Feature article

 

Different mediums used by the VMS for raising awareness and their effectiveness (percentage) to convey messages from the local perspective.

Improving Meteorological Information in Rural Communities

Improving Meteorological Information in Rural Communities

Since 2000, the VMS has initiated vigorous awareness programs throughout the country in an effort to educate rural communities about weather and climate variability. The initiative has covered remote regions that have previously not had the opportunity to engage in climate change, meteorological, environmental, hydrological, and geological awareness exercises. To date, the VMS has covered 90% of the 83 inhabited islands of Vanuatu, but only about 40% of the rural population. This is due to the sparsely distributed settlements in the islands and lack of sufficient funds. Raising awareness of weather and climate through radio programs often falls short due to poor coverage. As a result, new strategic awareness programs need to be developed to cover these remote areas. Information distribution will be assisted by localising source texts that contain detailed meteorological and climate change information in schools, and improving access to more TV programs, more media coverage, and additional profile-raising interactions about climate change and climate variability in rural communities.

A survey conducted by VMS in 2002 showed that people in rural regions can understand climate and weather concepts better when they are presented through multimedia (power point presentations), suggesting understanding can be facilitated using a combination of audio/visual techniques.

Climate bulletins with the relevant information that can help decision making at the community level have not been overly successful in permeating rural areas. Many communities are still in the grey zone between traditional knowledge of the environment and science when it comes to interpreting meteorological and climatological phenomenon. There are also some cultural barriers that hinder the acceptance of meteorological information and advice. Events like La Niña or El Niño are not well known inVanuatu. There are historical accounts of extreme events having occurred in the past, and traditional adaptive measures were developed to alleviate impacts of these situations on the wellbeing of communities. Most of the past extreme events have been in one way or another viewed as the work of sorcerers. For example, The drought related to the El Nino event of 1997/98, severely affected the Vanuatu agriculture, livestock, and water sectors. Chiefs on one island filed a case that led to the arrest of an individual, with the belief that he was responsible for causing the drought. VMS will continue to develop strategies and put in place systems that willenable effective communication between meteorologists and the local people to avoid unfortunate misunderstandings like this in the future.

The capacity of the VMS to provide accurate and timely climateand weather information and improve understanding in ruralcommunities have recently increased with the introduction of theVanuatu Climate Update, Island Climate Update, and SeasonalClimate Outlook for Pacific Island Country (SCOPIC) software.VMS is also establishing an ‘ENSO Desk’ that will offer technicalassistance and promote a better understanding of ENSO (La Nina/ElNino) and its impacts on different sectors in the country. It will alsoenable the National Disaster Management Office and VMS to mapout the vulnerabilities of different islands to ENSO, and develop acentralized information system on ENSO impacts. This informationcan then be relayed to communities, and assist the development ofan alert system for provincial government use.