Committee: Special Summit on GlobalizationTopic: Endangerment of Regional Languages and VernacularCountry: The Republic of Vanuatu School: Greens Farms AcademyA.   Globalization is a huge problem for Pacific Islands as it threatens their cultures and languages, sometimes driving them to extinction. While globalization almost always benefits large, wealthy countries with fast technological innovation, smaller countries, like the Pacific Island nations, are hurt by the influence and mix of cultural identities that wind up on their shores. These small nations have an economy most reliant on tourism, but tourism is also what is killing the definitive cultures that visitors come to see. While there are laws that protect entrepreneurs and businesses to make the world more technologically connected, there are no international laws to safeguard the effects of globalization on language and culture in small nations.  B.   The Republic of Vanuatu believes that, due to westernization and tourism, globalization has become an increasing threat to Vanuatu as geographical location is no longer keeping indigenous languages safe from western influence. Vanuatu is a country that is extremely rich in its languages, with over 100 recorded vernaculars, making the islands multicultural and multilingual. These languages, however, are becoming extinct. This is because the last speakers of the language are dying, there are not enough accessible ways to view and remember these languages, and because educational institutions are not given the resources to implement the Vanuatu National Language Policy of 2012. As of 2008, the United Nations was already reporting that eight vernaculars were already dead, and that 81 vernaculars out of 106 were still in some extent of use. Now, the number of dead/dying vernaculars have increased to ten.When the Republic of Vanuatu finally began to address this problem, they decided to do so by building the Vanuatu Cultural Centre in 1995, and adding onto the national museum, in order to preserve their regional languages and rich cultures. However, these spaces are not accessible to the large majority of the populace. In addition to this, the Republic of Vanuatu also recognizes the need to educate children not only in French and English, but also in Bislama, and whatever that child’s mother tongue is. This “mother tongue” could be any of the recorded 106 indigenous languages, specific to the region that the children are living in. Initially, the “Education Act of 2001”, which set guidelines for teaching children in their own dialect, but was not thoroughly enforced, due to not being financed and not being widely communicated. Because of this, the people did not actually become aware of this new law. More recently, however, the 2012 Vanuatu National Language Policy was instilled, supporting Bislama and other local vernaculars, which has been much more successful. Most of these adjustments and laws were created because of recent research showing that students whose mother tongue is not taught or actively used in school have a much higher chance of dropping or failing out of school in an early year, as opposed to students that had more exposure to their primary language during school.C.   Firstly, there needs to be greater preservation efforts for indigenous languages. This can be done by adding smaller, regionalized museums to some islands where there is a somewhat sparse population, at least compared to other islands, where the languages that are used most frequently are indigenous, instead of French or English.In addition to this, schools will also teach students about other indigenous languages besides their own. This legislation acknowledges the importance of vernaculars with a small number of peoples that speak them, and aims to educate others on different types of culture. This would connect communities and islands in Vanuatu more fluidly, and make the students more culturally minded. These changes would be supported and encouraged by the international community, as well as the Republic of Vanuatu itself. Australia and New Zealand have both expressed their support for the preservation of indigenous languages. Specifically in schooling, both countries vehemently agree that a child’s primary language should be taught in school, along with French or English, and Bislama. The Republic of Vanuatu also acknowledges this issue and actively works to resolve it, most recently doing so by pushing the 2012 “Vanuatu National Language Policy”.