On the narrow atoll of Funafala, on the southern side of Funafuti, the capital of Tuvalu, Miliama watched the shoreline change.

As a child, the lagoon felt wide and playful – a place where children ran barefoot along the white sandy beach and where the rhythms of the ocean brought comfort rather than uncertainty. Today, the tides reach further inland. The sea swallows parts of the shore that once felt safe. Saltwater seeps into the land. The ground beneath feels less stable with each passing year.

But she remained. Because for Miliama, land was never just physical space. It was identity, belonging, and kinship. 

In the Pacific, climate adaptation is not only about safeguarding infrastructure or managing environmental and economic risk. It is about protecting the relational bonds between people, land, ancestors, and future generations. Cultural continuity is not an afterthought, it is a key metric of development.  

The question is no longer whether culturally-grounded climate adaptation can be done – but whether the international system can support solutions at the speed and scale required. 

Understanding climate change from a Pasifika relational perspective

Life is inherently relational. Human wellbeing is inseparable from the wellbeing of the planet and the cosmos. There is no distinction between the physical and the spiritual worlds – the spiritual manifests in physical practices of rituals, protocols, and community governance.

In the fenua-based understanding of place, land is not just land, it is ocean, skies, people, ancestors, and spirit – all in mutual belonging, as kin. The fenua is boundless, in time and space, extending to include the past (ancestors) and the future (future generations) as the present can only find meaning when it is defined within the past and the future. Vaa fesokotaki (relational bonds) hold these together in sacred balance.  

Protecting the fenua and vaa fesokotaki is a core part of cultural security: the protection of traditional knowledge systems, customary land tenure, governance structures, and Pacific people’s sacred connection to land and sea.

Climate change, such as rising seas, coastal erosion and extreme weather events, harm the fenua by disrupting relational bonds and severing continuity between past, present and future. For indigenous Tuvaluan's this looks like saltwater bubbling up from the ground during king tides making it hard to grow the traditional crops that have nourished communities for generations, or the deterioration of coral reefs impacting communities cultural fishing grounds.

In this context, climate action is an act of relational care. People have a sacred responsibility to protect the fenua and the vaa fesokotaki. Within this worldview, cultural security is not separate from environmental protection. It emerges from maintaining relationships – between people and place, between present and future generations, and between cultural identity and physical territory.

Climate adaptation as cultural continuity

Pasifika relational worldviews fundamentally reshape what climate adaptation is, what it protects, and how success should be measured. 

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Tuvalu. 

Tuvalu sits, on average, less than two metres above sea level, and Tuvalu's entire population of around 11,500 people live within one kilometre of the ocean. Rising seas, coastal erosion, recurrent king tides, and extreme weather events are not just theoretical projections. They are felt realities. 

According to technical modelling undertaken by UNDP in Tuvalu, and consistent with IPCC sea-level rise scenarios, nearly half of the land area of the capital of Funafuti will become routinely inundated during normal monthly high tides by 2050 to 2060. By 2100, less than 10 percent of the land area will remain above the reach of annual high spring tide events.

In this context, adaptation is both a future consideration and a present necessity for survival – of all life systems and the vaa fesokotaki that connect them.

To meet this need, The Government of Tuvalu and UNDP are working together to build creative, transformational and holistic adaptation solutions based on the scientific evidence and local context. The Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project (TCAP) is one of those solutions. Funded by the GCF and the governments of Tuvalu, Australia and New Zealand, and implemented by UNDP, TCAP Phase 1 was completed in 2025.

Across Fogafale and the outer islands of Nanumea and Nanumaga, the project has strengthened nearly 2.9 kilometres of vulnerable shoreline and created over 7.3 hectares of reclaimed, elevated land in Funafuti, providing safe space for communities and future development. 

This is not incremental adaptation. It is adaptation at the scale of survival.

TCAP brings together infrastructure, planning, and capacity. More than 200 national stakeholders have been trained in coastal management, while risk-informed planning tools such as the LiDAR data and risk and hazard platforms are guiding long-term decision-making. 

Reflecting the Pasifika principle of mutual contradictions, these interventions are informed by both scientific evidence and Indigenous knowledge. Berm-top barriers constructed from sand-filled geotextile bags are covered with soil and planted with vegetation, allowing them to become part of the natural environment. Meanwhile, coral nurseries have been established to rehabilitate reef ecosystems and strengthen natural coastal protection. The elders’ knowledge of seasons, currents and plant species is critical to success. 

The next phases of TCAP are already underway and will protect approximately 1,170 meters of coastline and deliver an additional 13.6 hectares of raised land designed to remain above future sea levels. 

TCAP demonstrates what climate adaptation requires in small island states: scale, coordination, and sustained investment.

This is about more than just infrastructure. It is about ensuring that communities can remain in their ancestral lands – retaining connection to land, culture, and identity, while creating the conditions for future generations to stay. In doing so, it is an important step in building cultural security. 

But in Tuvalu, adaptation is also inseparable from questions of sovereignty. TCAP supports national security through safeguarding the physical territory upon which statehood is currently recognised under international law. This goes hand in hand with The Government of Tuvalu’s advocacy for the formal recognition of statehood irrespective of the existence of physical territory and is aligned with the Pacific’s Declaration on the Continuity of Statehood and the Protection of Persons in the Face of Climate Change-Related Sea-Level Rise. 

An invitation for the global community

The Pacific is not short on solutions. TCAP is proof that with the right partnerships, investment and drive the continuity of a nation can be safeguarded – in terms of both cultural and national security. 

What the region faces is a gap between climate finance needs and climate finance flows, between ambition and implementation. Closing that gap requires more than just projects. It requires systems that connect finance to policy, and policy to delivery that is grounded in local realities and wisdom, and capable of operating at scale. Indigenous knowledge must be integrated and embraced as a critical part of policy design. 

COP31 is an important opportunity for world leaders to come together and commit to climate adaptation at scale across the Pacific. At the same time, topics such as compensation for non-economic loss and damage and continuity of statehood despite loss of territory must also be on the agenda.   

But above all, climate action requires the spirit of alofa (love), aava (respect), and tiute (responsibility). Pre-COP in Fiji and Tuvalu in October this year is an invitation for the global community to engage in climate dialogue, consensus and action through the Pacific Way. 

The TCAP project has received funding from the GCF and the governments of Tuvalu, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. 

Miliama Lupe was a respected Tuvaluan elder from Funafala who passed away earlier this year. We pay our deepest respects to Miliama and all the Pacific ancestors who have nurtured the land across generations.

This blog is co-authored between Rev. Dr. Taufe M Lusama who is a theologian with a deep sense for climate justice from the Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu, serving as the Director of the Institute for Climate Indigenous Knowledge within the Pasifika Communities University, an ecumenical educational institution based in Suva, Fiji, and Aquila Van Keuk, UNDP Pacific Office Policy, Innovation and Partnerships Analyst.