Many of the challenges Pacific peoples have navigated for generations are now becoming global challenges.
As the world confronts climate change, environmental degradation, food insecurity and growing health inequities, questions of resilience, adaptation and sustainability have taken on new urgency. For Pacific peoples, these are not new questions.
This week, I join Pacific leaders in Fiji for pre-COP31 discussions convened by the WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health (ACE). Alongside regional leaders, researchers and policymakers, we will explore the health co-benefits of climate action and opportunities for stronger collaboration ahead of COP31.
Co-hosted by Dr Sandro Demaio and Dr Liz Bennet from ACE, I'll be on the stage 7 October with WHO Regional Director Dr Saia Ma'u Piukala, Hon. Kate Thwaites MP, Australia's Special Envoy for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, Dr Christina Newport from the Cook Islands, and others.
These conversations are essential because the Pacific has much more to offer than stories of vulnerability. Increasingly, the world is recognising that the region also offers solutions.
For centuries, Pacific societies have adapted to environmental change through collective decision-making, stewardship of natural resources, intergenerational knowledge systems and a deep understanding of the relationship between people and place. These approaches are proving remarkably relevant in a world searching for sustainable pathways forward.
Yet Pacific innovation often remains invisible beyond the communities it serves.
Innovation is commonly associated with technology companies and scientific laboratories. But innovation can also emerge from Indigenous knowledge systems, community leadership and collective action.
Pacific nations have repeatedly demonstrated this on the global stage.
One prominent example is the Treaty of Rarotonga. Long before many countries embraced nuclear-free policies, Pacific leaders established the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone in 1985. In doing so, they challenged powerful geopolitical interests and helped reshape international conversations around disarmament, environmental justice and self-determination.
The same spirit of leadership is evident in ocean governance.
The Parties to the Nauru Agreement transformed the management of some of the world's most valuable tuna fisheries, shifting Pacific nations from passive resource holders to active decision-makers. Their collective approach demonstrated how regional cooperation and Indigenous stewardship can generate both environmental and economic benefits, and is now studied internationally as a model of sustainable resource management.
Climate advocacy offers another powerful lesson.
For decades, Pacific leaders warned the world about the consequences of climate change. Too often those warnings were overlooked. Today, as climate impacts intensify globally, the world is beginning to recognise that Pacific voices were among the earliest and most accurate.
This leadership recently culminated in the landmark International Court of Justice advisory opinion on climate obligations, an achievement rooted in years of advocacy initiated by Pacific youth and supported by Pacific legal scholars and institutions. It demonstrated how small island nations can shape international law and influence global policy.
Pacific leadership is equally evident in environmental innovation.
Niue's community-driven Ocean Wide programme has gained international recognition for combining traditional knowledge, community leadership and scientific expertise to protect marine ecosystems. It shows how local solutions can achieve global significance.
The Pacific is also making important contributions to public health.
At the University of Auckland, Te Poutoko Ora a Kiwa has become a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre, reflecting expertise that extends throughout the region and beyond. Researchers are leading ambitious efforts to eliminate cervical cancer across Pacific nations while championing Pacific-centred approaches to health research and service delivery.
Rather than imposing solutions on communities, this work is grounded in partnership, local knowledge and cultural understanding, principles increasingly recognised as essential to improving health outcomes.
Legal scholarship is another emerging area of Pacific influence. Initiatives such as Maamaloa are strengthening Pacific legal research and developing new understandings of Indigenous legal traditions, governance systems and climate justice. As countries around the world grapple with questions of Indigenous rights and constitutional transformation, Pacific scholarship offers valuable perspectives.
Taken individually, each of these examples is significant. Taken together, they reveal something even more important.
Pacific ingenuity is not an emerging phenomenon. It is an enduring one.
For generations, Pacific peoples have developed solutions to complex challenges using approaches grounded in collective responsibility, long-term thinking and enduring relationships with people and place. These achievements may not always dominate headlines, but they are helping shape international law, environmental policy, public health and scientific discovery.
As the world prepares for COP31, perhaps the most important question is not what the Pacific needs from the world, but what the world can learn from the Pacific.
The Pacific has never lacked ideas, leadership or solutions. What has often been lacking is recognition.
That is beginning to change.
Professor Sir Collin Tukuitonga is the Co-Drector of the University of Auckland's Te Poutoko Ora a Kiwa, Centre for Pacific and Global Health.
Sir Collin is a Niuean-born New Zealand/Aotearoa doctor, public health academic, public policy expert, and advocate for reducing health inequalities of Māori and Pasifika people.
