Tafue Lusama, an ordained minister and theologian, is leading a new push to centre indigenous knowledge in Pacific climate policy as director of the Institution for Climate Indigenous Knowledge at Pasifika Communities University. Lusama says the work is driven by the lived realities of places like Tuvalu, where rising seas, eroding coastlines and shifting ecosystems are not abstractions but immediate threats to food, health and cultural survival.
“Tuvalu has been used as the image of a disappearing country,” he said, warning that the phrase carries deeper uncertainties. “Losing permanent land to the sea means losing life for the people.” Lusama frames Tuvalu’s peril as existential rather than merely geographic: the loss of even small areas of land can sever communities’ capacity to sustain livelihoods, culture and continuity of knowledge across generations.
Lusama’s institute is documenting how climate change is reshaping the everyday practices that have long sustained Pacific communities. He points to a growing economic strain on subsistence lifestyles — “It costs more to grow fish today than in the past” — as coral bleaching and changing ocean conditions reduce fish stocks and make traditional fishing less reliable. At the same time, he warns that traditional medicinal plants, once the foundation of community healing, are disappearing as ecosystems shift, threatening not only health care options but the custodianship of knowledge held by local healers.
The new emphasis from Lusama is not a rejection of Western science but a call for genuine, two‑way dialogue. “There has never been an attempt to synchronise Western science and indigenous knowledge on climate,” he said, adding that current climate strategies too often prioritise externally sourced expertise and donor-driven frameworks. That imbalance, he argues, reproduces a colonial mentality in which “whatever comes from outside is better than what we have,” and leaves Pacific nations constrained to “fight on their playground” rather than shaping the terms of engagement.
Lusama’s plan is institutional: engage directly with communities to record their climate observations, practices and values, then translate these into policy‑relevant frameworks that can be understood by national and regional governments and by international funders. “We engage with communities, document what they know and codify them into policy language,” he said, positioning the institute as a bridge between community lived experience and the technical formats used in national adaptation plans and donor applications.
The timing of Lusama’s work comes as Pacific leaders press for stronger international action and fairer climate finance at forums such as the Pacific Islands Forum and global meetings like COP. Recent legal and diplomatic advances — including advisory rulings and renewed Pacific diplomacy — strengthen calls for accountability and funding, but Lusama warns that finance and legal leverage will fall short without integrating the knowledge systems of those most affected. He calls for experts from both Western science and indigenous streams to be brought together, not as token inclusions but in sustained partnership.
Lusama links his theological outlook to the moral urgency of the work. “Jesus came for the most vulnerable,” he said, framing climate action as a moral duty to protect communities under threat. By documenting disappearing practices, protecting biodiversity that underpins healing and food systems, and demanding policy spaces for indigenous voices, his institute aims to create Pacific‑led solutions that reshape national and regional climate responses from the ground up.