MAJURO (CreateSpace Publications/Pacific Media Watch): Can Pacific nations, endowed with islands of travel poster beauty, hurdle significant development and political challenges they face today — in addition to withstanding climate change and rising sea levels?
Corruption, reliance on donor-driven aid and consultants, dwindling rural populations and burgeoning urban centres that stress the ability of governments to provide education and health services, an epidemic of non-communicable diseases as lifestyles change, and battles with countries outside the region for control of fisheries and deep sea resources — these are among the challenging issues facing the islands today.
In a series of essays about the looming climate threat, sustainable development and the region’s multi-billion dollar tuna industry, the US nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands, and the impact of out-migration, an new book by Marshall Islands Journal editor Giff Johnson, Idyllic No More: Pacific island climate, corruption and development issues, addresses the
often difficult problems and choices facing the Pacific islands today.
The author, says veteran Oceania journalist Floyd K. Takeuchi, “frames a view of the Pacific islands that’s characterised by hard-edge realism while offering a way forward.”
Idyllic No More is an excellent resource for stimulating discussion in high school or university classes, as a library reference book, and for readers interested in key issues facing the Pacific island region today.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
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