With the cyclone season approaching and El Nino back this year, La Reunion is getting ready for a season of heightened risk across the Indian Ocean. For the island’s residents, that preparation is anything but abstract: it touches how homes are built, how resources are accessed, and how communities will cope when storms and drought strike. This week, three parallel gatherings in Saint-Denis place those everyday stakes at the center of the debate.
The first is Cyclonex, a seminar held on Tuesday 3 November on the campus du Moufia. Authorities and institutions from across the island meet there to exchange experiences and sharpen the readiness of the State, the collectivites, public and private operators, civil security actors and associations. Their work forms the institutional backbone of public safety in a season when cyclones are an ever-present threat.
But the conversation is not reserved for officials. From Wednesday 4 November, the Ambition Planete congress opens at the Nordev for two days, inviting citizens from a wide range of backgrounds to discuss climate change and its impact on cyclones and drought. For this fifth edition, themed “l’humain au coeur de la transition”, nearly 1 100 participants are expected: collectivites, businesses, associations, young people and residents, from La Reunion, the Mascareignes and the wider Indian Ocean. They come to testify, reflect and propose.
The questions on the table go to the heart of daily life: solidarity, health, access to resources, the adaptation of territories, biodiversity and the place of citizens in decision-making. Jacques Lowinsky, president of the CINOR, insists that solutions to climate disruption cannot come from institutions alone. Citizens are directly concerned, he argues, and their access to resources must be guaranteed. To get there, people need to talk, exchange and compare in order to find “solutions reelistes”, realistic answers rather than abstract ones.
Meanwhile, the regional dimension gives that citizen involvement a concrete illustration. Actors from neighboring islands are taking part in the congress, bringing their own experience. In Rodrigues, the population has long been used to contributing to the development of its island. Benoit Jolicoeur, a former minister of Rodrigues, describes a tradition of hands-on engagement: “La population est tres engagee, par exemple pour avoir de l’electricite a Rodrigues, les gens ont travaille volontairement pour charrier les colonnes, creuser des trous, etc. Et aujourd’hui avec les enjeux de l’environnement qui sont nouveaux, la aussi il y a une participation active de la population pour planter des arbres, pour les forets endemiques et tout ca.” His account shows how public participation, once devoted to basic infrastructure, is now turning to environmental priorities such as planting trees and protecting endemic forests.
Practical protection of residents is also on the program. Workshops on risk prevention and resilience will help participants learn what actions to take in the event of cyclones or flooding. Alongside them, Roinds Koze discussions will tackle themes such as “l’energie citoyenne : comment produire de l’energie a l’echelle de son quartier” and “Batir aujourd’hui pour demain : comment adapter nos constructions dans le cadre du changement climatique ?” That second question, how to build differently, is one specialists are examining in another forum entirely: the 4th Biennale internationale d’architecture tropicale, running from 3 to 5 November at the Moca in the Hauts de Saint-Denis.
There, the focus is on adapting construction to a changing climate, a theme to which students at the ENSA Reunion are particularly sensitive, according to Pierre Rosier, director of the Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de La Reunion. The reflections include “reinterroger le mode de concevoir”, rethinking the way buildings are designed, and reconsidering the materials used. Rosier also affirms that La Reunion has genuine expertise in this field: “on a des choses a dire, on a des choses a exporter, un savoir-faire a transmettre”, along with the experience of other regions to draw on. A fuller account of these initiatives is available at https://la1ere.franceinfo.fr/reunion/architecture-mode-de-vie-acces-aux-ressources-comment-la-reunion-tente-de-s-adapter-au-changement-climatique-1754166.html
Taken together, the three events sketch a single picture: adaptation to climate change in La Reunion is being pursued on three fronts at once, by the institutions that prepare for cyclones, by the citizens who debate access to resources and neighborhood energy, and by the architects rethinking how the island should build. What unites them is the conviction, voiced by both officials and residents, that the people who live with the consequences must help shape the answers. Whether that shared conviction holds through the storms ahead may be the real test of the season.