18th October, 2017 The Meteorology Department today joined with various stakeholders from the Community, Private Sector, other Government Agencies and Non-government agencies for a 2 day workshop on collecting and documenting weather and climate related traditional knowledge. The workshop is funded by the Government of Australia under the Climate and Ocean Support Program for the Pacific (COSPPAC) initiative and implemented by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, SPREP and the Tonga Meteorological Service.
In his opening statement at the workshop the Acting CEO for MEIDECC Mr. Leveni stated “Local communities in Tonga and throughout the Pacific have always made decisions related to climate and weather in their own context. By observing their surroundings and the environment, they have been able to make predictions and forecasts about extreme events such as tropical cyclones, tsunamis, flooding and droughts.
History has shown great adaptive value in the use of traditionally based science. However, the value of Traditional Knowledge (TK) is being eroded by rapid loss of knowledge due, in part, to rapid urbanization and emphasis on western science. Modern school systems, emigration and the growing interest in the cash economy and western goods have also left the traditional based knowledge, a thing of the past. In some communities, there may be less than a handful of elders left who still hold this wealth of knowledge. Perhaps a few of them still remain in the more resilient and self-reliant outer islands”
Leveni also added, “One of the biggest challenge in conveying the weather and climate information is that the language is too technical and at times not understood. Through this project the Ministry together with its various stakeholder partners will use traditional knowledge to improve the delivery and the understanding of weather and climate forecast. The Tonga Meteorological Service (TMS) and the Climate and Ocean Support Program in the Pacific (COSPPac) recognize the value of preserving TK for use by future generations. This Project will attempt to address this chall enge by collating historical and current TK, verifying it with elders and storing it for posterity.
The project will also enable the TMS staff to outreach with communities in Tonga together with yourselves the stakeholder partners present here today to document and assess the reliability of different TK indicators of weather and climate and store it in a database as well as developing communication products. It also provides an opportunity to discuss with the community modern methods of forecast and their relevance to traditional methods to improve decision-making.”
In her opening remarks during the opening of the workshop, Ms. Madeleine Scott, Second Secretary of the Australian High Commission Office in Tonga also stressed the importance of the use to traditional knowledge and the importance to use not only weather and climate prediction purposes but also use those passed down knowledge to improving other sectors such as health.
The Director of the Tonga Meteorological Service, Mr. Ofa Fa’anunu also reflected on the training “we need to improve the way we convey the weather and climate information to the users. If we can’t get that message across to the users of weather and climate information then we are not doing our job well. It is our intention to explore all opportunities to improve the information we provide so people are able to respond to the warnings we give out from the Met Office effectively and accurately. Looking at use of traditional knowledge and traditional language is one of those opportunities.
The training includes introducing to the participants the tools used for collecting traditional knowledge as well as instructions on how to conduct interviews as well as correctly document the traditional knowledge ready for archiving into the national traditional knowledge database build developing. The training will be completed tomorrow (18 October 2017) with hands on experience in doing actual live interviews out in the field.
The training workshop is being lead conducted Dr. Lynda Chambers from the Australia Bureau of Meteorology and Ms. Siosinamele Lui from COSPPAC (through SPREP).
ENDS
For further information please contact the Meteorology Division on 35355 or metstaff@met.gov.to. More information is also available at www.met.gov.to