On behalf of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung – Regional Programme Australia and the Pacific (KAS Australia), I am delighted to present to you the first Special Edition of our Periscope Paper Series. Entitled ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage within the Laws and Policies of South Pacific Small Island States in the Climate Crisis: Towards a More Resilient and Inclusive Approach’, the edition deals with the protection of intangible cultural heritage in Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

This Special Edition would not have been possible without special authors, who I would
briefly like to introduce. The mastermind behind this research report is Prof Dr Petra Butler from the Law School of Victoria University of Wellington, who also heads the
Institute of Small and Micro States. I have known Petra for several years now and can
say that throughout this time she has proved to have an excellent command of legal
matters of concern to the Pacific region. This includes of course climate change and the
impact of rising sea levels on the Pacific region, its peoples and livelihoods.

In order to ensure the research was carried out to the highest possible standard, Petra
collaborated with the British Institute of International Comparative Law (BIICL) in
London, which is, one of the few organisations worldwide whose researchers are
specialising in cultural heritage law, environmental law and climate change law,
including in the Pacific region. The research consortium included:
• Kristin Hausler, the Dorset Senior Fellow and Director of the Centre for International
Law at BIICL;
• Alina Holzhausen, a researcher in Environmental and Climate Change Law at BIICL, to
carry out the research on Tonga and to provide additional support to the research project.
• Dr Berenika Drazewska, a (now) former postdoctoral researcher at BIICL, who has since
moved on to become a Senior Research Fellow at the Yong Pung How Faculty of Law at the Singapore Management University; and

Being a lawyer by background myself, and having closely followed the adoption of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, I was privileged to have had the opportunity to carry out some of the interviews in support of this project.

Let me commend this groundbreaking re- search report to you, which I trust you find valuable and thought-provoking whether or not intangible cultural heritage is at the core of what you do. May it contribute to the protection of such heritage, and therefore the stability, of the Pacific region.