That sinking feeling

On Good Friday, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – a network of more than 2500 scientists – issued their latest report on climate change. The news was hardly good.

“Sea-level rise is expected to exacerbate inundation, storm surge, erosion and other coastal hazards, thus threatening vital infrastructure, settlements and facilities that support the livelihood of island communities.”

It is policy-speak for sink or swim – something island nations have known for years. What the report did not mention was that these islands are already feeling the effects. And that some people are already on the move.
In our own backyard, the people of the Carteret Islands – a tiny South Pacific atoll north-east of Papua New Guinea – are the first in the world to be evacuated due to rising sea levels.

Salt water has already destroyed their coconut palms and food gardens are in ruins. Some villages have built sea walls from clam shells in an attempt to hold back the tides. By 2015, the Carterets will disappear altogether.

Families will soon begin moving – 10 people at a time – to neighbouring Bougainville Island. Bougainville’s deputy administrator Raymond Masono says this could happen as early as June.

“The feeling is very positive about moving,” he says. “Right now they are realising that [in] 20 years’ time they will not have any choice so they prefer to face [moving], than face the extreme circumstances of the future.

“But obviously it would be very hard. It’s hard even to realise that what has been your home for hundreds of years will not be there any more.”

Foremost in policy makers’ minds is protecting the islands’ unique culture. The Carteret Islanders are Melanesian, while Bougainville is Polynesian. Unemployment, crime and violence are anticipated with uneasiness.

Sydney Morning Herald