Pacific Islanders have long drawn wisdom from the Earth, the sky and the waves—the science backs them up

One afternoon last year, we sat in a village hall in Fiji chatting to residents about traditional ways of forecasting tropical cyclones. One man mentioned a black-winged storm bird known as "manumanunicagi" that glides above the land only when a cyclone is forming out to sea. As the conversation continued, residents named at least 11 bird species, the odd behavior of which signaled imminent changes in the weather.