What Disaster Planning?

Samoa activated comprehensive environmental and coastal risk management programs after Cyclone Val in 1992. The damage bill from Cyclone Heta (above) 13 years later was far lower as a result. (Photo: Courtesy World Bank)

The tendency to concentrate on the short-term cure rather than prevention is the focus of "Not If But When: Adapting to natural hazards in the Pacific Islands Region."

One of the paper's 14 authors and former South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission Director, Alf Simpson, says Pacific Islands opt to deal with natural disasters by seeking donor help once the damage is done. "At the end of the day it's about putting our money where our mouth is. If we sit back and say God will look after us, or New Zealand aid will look after us, we'll never break the cycle."

"Disasters are essentially a development problem" the report says, and "RMNH needs to be viewed as much as an economic and social priority as an environmental issue."

Simpson says there has been little acknowledgement of this in parts of the region.

"For example, are they planning for a Category 5 cyclone in North West Viti Levu where all those Nadi tourism plants are? Are they building accordingly?"

The policy note describes what the World Bank says are simple, logical steps that Pacific Island countries can use to reduce their vulnerability for the least cost-steps such as hazard assessment, warning systems, and preparedness through natural wave breakers, public awareness and hazard mapping.

The number of cyclones in the southwest Pacific has increased over the past 50 years-with an average of four now occurring each year. The Bank says since 1950, natural disasters have affected more than 3.4 million people and caused 1, 747 reported fatalities in the Pacific Islands region, excluding Papua New Guinea. Cyclones accounted for 76 percent of the reported disasters from 1950-2004, followed by earthquakes, droughts and floods. The average cyclone damage in this period was US$75.7 million in real 2004 value.

As the report was being written, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami hit Asia. It gave greater urgency to the author's deliberations on how well prepared the islands would be in a similar situation.

The people of Aitape in Papua New Guinea already know the answer to that of course. "Is this the way nature should treat us" said Ignatius Yonkise, a survivor of the tsunami of July 1998 as quoted in "Aitape-the road to recovery." "Everything we worked for in life disappeared in just a few minutes."

The World Bank report says Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga are particularly at risk from tsunamis, but that none are prepared, and that there is still no system to warn southwest Pacific countries of local tsunamis.

The Bank also points to the locating of RMNH initiatives and projects in "junior or weak ministries that have proven ineffective in influencing key ministries" as a problem.

"The missing link in the Pacific is we can't get the decision makers, the ministries of finance and economic planners on board," says Simpson. "They never factor this into their budgeting system."

And the policy note says there is inadequate support for instruments such as vulnerability mapping to help communities and government agree on ways to protect assets.

'We need to learn lessons from the past," Simpson says. "No one should be surprised of the extent of damage in Niue for example (after Cyclone Heta in 2004) because it has happened before."

Perhaps one of the report's most contentious proposals relates to the need for a single regional agency to lead RMNH work rather than the splitting of responsibilities between the South Pacific Regional Environmental Program and South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission as is currently the case, although it says the case for a completely new agency is weak.

However, Simpson says we need to deal with the political reality. "In an ideal world there should be one framework dealing with all risks, but we have to make the best of a bad job. We should have at least have a one-stop shop, coordinated leadership though, and the Pacific Islands Forum could take on this role."

The report does point to examples of good work in risk management in the region, including the inclusion of adaption measures in all national development plans, budgets and policies in Kiribati, Samoa's response to the devastation caused by Cyclone Val in 1991, and building of hundreds of cyclone resistant houses and community buildings in Tonga's coastal areas.

Still, Simpson says no country can afford to be complacent. "It's like a game of snakes and ladders. When we have a disaster, we slide right down a big snake. We have to kill all the snakes."