USP ‘epoppers’ raise Pacific climate awareness

USP law student Mia Kami … need for youth engagement regarding climate change. Picture: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

Filmmaking interest
Mia Kami, a law student at USP, also took part in the ePOP workshop out of an interest for filmmaking.

The student, of Tongan descent, said the ePOP team had shared that awareness of climate change issues faced by the Pacific was not as strong in Europe.

“Their (ePOP’s) goal was to spread awareness of climate change in Europe, so the videos that we did were based on climate change.

“I think because it was from a student in the Pacific, it would be a lot more heartfelt so people would understand it more from a Pacific point of view,” said Kami.

Kami and a few other students went to a fish market and interviewed vendors to get their perspective on how climate change affected fisheries.

She said she was surprised at what their idea of climate change was and how it affected them.

“The first lady we interviewed, her definition of climate change was that it’s bad weather.

Water pollution
“She believes that the bad weather is making the fishermen stop fishing, so they don’t fish and she doesn’t get to buy fish from them so she can sell. So that’s how she said that climate change affected her.”

Speaking of another vendor she interviewed, Kami said the vendor did not think overfishing was an issue and felt that it was water pollution.

“I feel like a lot of the media coverage that we do based on climate change, it doesn’t reach as far as their areas because a lot of the vendors are based in rural areas.

“I feel like the proper research on it doesn’t reach that grassroots level so I think if people took climate change into the more grassroots level, it would give them a totally different perspective.”

Kami enjoyed the ePOP project and the process of producing the video story. She said it was important for young people to make themselves aware of climate change.

“It’s our future. I think it’s important that we make an attempt to lessen the damage that we’re going to face in the future,” she said.

“What we can do now is so essential. If we know more about it, it makes so much of a difference. It all starts with ourselves.”

* Hele Ikimotu and Blessen Tom are in Fiji as part of the Pacific Media Centre’s Bearing Witness 2018 climate change project. They are collaborating with the University of the South Pacific.