Culture and Sustainable Development in the Pacific

Sustainable development in the Pacific, as elsewhere, is about a balance between economic, and
environmental and social needs; a balance which ensures the well being of present generations
(women, men, youth, elders) without jeopardizing that of future generations. Culture has and
continues to play a major role in helping to maintain the balance: it is both the context in which
development occurs and a direct contributor to development itself. For reasons of brevity this paper
cannot provide a detailed approach to the relationship between culture and sustainable
development in the region: it merely highlights the main points of linkages.
Culture as context:
The Pacific region is unique: it is the richest in the world in terms of cultural diversity and holds onethird of languages in the world. However, there are a set of shared common values across the region
which have been essential in generally maintaining peace, access to land, sea and food,
custodianship of the environment and respect for others. Some of these core values are emphasis on
kinship, cooperation, responsibility, and reciprocity as well as attachment to land and sea symbolized
by concepts such as vanua, fenua, fonua etc which can be understood, in philosophical terms as
fostering an ethic of place and care. Peoples attachment to these core values are demonstrated both
in daily life, and through the declarations of Pacific leaders.
The implications for sustainable development of both this diversity and commonality are the
following:
1. Most land across the Pacific is held by communities and not through private property. This
has prevented the food poverty and extreme inequality seen in many other parts of the
developing world. It has enabled women and men to draw on the environment for medical,
housing, and expressive purposes, thereby continuing to foster agro biodiversity, and
allowed communities to enjoy leisure time. It has made land grabbing and speculation more
difficult but not impossible.
2. Communities, through their traditional knowledge and values and local sovereignty
approach, understand their rights and responsibilities with respect to their environment,
social stability and towards each other. This has prevented the dire exclusion and inequality
seen in other regions of the world.
3. Cultural and linguistic diversity requires a contextual and smart approach to development:
one size does not fit all.
Culture as context, along with other factors, has over the long term placed Pacific countries in the
middle category of international development measures. However, some have dropped in the
Human Development Index over the past decade. One of the reasons for this is a development model
which has emphasized short term economic growth over the goals of environmental and social
sustainability. A move away from a focus on GDP towards a more balanced national approach to well
being will assist the region to better integrate cultural, environmental and social sustainability. Work
has already begun in the Melanesian countries through the Well Being Indicators1 measurements.
Cultural approaches must also focus on and contribute to the role of women and young people in
sustainable development.

Culture as a direct contributor to development:

Culture has traditionally contributed directly to good health, employment, poverty prevention and
reduction, lifelong learning, sustainable rural and urban areas, and creativity. However, without a
renewed emphasis on and support for cultures real and potential contribution, both sectorally and
cross-sectorally, benefits will be lost (as they already have been in some cases).
1. NCDs are reducing life expectancy in the Pacific. This is due to increased urbanization,
imported unhealthy foods and increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Cultural food production and
preparation, which preserve and improve agrodiversity, including organic farming, provide
healthy diets. Community arts and sports (e.g. dance, games, communal fishing) provide
healthy practices. Examples include the Kastom Garden programme in Solomon Islands, the
Island Food Community of Pohnpei, the Food and Nutrition Committee in Fiji; and weight
loss programmes in Samoa and Tonga using expressive arts. A greater emphasis on healthy
cultural food production as part of food security is warranted.
2. Culture contributes directly to employment. Most Pacific countries do not measure cultural
employment. Tonga does: handicraft producers make up 17 per cent of Tongas labour force.
This income contributes directly to the well being of extended families. Cultural and creative
industries represent one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the global economy with a
growth rate of 6.9 % in Oceania1. Artist, cultural producers, and entrepreneurs are direct
active contributors to Pacific economies and cultural events create indirect economic
activities.
3. Many cultural activities take place in the informal economy the subsistence economy is
based on cultural knowledge and practices. If one considers remittances and traditional
social security (which many Pacific countries rely on for well being) as fundamentally driven
by cultural factors, the relationship between poverty prevention and reduction and culture is
obvious. Almost all Polynesian countries benefit directly from remittances and most Pacific
countries look after their elders through cultural mechanisms.
4. Learning occurs over a lifetime. Pacific biocultural knowledge (which attracts pharmaceutical
companies and overseas universities) enables the development of wisdom with respect to
the environment and includes different levels of sophistication manifested, for instance, in
orature and other expressions of culture. It is well known that artistic education develops
cognition. The Pacific is hugely rich in these areas. Traditional knowledge is an important
form of wealth.
5. Sustainable cities require attention to built heritage and to culture and arts offerings. Pacific
cities contain old heritage, colonial heritage and increasing arts offerings. All are key to
happy city dwellers and to developing eco-cultural tourism. Levuka in Fiji is now a World
Heritage Site for these reasons.
6. Creativity: Pacific societies have adapted to changing conditions for thousands of years. They
conquered the Pacific Ocean, and Papua New Guinea was an independent centre of
invention of agriculture. This was due to ingenuity and cultural know how. Projecting
creativity into the future for sustainable societies requires drawing on past innovation and
fostering it. Pacific creativity is potentially endless but requires fostering.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 2008.

To conclude, in the Pacific, sustainable development has relied on cultural values, knowhow,
diversity and innovation over centuries. Culture has possibly prevented double digit economic
growth as measured by GDP, but in the Pacific, this has been to the benefit of social and
environmental sustainability. The Pacific is ahead of other regions in rethinking well being and
prosperity: culture has been important in this approach. The Pacific should maintain this position and
ensure that culture is mainstreamed across the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.
1

The 2010-2011 Vanuatu Household Income and Expenditure Survey carried out a pilot Well Being Survey.
Indicator sets included: subjective well being (including collective); resource access; cultural practice;
community vitality. For full details, see Alternative Indicators of Well-Being for Melanesia; Vanuatu Pilot Study
Report, 2012. The project was extended to all Melanesian countries in 2013.