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    Sun, sand and uncertainty: the promise and peril of a Pacific tourism bubble
    (The Conversation Media Group Ltd, 2020-06-08) Scheyvens R; Movono A
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    Pacific tourism is desperate for a vaccine and travel freedoms, but the industry must learn from this crisis
    (The Conversation Media Group Ltd, 2020-11-25) Movono A; Scheyvens R
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    Traditional skills help people on the tourism-deprived Pacific Islands survive the pandemic
    (The Conversation Media Group Ltd, 2020-11-02) Scheyvens R; Movono A
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    Silver linings around dark clouds: Tourism, Covid-19 and a return to traditional values, villages and the vanua
    (Victoria University of Wellington and John Wiley and Sons Australia Ltd., 2022-08) Movono A; Scheyvens R; Auckram S
    The global pandemic has adversely affected tourism globally, particularly in small island states heavily dependent on tourism. The closure of borders to regular flights for over a year in places such as Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands and Vanuatu, where this research was undertaken, has resulted in massive job losses. Many tourism employees have left the once-bustling tourist hubs, returning to villages and family settlements. Such clear urban to rural migration behaviours do not dominate movement patterns in the Pacific, but are an important and enduring strategy when shocks strike. In the case of the pandemic-induced migration to villages, former tourism workers have had to engage in a complicated process of adapting to the communal setting, employing new – as well as traditional – strategies to sustain a livelihood. Thus, this paper will discuss how the pandemic has influenced return migration patterns in the Pacific, and the implications of this shift. Findings suggest that, despite their financial struggles, people have adapted to life in their ancestral homes by rekindling their relationships with kin and increasing their engagement on their customary land. They have relearned about traditional Indigenous knowledge, diversified their skills and reconnected with their social and ecological systems. This spiritual homecoming observed in the Pacific ultimately shows that there can be silver linings to the dark clouds of the current disorder.
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    Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific Islands: Ambiguous Allies?
    (Australian National University, 2018-10-28) Powles A; Wallis J
    Divergences in Australia and New Zealand’s policies and practices raise questions about the status of their alliance and how the two states will work together to address challenges in the Pacific Islands. It is not clear how compatible New Zealand’s purportedly principles-based ‘Pacific Reset’ is with Australia’s more security driven plan to ‘step-up’ its engagement in the region. It is also not clear how the two states will reconcile their apparently different approaches to the United States and China, both in the region and beyond.
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    Australia in the South Pacific
    (Australian Strategic Policy Instutute, 2016-03-07) Powles AR
    Commissioned piece on the Australia in the South Pacific following the release of the 2016 Defence White Paper
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    Dietary agrobiodiversity for improved nutrition and health outcomes within a transitioning indigenous Solomon Island food system
    (Springer Nature BV on behalf of the International Society for Plant Pathology, 2021-08) Vogliano C; Raneri JE; Coad J; Tutua S; Wham C; Lachat C; Burlingame B
    Indigenous food systems of Pacific Small Island Developing Countries contain vast biological and cultural diversity. However, a nutrition transition is underway, characterized by shifts away from traditional diets in favour of imported and modern foods, contributing to some of the highest rates of obesity and Diabetes Type 2 Mellitus in the world. Using a mixed method approach, this study aimed to assess dietary agrobiodiversity’s relationship with nutrition indicators related to diet quality and anthropometrics within the context of the rural and Indigenous food system of Baniata village, located in the Western Province of Solomon Islands (Melanesia). A secondary aim was to evaluate the contribution of agrobiodiversity from the local food system to diet quality. A comprehensive nutrition survey was administered to the women primarily responsible for cooking of randomly selected households (n = 30). Additionally, 14 participatory focus group discussions captured the historical narrative of food system transitions, were hosted over a period of seven days, and included men, women and youth. Dietary intakes of the participants were reported below the estimated average requirement (EAR) for several essential nutrients, including protein (53%), calcium (96.6%), vitamin B1 (86.6%), vitamin B2 (80%), vitamin A (80%), zinc (40%) and fibre (77%). Focus group participants built a timeline of key historical and climatic transitions perceived to be drivers of dietary shifts away from traditional foods and towards imported and processed foods. Participants identified 221 species and varieties of agrobiodiverse foods available for cultivation or wild collection. Based on 24 h diet recalls, 87 were found to be utilised. Participants who consumed foods of a wider diversity of species richness had a higher probability of achieving recommended nutrition intakes and a lower body fat percentage (r2 = 0.205; p = 0.012). Our results suggest a nutrition transition is underway, and strategies harnessing traditional knowledge of nutrient-dense, agrobiodiverse foods can help improve food and nutrition security.
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    Assessing Diet Quality of Indigenous Food Systems in Three Geographically Distinct Solomon Islands Sites (Melanesia, Pacific Islands)
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2021-01) Vogliano C; Raneri JE; Maelaua J; Coad J; Wham C; Burlingame B
    Indigenous Solomon Islanders, like many living in Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS), are currently experiencing the global syndemic-the combined threat of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change. This mixed-method study aimed to assess nutrition transitions and diet quality by comparing three geographically unique rural and urban indigenous Solomon Islands populations. Participants in rural areas sourced more energy from wild and cultivated foods; consumed a wider diversity of foods; were more likely to meet WHO recommendations of >400g of non-starchy fruits and vegetables daily; were more physically active; and had significantly lower body fat, waist circumference, and body mass index (BMI) when compared to urban populations. Urban populations were found to have a reduced ability to self-cultivate agri-food products or collect wild foods, and therefore consumed more ultra-processed foods (classified as NOVA 4) and takeout foods, and overall had less diverse diets compared to rural populations. Clear opportunities to leverage traditional knowledge and improve the cultivation and consumption of underutilized species can assist in building more sustainable and resilient food systems while ensuring that indigenous knowledge and cultural preferences are respected.
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    Pacific Island Labour programmes in New Zealand : an aid to Pacific Island development? : a critical lens on the Recognised Seasonal Employer policy : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2015) Rockell, Dennis Graham
    The New Zealand Recognised Employer (RSE) Policy was designed to remedy labour shortages in the horticulture/viticulture industry early in the twenty-first century. It was the first New Zealand contract labour migration programme to be designed with the explicit intent of the development of the source countries, consisting mainly of small Pacific Island States. This research sought to examine within a historical context whether the programme was beneficial to the source countries and communities, and whether the programme met the expectations of international labour conventions which New Zealand has signed. An attempt was made to discover whether, when compared with antecedent programmes in New Zealand and North America, the RSE represented a new paradigm in the design and implementation of a contract migrant labour programme. The field work was carried out for twenty months between December 2011 and August 2013, involved a grower survey and over 100 semi-structured interviews with Government officials, horticulturalists, migrant workers, pastoral care workers, and other interested parties. Time in southern Vanuatu was divided between interviewing migrant RSE workers in Port Vila and visiting 100 village communities on Tanna Island. Assessments were made of access to the programme for the rural and urban poor and of the positive and negative impacts of the programme. Positive features observed included the benefits of close government monitoring of worker accommodation, the transparency of the remuneration, the interest of many employers in assisting workers to remit funds to source communities, house building and infrastructural benefits gained by many workers, and the transfer of useful skills. Negative features included the powerlessness of the workers to negotiate their work conditions, the failure of some employers to address workers’ specific needs, the social dislocation of some workers leading to alcohol abuse, the frequency of work interruptions due particularly to weather conditions, the excessive work hours on some nightshifts at minimum wage, and a lack of connection between recruitment patterns and areas of greatest need. The RSE policy has come about in an era of migration optimism. Since the mid-1990s the total global flow of remittances has exceeded the level of official development assistance. However most literature regarding remittance flows and transnational communities is set within a context of diaspora. The RSE was carefully designed to prevent overstaying of visa entitlements, in order to prevent any growth of diaspora. Consequently the overall financial flows in the case of Vanuatu are small compared to such sectors as tourism, and the position of the RSE in the migration-development nexus is somewhat contradictory.