Fiji, Oct. 26 -- The ocean is not a backdrop to Pacific life. It is the source of it. As the Tongan Fijian writer Epeli Hau'ofa wrote, the sea is "our pathway to each other and to everyone else" - it is the connective tissue of who we are rather than a boundary that isolates us.

For generations, communities across Tuvalu, Fiji and the wider Pacific have learned to read and understand the ocean's moods, heeded its warnings, and passed this knowledge through traditions and methods that determine how we fish, plant and build.

What we are living through now is different. Rising seas, extreme weather and a warming ocean are changing the conditions that have shaped our knowledge and the way of living. We are not writing about a future threat ...