Assessing the sustainability of indigenous food systems in Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health Nutrition & Food Systems at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Chapter 2 is reproduced with the publisher's permission. This article was published in Vogliano, C., Murray, L., Coad, J., Wham, C., Maelaua, J., Kafa, R., & Burlingame, B., Progress towards SDG 2: Zero hunger in Melanesia – A state of data scoping review, Global Food Security, 29, 100519, © Elsevier 2021. Chapter 3 is reproduced with permission. This article was published as Chapter 4, From the ocean to the mountains: Storytelling in the Pacific Islands, in FAO and Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Indigenous Peoples’ food systems: Insights on sustainability and resilience from the front line of climate change, Rome, 2021, http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cb5131en. Chapters 4 & 5 are re-used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Appendices A & H are re-used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/. Appendix B was removed for copyright reasons. Appendix C is re-used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Indigenous Peoples living in Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) who have traditionally relied on locally grown, biodiverse foods for their primary source of nutrition are now seeing the adverse impacts of changing diets and climate change. Shifts away from traditional diets towards modern, imported and ultra-processed foods are likely giving rise to noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, which are now the leading causes of mortality. Climate change is magnifying health inequities and challenging food and nutrition security through heavier rains, longer droughts, and rising sea levels. COVID-19 has highlighted additional challenges for those living in PSIDS, exposing vulnerabilities across global food systems. Using Solomon Islands as a proxy for the broader Pacific, this thesis aims to assess PSIDS food system sustainability, including diet quality and diversity, as well as perceived food system transitions. Findings from this thesis can help strengthen discourse around promoting sustainable and resilient food systems and help achieve food and nutrition security targets set by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)