News and culture from Vanuatu and the Pacific Islands
Kastom — the Bislama word for custom — isn't just tradition for show. It shapes land rights, marriage, conflict resolution, and daily life across Vanuatu's 80-plus islands.
Read more →Vanuatu's independence story is unusual even by Pacific standards — it involved two colonial powers, a coconut rebellion, and a French-backed separatist movement all at once.
Read more →For Vanuatu and neighboring Pacific nations, climate change isn't a future problem. Rising seas, intensifying cyclones, and saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies are happening right now.
Read more →With 138 languages across 80 islands, Vanuatu needed a common tongue. Bislama — born from the Pacific labor trade — became that tongue, and then became something more.
Read more →Vanuatu grows some of the world's strongest kava and has been drinking it for centuries. Nakamals — kava bars — are where politics happens, conflicts get resolved, and the day ends.
Read more →Cyclone Harold tore through Vanuatu's largest island in April 2020 during COVID border closures. The reconstruction story shows both community resilience and the limits of aid from afar.
Read more →As great powers compete for influence across the Pacific, small island nations like Vanuatu and Solomon Islands are making strategic choices with consequences larger than their size suggests.
Read more →Vanuatu has one of the world's worst records for women's political representation. But a growing movement of ni-Vanuatu women is changing that from the inside, slowly and persistently.
Read more →Tourism was Vanuatu's biggest industry before COVID shut borders for two years. The reopening brought choices: chase volume or build something more sustainable and community-centered.
Read more →Vanuatu's art traditions — from sand drawing to grade-taking sculpture — are recognized by UNESCO and maintained by living artists who learned from their grandparents.
Read more →Vanuatu's subsistence farmers have fed their communities for generations. Climate change, rural-urban migration, and export crop pressure are testing that system in new ways.
Read more →Running a school system in two colonial languages across 80 islands with limited infrastructure is genuinely difficult. Vanuatu's educators are doing it anyway, often with remarkable creativity.
Read more →An active volcano you can walk to the rim of, the John Frum cargo cult, Yakel village keeping kastom fully intact, and some of the friendliest people in the Pacific. Tanna rewards slow travel.
Read more →Before GPS and charts, Polynesian and Melanesian navigators crossed thousands of miles of open ocean using stars, waves, birds, and currents. This knowledge nearly died. Now it's being recovered.
Read more →Port Vila is small by capital city standards, but it packs in markets, dive sites, good food, and a genuinely multicultural Pacific energy. Here's how to spend three days well.
Read more →Copra — dried coconut meat — was the cash crop that funded colonial Pacific economies and still supports thousands of Vanuatu families. The industry's future looks different than its past.
Read more →Running a health system across a scattered archipelago with limited roads and no bridges is genuinely hard. Vanuatu does it with a mix of government facilities, NGO support, and traditional medicine.
Read more →The waters around Vanuatu hold everything from WWII wrecks to pristine reefs, dugong feeding grounds to vivid soft coral walls. It's consistently ranked among the world's best diving destinations.
Read more →Vanuatu has had more than 60 governments since independence in 1980. Understanding why requires understanding the country's electoral system, political culture, and the role of money in politics.
Read more →String band music — guitars, ukeleles, and harmonizing voices — is the soundtrack of Pacific Island life. In Vanuatu, it carries kastom themes into contemporary settings with effortless grace.
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