Interview with Dr Colin Tukuitonga: from crisis to action in Pacific communities

The island communities in the Pacific contribute very little to global carbon emissions, yet they are among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Dr Colin Tukuitonga, a general practitioner by training, was born and raised on Niue Island in the Pacific. He has held senior public health roles in the New Zealand Government and, since 2014, has served as Pacific Community Director-General. He spoke to us about how climate change is affecting the health of people living in Pacific Island countries and the relevance of Australia’s climate change policy responses to these neighbouring countries

The future of Pacific regionalism: Challenges and prospects

Fakaalofa lahi atu, Bula vinaka. Bonjour. Kia ora and Good Evening. It’s a great pleasure to be here today. I want to say vinaka vaka levu and thank Professor Steven Ratuva for inviting me to speak. I have been asked to cover one of the great challenges of our region: The Future of Pacific Regionalism. More specifically, I’ve been asked to speak on the challenges and prospects for regionalism. Regionalism has always been a goal of Pacific leaders, yet somehow the benefits have been elusive. The regionalism theme in the Pacific is not new. In the 1970s one of my predecessors at the Pacific Community, Dr Macu Salato of Fiji, defined Pacific regionalism as “unity in diversity” – recognising the region’s rich diversity of geography, cultures, and so on, and many common interests and challenges – not least the shared resource of the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Islands region is one of contrast – from Papua New Guinea with more than seven million people, to Niue and Tokelau, each with populations under two thousand. It is clear that development potential varies considerably, along with the capacity and capability of Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). First, let me tell you a little about the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)–an organisation that I now have the honour of leading

Genetic Diversity and Linkage Disequilibrium in the Polynesian Population of Niue Island

Isolated populations that recently have been derived from small homogeneous groups of founders should have low genetic diversity and high levels of linkage disequilibrium and should be ideal for mapping ancestral polymorphisms that influence complex genetic disease susceptibility. Populations that fulfill these criteria have been difficult to identify. We have been looking for Polynesian populations with these characteristics, because Polynesians have high rates of complex genetic diseases. In Niue Islanders all ancestral female (mitochondrial HSV1 sequence) and 90.4% of ancestral male (Ychromosome haplogroup) lineages are of Southeast Asian origin. The frequency of European Y-chromosome haplogroups is 7.2%. The diversities of mitochondrial HSV1 sequences (h 0.18 0.05) and Y-chromosome haplogroups (h 0.18 0.05) are lower than values published for any other population. Ten autosomal microsatellites spaced over 5.8 cM show low allele numbers in Niue Islanders relative to Europeans (55 vs. 88 total alleles, respectively) and a modest reduction in heterozygous loci (0.71 0.02 vs. 0.78 0.02, p 0.04). The higher linkage disequilibrium (d2) between these loci in Niue Islanders relative to Europeans ( p 0.001) is negatively correlated (r 0.47, p 0.01) with genetic distance. In summary, Niue Islanders are genetically isolated and have a homogeneous Southeast Asian ancestry. They have reduced autosomal genetic diversity and high levels of linkage disequilibrium that are consistent with the influence of genetic drift mechanisms, such as a founder effect or bottlenecks. High-powered linkage disequilibrium studies designed to map ancestral polymorphisms that influence complex genetic disease susceptibility may be feasible in this population