Competing visions of coastal development in the face of sea level rise; depleted soils and upland deforestation; private land ownership versus communal land tenure: small island states face uncertain times ahead, with conflicting demands on limited land. Are there any obvious ways forward?
Over the past 40 years, natural resources in the small island states of Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific have been subjected to increasing pressure for alternative uses of the land. With many of these states among the most densely populated countries in the world, pressures on land and coastal ecosystems have become severe. As users vie for space, uncoordinated governance and ambiguous property rights will not be enough to solve the land problem.
When urban development and tourist resorts take over agricultural land, farmers are pushed further up the hillsides and deforestation and soil erosion inevitably follow. In the Caribbean, studies have traced sediments carried by rivers from such areas of inland deforestation to the sea, and linked these to the decline of coral reefs, an unforeseen impact that exposes islands to greater damage during storms.
The last straw in the land use crisis may be climate change. Islands are highly vulnerable to the elements, but sea level rise and heavy, unpredictable rainstorms are now adding to the threat. In 2012, the Government of Kiribati went so far as to purchase some 25 km2 of Fiji's main island of Viti Levu to replace its own shrinking farmland. However, Viti Levu itself has seen several 'once-in-a-lifetime' floods in the last few years, causing major damage to infrastructure, agriculture and livelihoods.
In Vanuatu, Christopher Bartlett, Climate Change Adviser with German development agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, maintains that changes in behaviour and activity are key to managing the coastline. "Our most successful coastal protection measures have had more to do with curbing unsustainable and inappropriate activities by humans and animals in the coastal zone than directly responding to rising sea levels or storm surge," he says. In the Seychelles, integrated coastal zone management is a priority but trade-offs between different users is still an issue (see Spore 163 Blue economy in crisis?).
On the other hand, farmers need options in order to act sustainably - and they need land. Few island farmers would choose to plant on steep slopes, deplete soil fertility, or expose their crops to storms and floods. As towns and resorts proliferate, however, agricultural activities become guided by necessity rather than choice. Unpaved land comes under increasing pressure to provide food for growing populations and export crops to boost national revenues. Issues of land ownership also drive this degradation. In the Pacific, up to 80% of land may be communally owned, far more than in any other region of the world, and these areas are often leased for short-term farming activities. Communal land tenure works well when the objective is to feed the community, but when land equals money, the systems often break down. Farmers have little motivation to maintain fertility, so instead they mine the soils for maximum production over the short-term.
Truly integrated efforts in sustainable land management are now appearing, but many of these are still proving their worth in early pilot phases. In Jamaica, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) is working with ministries to replace overlapping land policies and mandates with a more coherent plan. As a first step, UNDP is demonstrating improved methods of caring for the land, such as a small, rainfed irrigation system and an agroforestry system for sensitive watershed regions. Crucially, practices with quick benefits are being demonstrated on leased land, showing farmers that investment can be worthwhile even in lieu of secure tenure.
In Barbados, where more than 70% of critical economic infrastructure lies within 2 km of the ocean, protecting the coastal zone means protecting the country. The government's Coastal Zone Management Unit has already overseen these areas for more than 25 years, integrating functions as diverse as monitoring coral reefs, controlling beach erosion, reviewing development and conservation projects, and educating the public on the importance and use of the coast. Currently, the Unit is setting its sights on climate adaptation with a three-pronged strategy: conserving and restoring mangroves and other natural coastal defences; rigorously controlling risky or damaging development; and as a last resort, building defence infrastructure such as seawalls.
Fiji has tackled the land issue head-on, first in a landmark Rural Land Use Policy, and then in its 2010 land reform. Following the reform, Fiji is preparing to act on the good intentions described in its Policy - public awareness of resource interdependence; a regulatory framework for sustainable development; good governance of diversified land uses - with a set of plans for each of its 187 districts. These will be created through participatory planning, as demonstrated with a pilot in the inland district of Bemana. The process starts with a geographic imaging system analysis, using satellite imagery and on-the-ground observations to classify land into seven levels of capability, ranging from the best farmland to steep, erosion-prone slopes. This is followed by a participatory appraisal, adding local activities and priorities, and the creation of a land use map, to be used for subsequent planning.
Another pilot project in land use planning has been instigated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community on the island of Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands. Here, a fast moving tourism industry was eating up available land in the absence of sustainable management. The Rarotonga project has begun with the development of draft land zoning maps, precisely showing zones relating to particular activities - agriculture, forestry, urban use and tourism - and land which require some form of environmental protection. These will be subjected to economic analysis and community consultations.
If these efforts are to make up for past land planning failures, communities must be involved - and not just because they are the ones who live in these zones. Residents also possess vital information that needs to be fed into the planning systems, including knowledge of local ecosystems and disturbances. Full participation is also essential for women, who have too often been excluded. Past policies have frequently reinforced the inheritance of land from fathers to sons, and when land becomes scarce, women are left on the margins. Only their direct participation in planning will change this tradition.
For people who live on small islands in big oceans, land will always be a precious resource. However, it doesn't have to be a site of conflict or degradation. Even in the smallest island states, problems of land are chiefly the legacy of poor decision-making, based on short-sighted economic gain. Today's decision-makers must learn from this and start looking to the longer term. Instead of valuing land by hectares or by metres of beachfront, they must see it in terms of all it can sustainably provide to the people of the island.
