Security Threats in the Pacific Essay Competition: Selected Essays

A few months ago, the Islands Society issued an open call to young scholars across the Pacific Islands region to submit an essay on a contemporary security challenge facing the region. Specifically, we asked them to answer: “What is the biggest security threat facing Pacific Islanders today?” In the end, we received submissions from five countries across the region. These submissions were then reviewed by our staff and the selected essays were professionally edited.

This week, we will be featuring the selected essays on The Islander. These essays represent the work of young scholars from Fiji, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Tonga. They include:

• “Climate Change: An Existential Security Threat in the Pacific” – Tevita Motulalo contends that the Pacific Islands are subtly moving beyond the early stages of an existential climate change crisis.
• “Globalization: A Major Threat for Pacific Island Countries” – Melania Baba says that globalization has shown itself to be the biggest and most immediate threat for Pacific Island countries.
• “Lack of Climate Change Finance Threatening Pacific Development” – Genevieve Neilson suggests that Pacific Islanders require improved access to financing if they are to adapt to the threats posed by climate change.
• “Security Implications of Geopolitics and Governance in the Pacific” – Dalton Kuen-Da Lin argues that the biggest security threat facing Pacific Islanders is the potentially gloomy ripple effects of geopolitical reconfiguration in the Asia-Pacific.
• “Controlling The Ripple Effects of Climate Change across the Pacific” – Adi Litia Cakobau Nailatikau says that the biggest security threat facing Pacific Islanders is climate change and its halo effect over other security threats across the region.

Please join us in applauding the hard work of these young scholars. Ultimately, it is our hope that their policy insights on climate change, globalization, and governance will not only inspire senior policymakers across the region. But, they will also empower these future policymakers to take the next step in their careers. In this way, the program aims to strengthen leadership capacity in the Pacific.