Sala Toganivalu Lesuma

COP19: Sala Toganivalu Lesuma on islands in the South Pacific

COP19 (14/11/13) – Sala Toganivalu Lesuma, representing Fiji Red Cross Society, a larger part of the International Federation of the Red Cross speaks of the issues faced by islands in the South Pacific.

She says that their purpose for coming to the conference is to learn and discuss things on a global level. She pays particular focus should be on a few Islands in the South Pacific who are faced with rising sea levels.

She goes on to speak about the problems faced by those governments, in particular the question of relocating their citizens as the number of environmentally displaced increases.

Finding solutions for these people she feels is the biggest challenge and on the question of who is responsible for paying for these solutions she speaks of the need for larger countries to step up.

She then goes on to speak about the focus of her group and recent pilot project they have undertaken. Health is a major focus of her work and the pilot project concerned with identifying diseases that have developed due to climatic changes.