Death by water torture

Global warming drowns the tropical paradise nation of Kiribati, forcing locals onto dry land elsewhere.

Elizabeth Tuttle (Smith College) September 22, 2009 16:19Updated May 30, 2010 12:08

A Kiribati girl in 2000. (Christopher Johnson)

Editor's note: This story is part of a project spearheaded by GlobalPost's Study
Abroad team and summer interns. They spent the summer learning about
the world's endangered oceans and their work is displayed in this interactive graphic.

BOSTON — The Republic of Kiribati, whose 33 tiny, low-lying islands are sprinkled across an enormous swath of the Central Pacific, will be the first country to completely disappear under the waters of global warming, according to climate change experts.

I-Kiribati, as it is known, is tropical paradise decorated by clear waters, languid palm trees and blazing sunsets. But it has also suffered from overcrowding, a long-standing problem exacerbated by the fact that residents of the lowest-lying atolls were forced to relocate to other islands due to overcrowding.

Few residents expected those islands to be more than 3,000 miles away in Oceania and near Asia.

As rising sea levels flood backyards and creep into living rooms, refugees have left Kiribati, taking with them its economy and culture. Mass emigration from overcrowding has scattered an ever-increasing diaspora of Kiribati’s people across New Zealand, Australia and Asia, where they often struggle to earn even a living wage.

“Some of my friends have migrated … looking for greener pastures,” said Pelenise Alofa Pilitati of the Kiribati Church Education Directors' Association. “But I refuse. I chose to return to Kiribati and to stay in the Pacific so that I could help my people.”

Other small, developing countries, such as Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, are rapidly losing residents as well.

“Our traditional way of planting, where we dig down to the underground water table, can no longer be done because the underground water has been salinated by the seawater,” said Pilitati. As sea water saturates fresh water, farming is impossible, residential drinking water is contaminated and flora and fauna die.

Now, climate change has wreaked havoc on weather patterns, causing seawater intrusion, drought and contaminated drinking water, said Tukabu Tereroko, Kiribati’s Minister of Environment, Lands and Agricultural Development. The production of dried coconut, Kiribati’s main export crop, has been threatened.

“Kiribati is a Christian country and has a strong belief … that the Almighty God will surely not destroy His own creation,” Tereroko said. “However, we know that the rising sea level is caused by human greediness to have more than enough.”

Meanwhile, Kiribati continues to lose other important economic footing. Under international law, a sovereignty’s land boundaries determine its exclusive economic zone, the tract of ocean to which it can claim exclusive fishing rights. Very little of the country rises three meters above sea level.

Shrinking landmass means the nation has rights over less sea territory, putting this fish-exporting economy at risk — what Susan Taei of Conservation International terms a “double whammy” for countries like Kiribati.

The globe’s most imminent climate change victim, however, is also a world leader in conservation efforts.