This year’s Pacific Islands Forum marked the beginning of a more dangerous era as Pacific leaders tried to find common responses to both the climate crisis and sharpening geostrategic competition.
There was unprecedented interest in this year’s forum, held in Fiji’s capital Suva. I should know. I lived in Suva for much of my adult life, which included several years teaching at the University of the South Pacific. I was also in town for last week’s summit.
The annual gathering of island leaders and their counterparts from Australia and New Zealand is typically the one time of year when there’s international focus on the region. But this year’s forum was something else. A huge media pack descended, to the bemusement of many Fijians who felt the meeting was divorced from their daily challenges.
