Lesbian women living in Suva’s informal settlements, regional trade agreements and the extraction of resources in occupied West Papua are all part of the Pacific climate change picture. Noelene Nabulivou, Pacific activist and member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), shared this interlinked perspective at a panel in New York City on Friday.

“Looking at the example of climate change funding at the moment, there is a lot coming in… but there is no funding, less funding for sexual rights work… [yet] these issues are interlinked, and this makes women’s bodies, and lesbian bodies more vulnerable to the effects of climate change,” said Nabulivou, (above, right, ) speaking at the Salvation Army auditorium in midtown as part of the DAWN panel on Development Debates in a Fierce New World.

Nabulivou said lesbians and other sexual and gender minorities are marginalized and invisibilised in the Pacific by religious institutions, governments, donor agencies and sometimes by women’s movements themselves. As their needs are not taken into account when addressing climate change, they are made more vulnerable to the effects of climate change on livelihoods and access to resources. She said there is an urgent need to see how what seem like different sectors of trade, environment and women’s sexuality are actually linked and impact each other.

Nabulivou has worked at the community level in Fiji with Women’s Action for Change, as well as with national processes and international networks such as the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition. She is the most recent addition to DAWN’s executive committee, bringing a Pacific perspective and expertise in sexual rights, working with marginalized communities and creating transformative spaces through the arts. DAWN, a network of feminist activists and scholars from the global south, was formed over 25 years ago. The DAWN global secretariat, coordinated by Fiji feminist Claire Slatter, was based from some years in Suva, Fiji, until moving to Nigeria in 2005 and then to its current base in Manila, Philippines.

–Tara Chetty (DTI Alumna)

Source: Pacific Gender Action Portal http://www.pacificgap.info/2010/03/climate-change-is-not-just-about-sea.html

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