I've not been to Tuvalu, but I have spent some time on Coral Atolls in the Cooks and in Tonga. They are extremely lush and they can grow things there (peanuts, watermelons) that don't grow in Samoa.
Minds immeasurably superior to mine remain convinced that the sea is rising, not so much from fresh water inundation from the Polar Caps, but from the expansion of seawater as it warms. So you reckon that it's just coincidence that Tuvalu has started sinking just as Global Warming is becoming a Hot Topic?
As for the suggestion that Pacific Islanders are detatched from Nature, I couldn't agree more. I don't know what it is, but they resent anyone, especially "Outsiders", who suggests that they could be doing a lot more to assist themselves. The resentment reaches into every aspect of life. I come home and admonish my partner for preparing a "feast" of Lamb Flaps (imported from N-Zed, BTW) for the family, and she gives me that You-Don't-Know-Everything look. Yet close to 1/2 of the elderly persons down here suffer from diabetes! And your anecdote about the worm that you picked up? Same thing. Was it Trichinella, by any chance? I never touch locally raised pork...and I get the same snide look as with the mutton.
This attitude is prevalent in Africa too. I remember being told by Hotel staff and Taxi Drivers over there that "Aids doesn't exist, it's a big lie perpetuated by thr US." What do you do with people like that? Some 34 years ago I spent three weeks in the Yasawas, an isolated group of Islands NW of Viti Levu. It was the closest thisg to "Paradise" of anywhere I've ever been. I read "Shogun" and "Lord of the Rings" there. I "tamed" a wild Moray Eel- he'd follow me when I went spear-fishing. I've never been back, but I see where they, too, have become a "Hot Travel Destination". I doubt that I'd WANT to go back now. The old European image of "The Noble Savage", of village people living "in Harmony with Nature", is a myth. Biologists find Sea Turtles that have starved to death - with their stomaches full of plastic shopping bags labelled from Supermarkets in Samoa, Fiji and Tonga!!
