Tiny islands face change

Michael Green in the Sydney Morning Herald: …Tuvalu is the world's second-least populous nation, after Vatican City. Its 12,000 residents live on several reefs and atolls halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Nearly all the land is less than three metres above the sea. The director of the tiny nation's Environment Department, Matio Tekinene, says his people are already suffering the ill effects of climate change.

Rising sea levels and more frequent king tides are causing coastal erosion and salinating the groundwater, making it hard to grow the traditional subsistence root crop, pulaka. The freshwater supply is now restricted to rainfall, which arrives in unfamiliar patterns at unfamiliar times. Coral bleaching is reducing fish stocks close to shore.

Tuvalu - rising sea leaves and frequent king tides are causing coastal erosion and salinating the groundwater, making it hard to grow crops. Photo: Rodney Dekker ''Food security related to climate change is a very important issue for us,'' Tekinene says. ''Tuvaluan people, we live very much on our limited crops and marine resources. Nowadays there is a great change because we have difficulty to grow these natural foods.''

…For the past five years Lusama has chaired the Tuvalu Climate Action Network. The group co-ordinates the various non-government organisations that run climate programs in the country and sends delegates to international forums to advocate strong action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

''We've been raising our voices to be heard by the industrialised countries and the international community and still we are being ignored,'' he says. ''Land is equivalent to life in our culture. If your land has been gradually eroded by the sea, you are looking at your life being eaten away. Put simply, why should I die for the sake of luxury for others? That is injustice.".…

Nui Atoll, Tuvalu, via NASA satellite