On 28 August 2024, the Falepili Union Treaty between Tuvalu and Australia entered into force. As the first climate resettlement treaty ever adopted in history, providing a defined climate mobility pathway, this peculiar legal instrument on climate cooperation offers numerous reflections enshrined in its first four articles (e.g. the recognition of Tuvalu’s sovereignty and continuity of statehood, the support to human mobility with dignity and the collaboration for security and stability). Notwithstanding that the Explanatory Memorandum issued on 8 May 2024, tries to slightly overcome some of the main critical remarks linked to the Treaty, concerning Tuvalu’s loss of autonomy to make independent decisions, the perspective of the dilution of Tuvalian traditions and cultural heritage – both tangible and intangible – has been somehow neglected in the debate. As a result, the impression that the layers mentioned above are compromised in exchange for strategic security and economic benefits is far from being completely debunked. In September 2024 the Australian government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, released an official factsheet to the Falepili Union Treaty, introducing in a very unclear and questionable way the protection of Tuvalian’s cultural and natural heritage as a value embedded in the core of the partnership and, even more importantly, a primary form of climate resilience-building measure. This blog will focus on these aspects – how the bilateral Treaty fails to provide a transparent reference to cultural heritage protection – and will raise some remarks on how climate resilience and adaptation measures are conceived within the Treaty framework when safeguarding cultural heritage in the face of sea-level rising.
The intimate connection with ancestor’s land: Framing the Falepili Union Treaty approach to cultural heritage
After acknowledging the shared risk that climate change poses to the stability, security, prosperity and resilience of the small island state, the Falepili Union Treaty through Article 2(2)(a) underlines “the desire of Tuvalu’s people to continue to live in their territory where possible and Tuvalu’s deep, ancestral connections to land and sea”. This provision should not be disregarded as a mere rhetorical statement; indeed, it raises an interesting point related to cultural heritage protection. To understand the broader action carried out at the international level, Tuvalu submitted on 24 January 2024 the “Pacific atoll-island cultural landscape of Tuvalu” to the UNESCO Tentative list, stressing that “Pacific tangible heritage is best understood through cultural traditions including land and sea-use”. Hence, Tuvalu’s cultural heritage paramount element resides and should be understood in a fragile and distinctive connection between the natural and human environment of the country. This profound link between both tangible and intangible aspects of the cultural landscape and its living component is not far from being completely lost in a few decades due to the rise of sea levels. In this regard, Article 2(2)(a) of the Falepili Union Treaty seems to embrace Tuvalu’s current national cultural policy, highlighting the unique interaction between land, sea, and population that has shaped Tuvalu’s traditions and cultural heritage. Also, Tuvalian’s government understood the crucial role that UNESCO might play in protecting the peculiarity of this complex cultural heritage, ratifying the 1972 World Heritage Convention on 18 May 2023, and becoming the 195th State Party to the Treaty.
Although there is no explicit reference to the concept of “cultural heritage” in the text of the Treaty, the formulation of article 2(2)(a) might offer a possible way forward to interpret the orientation of the Parties in preserving the ancestral bonding with the sea and land. In any case, it is quite odd that nowhere in the Treaty is there a punctual mention of the terms “cultural heritage”, “culture”, or “cultural preservation”, creating a clear vacuum when addressing climate adaptation measures and their strong link with cultural and natural heritage protection. As a matter of fact, Article 2(2)(a) is under the umbrella of the “Climate Cooperation” measures included in the title of Article 2. A deeper reading of Article 2 provides another (possible) clue as to how cultural heritage protection measures can be designed under the provisions of the Treaty. According to Article 2(2)(c): “that more recent technological developments provide additional adaptation opportunities”. Again, however, it is unclear whether this vague provision refers directly to the protection of Tuvalu’s cultural heritage – both tangible and intangible – and what Australia’s scope for intervention is.
Climate resilience and innovative adaptation measures
By creating a digital twin in the metaverse, Tuvalu started a process to become the first “digital nation” in the world. One of the goals of the government’s digitization efforts is to create a living archive where Tuvaluans can share oral traditions, stories, customs and, most importantly, their language, dances and festivals. Minister Simon Kofe strenuously advocated these aspects in his COP27 speech (see here) “Our land, our ocean, our culture are the most precious assets of our people and to keep them safe from harm, no matter what happens in the physical world, we’ll move them to the cloud” – and at COP28 presenting an updated version of the concrete actions that will be undertaken, emphasising that the project will be carried out and run by the Tuvalian people themselves, who will be personally involved in preserving the statehood, spirit and values of the country. Now, if the digital plan established by Tuvalu is not at odds with Article 2(2)(c), and might be interpreted as an innovative technological adaptation measure in response to a contingent climate tragedy (in Prime Minister Kausea Natano’s words “As a nation we have come to the shocking realisation that we now exist to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change”) it is not entirely clear why such a bold decision to include the protection of cultural heritage was not explicitly taken in the Treaty.
Australia invested AUD38 million in a coastal adaptation project to materially expand Tuvalian land: one of the aims is to allow people to thrive and continue to cultivate their own culture. This adaptation measure is considered, within the Treaty framework, as a form of climate resilience measure. However, since the inevitable loss of the central element of Tuvalu’s cultural heritage – the relationship between land and sea – cannot be avoided, the groundbreaking digital measure of adaptation undertaken by Tuvalu autonomously (conceived as a climate resilience-building action, using the terminology of the Falepili partnership), and beyond the provisions of the Treaty, is undoubtedly more progressive and adaptable to today’s contingencies than the Australian one.
Conclusions
Recognising that the Falepili Union Treaty is rather weak in dealing with aspects of cultural heritage protection in the face of climate change, a significant boost comes from Tuvalu’s international commitment to protect its unique cultural link to the land and sea in relevant fora, as inferred in the speech delivered to the ICJ on December 2024 (see here and here). The operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund – long awaited by Tuvalu – in the last COP29 in Baku might be another step forward for Small Island Developing States, potentially encompassing cultural heritage as a loss of non-economical nature. In this regard, the 2024 Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility considers the protection of cultural and natural heritage, identity and dignity as a fundamental and essential principle for climate resilience, stating that the displacement from ancestral lands, the erosion of territory and cultural heritage constitute some of the most profound losses and damages for pacific communities, affecting both present and future generations.
The 2024 official factsheet to the Falepili Union Treaty refers to “climate resilience measures” without clearly defining what this concept encompasses and the text of the Treaty does not provide any further elucidation on this. Climate resilience is often understood as the ability to anticipate, cope with and recover from the impacts of climate change, but without specific details the pattern remains blurred within the Treaty framework and it is unclear how it applies in the context of cultural heritage protection untethered from major ongoing infrastructure investments driven by the Falepili partnership itself. Beyond the migration aspect, which is without any doubt the real cornerstone of the Treaty, efforts should prioritize supporting Tuvaluans in safeguarding their cultural heritage and strengthening their communal bonds, as a feasible adaptation measure. But a bitter and provocative final question may arise. Isn’t the inevitable material loss of the land and ancestral connection to the sea, which is the very essence of Tuvalu’s cultural and natural heritage, even as it was understood through Tuvalu’s UNESCO Tentative list submission, a failure of the adaptation measures? Most likely, no pioneering digitization project, no matter how appreciable, can be a completely satisfying form of adaptation against the rising sea that is tragically threatening the existence of Tuvalu and its irreplaceable heritage.
