“It’s not warships.” That’s how Mark Brown, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands responded when asked about the National Security priorities of his country.[1] “It’s climate security. It’s economic security. It’s the well-being of our people”[2] and underpinning it all, water security is now central to the agenda of many Pacific Island states.

When we think about climate change in the Pacific, most people jump to a doomsday scenario of Nations engulfed by the rising oceans. But long before islands slip permanently into the sea, the Pacific faces a peril that presents an equally existential threat to its communities.