disasters and agriculture in the pacific islands - Pacific Disaster Net

Hazard information needs to incorporated intoresource information systems that are beingdeveloped in several Pacific island countries.Vanuatu's natural resources have beendocumented in the computer-based VanuatuResource Information System (VANRIS). TheVanuatu system, developed by Australia'sCSIRO, is the most advanced in the region andprovides the basis for land-use and environmentmanagement planning. The system has been setup in all the six provinces and this hasenhanced the capacity for planning andsustainable development within the country.Papua New Guinea is developing a similarsystem, known as Papua New Guinea RIS. Thesystem has been used to undertake rapidenvironmental appraisals for the Papua NewGuinea Tropical Forestry Action Plan.Incorporating disaster hazard information willenhance the planning value of these systems.There is greater scope for land use control isforested parts of water catchment areas. Inthese often fragile and critical environmentsforest reserves need to be declared in which nologging or arable agricultural activity ispermitted. Fiji has introduced a National Codeof Logging Practice designed to minimise thedestructive impacts of logging but, as theNational State of the Environment Reportpoints out, "It is clearly only as good as itsenforcing officers and the resources madeavailable to them by Government 132 . Given theimmense cost of natural disasters, it makessound economic sense to substantially increasethe resources devoted to enforcing Codes ofLogging Practice. Furthermore, some of thesecosts need to be internalised into the cost oflogging licences, thereby making logging a lessattractive land use activity.It is hoped that the Watershed ManagementPlan being developed by the IICA Study willidentify areas where logging should be bannedor curtailed. Policy and political support forsuch recommendations, however, are onlylikely to be forthcoming if the broader financialand economic costs of these activities can bequantified. It is proposed that these costestimates would be derived as part of Project 4above.Project 7: Hazard mapping of the incidence ofcyclones in Fiji and VanuatuThe proposed project would prepare a cycloneprobability map for the various areas of Fiji andVanuatu, using historical data on the paths andintensities of cyclones. To the extent thatavailable data will permit, these maps shouldinclude flood data for Viti Levu. A provisionalestimate of the cost of this hazard mappingproject is $US70, 000. This exercise is onlyfeasible for Fiji and Vanuatu which are theonly countries with sufficient historical data oncyclones to calculate probabilities, and theagricultural opportunities to justify the use ofthese data.CAPITAL INVESTMENT OPTIONSThere are various private and public capitalinvestment options available to mitigate againstdisasters in agriculture.Private investmentThere are a number of cost-effectiveinvestments farmers could make to mitigateagainst disasters. These include:investing in soil conservation measuressuch as planting vegetative strips andbuilding contour drains;investing in the building of raised beds toimprove drainage; planting windbreaks; and investing in small-scale appropriate irrigationsystems.Despite the apparent financial benefits derivedfrom these investments, farmers seldom do so.This seemingly irrational behaviour can in partbe explained by their preference for immediatecash earnings. Buresova and McGregordescribed the situation for Fiji ginger farmers,most of whom lease land:Smaller settler farmers who cultivate land onrelatively short leases can be expected to preferimmediate cash earnings. By ignoring futurereturns, these farmers give scant regard to theland-use requirements of future generations. TheChinese immigrant ginger farmers probablyregard their position as even less secure and thusview intensive cash cropping as an interim step tomore remunerative economic activities 133 .132 Watling and Chape 1992133 Buresova and McGregor, 1990: 252.