attitude towards climate change and look at the responsibilities of Aotearoa as a host to future migrants.<\/p>\n
Her recently released research report – Preparing for Climate Mobility from Tuvalu and Kiribati to Aotearoa – highlighted the key role New Zealand has to play in supporting those people who wish to move here.<\/p>\n
The report advocated a three-pronged approach.<\/p>\n
It included making the journey easier by reforming existing visa pathways and creating a new climate mobility-specific visa pathway, supporting communities to regrow roots by backing community-led initiatives to ease re-settlement burdens and developing a communications strategy to educate and prepare Kiwis for climate mobility from the Pacific.<\/p>\n
The report also pinpointed the support needed for the maintenance of cultural identity and roots.<\/p>\n
“The research is the result of a four-year project looking at people’s perceptions and the implications of climate mobility, which are essentially movements related to climate change and specifically from Tuvalu and Kiribati,” she said.<\/p>\n
“This is a very tricky thing to do because our Pacific neighbours clearly said that they do not want people to have to migrate because of climate change.”<\/p>\n
New Zealand was not actively not planning and not putting laws in place that allow for climate-related migration, Yates added.<\/p>\n
“They don’t want people to leave to see a loss in the workforce.”<\/p>\n
Vaeluaga Iosefa, a Tuvaluan migrant, said that there was no specific allocation of the climate change application and that the government wants families to adapt to it rather than forming a policy.<\/p>\n
“Climate change is the major drive, people are moving away from our little island because the effects of it were on our face all the time.”<\/p>\n
“Resettlement of the islands is needed not only in terms of physical infrastructure but also in terms of spirituality embracing the physical entity.”<\/p>\n
There was also a high rise of concern in preserving cultural identities and heritage which have been the major issues of climate change for a long time.<\/p>\n
Although the Tuvalu government has proposed to preserve the cultural heritage from the climate disaster, the lives of the migrants still lie in limbo.<\/p>\n
-PACNEWS\/NZ Herald<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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