PCP Talks and Workshops
Since 2006, the PCP has been taking steps to help ensure that the voice of Pacific Islands on climate change is heard loud and clear in the Australian and global community. Our speakers have presented on a range of topics, including:
- The impacts of climate change on Pacific Islands, particularly Kiribati and Tuvalu
- Climate justice in the Pacific: climate change as a human rights issue
- Climate science
- Climate action- what you can do to help
- Eco-justice/spirituality
- Laudato Si, Pope Francis's powerful encyclical on sustainability and climate justice
- Cross-cultural awareness: differences between Pacific and Australian cultures
If you would like to book one of our speakers, please email our Coordinator, Corinne Fagueret, at [email protected]
OUR SPEAKERS:
Maria Tiimon Chi-Fang, PCP Pacific Outreach Officer
Maria comes from the island nation of Kiribati right on the equator in the Pacific and one of the places in our region most at risk from the impacts of climate change.
Maria presents the face of climate-affected communities, the resilience of these communities in the face of the climate crisis and the vulnerability of their homelands.
In her time with the PCP, Maria has made a huge impact on all who have met her. She combines a care for the future of her own people with a generous and graceful concern to bring people gradually and positively to an understanding of the kinds of decisions industrialised societies need to make if we are to extend the amount of time her people can continue to live on their islands.
Corinne Fagueret, PCP Coordinator
Corinne joined the Edmund Rice Centre as PCP Coordinator in February 2019, having spent 25 years working on public policy development and advocacy in the environmental and social justice fields, both in Government and NGO sectors.
Corinne has travelled and worked extensively with Pacific Islander communities to help build and support emerging climate leadership, particularly in Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Torres Strait.
Corinne is an engaging speaker who very much enjoys connecting with her audience.
Palayasin: ‘Go away mining corporations'
As mining companies engage in human rights abuses, land grabs, environmental destruction, community upheaval, loss of traditional life, militarisation, pollution of vital ecosystems, and vilification and killing of human rights defenders and activists, in the Philippines the Tagalog word ‘palayasin’ (go away) rings out… and is heard throughout Asia, Latin America, Europe, Oceania and Africa. Though companies claim they are responsible corporate citizens, the branding does not match the reality.
Amidst much suffering to indigenous communities and local people, mining corporations, in amassing much wealth, wield economic and political power over governments, whilst being protected by international trade and financial institutions. But voices, cry out, ‘go away’, ‘no to mining, yes to life’.
The extraction of minerals pollutes areas beyond the actual mining sites and for years after closing operation. Pope Francis referred to the ‘mess’ in our planet in his recent Encyclical Laudato Si’. Governments promote mining and provide incentives to corporations in the name of ‘the national interest’ and ‘economic growth’, whilst the harm and cost to ordinary peoples’ lives, communities and future generations of all species is barely recognised. For governments it is ‘yes to mining, and no to life’ for their people.