As the climate crisis intensifies, communities across the Pacific continue to experience devastating losses that cannot be measured solely in monetary terms: losses of culture, identity, land, and ways of life. These profound, non-monetary impacts are what international frameworks refer to as Non-Economic Loss and Damage (NELD). The Pacific Rising convening, held from September 15 to 19, 2025, brought together grassroots leaders, advocates, and global allies to focus on these losses and chart a collective path toward justice. It was a crucial opportunity to learn with, not about, our partners.
The convening was organised by UUSC in collaboration with Pacific partners. From the moment we arrived on Sonaisali Island, the setting, surrounded by the river and mangrove forests, felt sacred, far removed from a conventional boardroom. The fresh air and open blue sky set a tone of humility and possibility. It was the first time we at the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) met our partners in the Pacific face-to-face, and sitting together in circles, a format that encourages listening and equality, deepened the trust and solidarity we share.
Beyond Jargon: When NELD Is Lived Reality
Climate change is no longer a matter confined to technical definitions or technocratic solutions; it’s a lived reality, nowhere more evident than in the Large Ocean States of the Pacific. Our partners didn’t speak in policy jargon about ‘Loss and Damage’. Instead, they shared stories, and you could feel the heartbreak in the room. I remember hearing about burial grounds eroded by the sea, families forced to move overnight, women carefully gathering the bones of their ancestors from flooded sites.
In the Solomon Islands, the Ecological Solutions Foundation (ESF) shared that 80% of village graves have been washed away, with children now sitting on the stones that once marked their ancestors' resting places. These stories of rupture, of identity, memory, and belonging, are losses that no compensation can ever fully repair.
The purpose of this gathering was to understand the practical reality of climate funding on the ground, particularly by hearing directly from partners about their first year of NELD grants and the experiences of the communities impacted. As one partner stated: “We are fourth-generation displaced people. For 80 years, we have not been able to repair or fix our loss, the loss of our culture and heritage. NELD is not a concept for us. It is our lived experience".
Strategies Rooted in Culture and Self-Determination
Every strategy shared was rooted in tradition and intergenerational knowledge. These efforts are acts of cultural survival. Some examples include:
Jo-Jikum (Marshall Islands) leads the 'Inon' Preservation Project to archive local legends using 'Legendary Kiosks' for community collaboration (Inon are local legends unique to each atoll). This preserves oral traditions, memories, and identity by having youth and elders collaborate. The initiative also supports a Youth Booklet Project, creating a digitised, locally crafted educational resource for Marshallese students worldwide.
Kiribati Climate Action Network (Kiribati) teaches ancestral food preservation practices to young women. This practice bypasses reliance on imported, climate-vulnerable food systems, a quiet but powerful act of resisting external control over their livelihoods.
The Kioa Island Community Organisation (Kioa Island, Fiji) revives essential traditional skills, such as canoe carving for young men and fine mat weaving for young women, as an act of cultural preservation.
Ecological Solutions Foundation (Solomon Islands) is countering the erosion of traditional fishing practices, which are being lost due to changing marine resources and youth migration, by producing community-owned media to archive local knowledge for cultural survival.
Tulele Peisa (Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea), an initiative of the Carteret Islands Council of Elders, leads the dignity-driven, planned relocation of its community. They advocate tirelessly that relocation must be financed to facilitate migration with dignity, not despair, while supporting their region's Climate Change and Mangroves Protection Policy.
The heartbreak described by the women of the Tuvalu Climate Action Network (Tuvalu) is seeing their traditional mats and handicrafts, symbols of lineage and identity, threatened as rising seas damage pandanus plants, the source of their craft. Through this initiative, TuCAN is providing tools and training to ease women’s physical burdens, preserve their cultural knowledge, and create sustainable livelihoods. In doing so, they are safeguarding Tuvalu’s heritage and making visible the non-economic losses that climate change inflicts on women’s lives and communities.
Banaban Human Rights Defenders Network (Rabi Island, Fiji) connects resilience with ancestral intelligence, specifically by revitalising the Banaban language and supporting women in generating income through traditional handicrafts and reforestation. As one young woman explained, this is not nostalgia; it is a way of fighting for survival and dignity after generations of displacement.
The path forward emphasises feminist economic alternatives, pathways where women's knowledge and leadership, supported by the wisdom of elders and the energy of youth, create dignity and livelihoods. These efforts generate local income and resilience, deliberately moving away from dependence on extractive economies. Sharing these unique, local strategies proves that the most effective solutions are rooted in Indigenous sovereignty. This powerful truth-telling provided a shared, enhanced understanding of the projects developed and the depth of community engagement.
Inclusion and Intersectionality: The Non-Negotiables of Justice
At every turn, partners reminded us that gender, inclusion, and intersectionality are non-negotiable in climate justice. However, simply adopting the terms isn't enough; the real work lies in making them meaningful in a local context. As a Fijian partner explained, "There is no word for intersectionality in our language. We have to explain it with stories". This struggle to translate these ideas into local languages shows how partners are deepening collective awareness of the systems shaping their lives, from colonial histories to local land and resource systems shaped by gender roles and power. This kind of understanding is what sustains true community sovereignty and justice.
Climate Tok (Fiji) holds separate sessions for women, youth, elders, LGBTQ+ people, and persons with disabilities before bringing them together. This is a deliberate structural decision to ensure every voice is heard: "Otherwise, the more talkative group takes over. This way, everyone’s voice is heard."
Te Toa Matoa (Kiribati) places the needs of persons with disabilities (PWDs) at the centre of their work, highlighting how this group is often the first excluded from cultural life and emphasising that climate justice must inherently include accessibility and dignity for all.
In synthesis, what we witnessed was not despair, but brilliant creativity. The solutions our partners are leading stem from a deep well of lived wisdom and anti-colonial practice in climate finance. They demonstrate that the path forward must be one of self-determination and community sovereignty, where their people are the ones deciding how resources are allocated.
The clear realisation that emerged from this sharing was the urgent need to identify spaces where these invaluable learnings and strategies can be shared with the world to advocate for tangible and long-term resources and policy solutions. We reaffirmed our commitment to identifying strategic advocacy and knowledge-sharing spaces so that these stories influence global climate dialogue and action.