Disappearing islands

The Faifeau (pastors), and most of their flock, also know that while God's promise remains strong, it's human wickedness, our sin, that's wrecking Tuvalu's environment. They teach that humanity has failed in our stewardship of God's good environment, placed in our care by Te Atua (the Almighty).

Out on the western edge of Te Namo, at Tepuka motu, standing on the remaining thick, pinky-white, coral sands, my friend Semese Alefaio, a conservation worker charged with the care of the motu, and I look at the heartbreaking sight of large coconut and pandanus palms fallen into the lagoon, as the motu's steadily eroded.

Not far away is a portent of the future, a brown, sea scoured, rock called Tepuka sa Vili Vili, once capped with thick tropical atoll forest like Tepuka and girded with dazzling coral sand beaches. Ten years ago, Tuvalu was brushed by a cyclone which seriously eroded the protective beach and damaged Tepuka sa Vili Vili's thick tropical atoll forest cap. The relentless, indefatigable Pacific Ocean battering the remains finished the job. Tuvaluans from Funafuti, who used to use these motu for picnics and ceremonies, talk about how their childhood playgrounds are slowly and steadily disappearing.

Sam's shown me coral bleaching where protective reefs are crumbling: the steady beach erosion around Funafuti and the outer motu is obvious as he steers the boat around Te Namo. Some of the erosion was caused during wartime but more recently port and coastal building has interrupted local sand replenishing currents. Some of it, he says, in his quiet Tuvaluan way, is caused and made worse by global warming's effects.

The situation isn't helped either by sensationalist, ignorant Palagi reporting, portraying Tuvaluans as passive victims of global warming. While the tides last year were extreme, record breaking, Tuvalu - a nine atoll country - and Funafuti Atoll itself, were not completely flooded by sea flowing in from the western Te Namo or the eastern Pacific. I use bad reporting about Tuvalu as examples of “how not to do it” in my journalism classes. Tuvaluan's are anything but passive victims and they're working hard to deal with the escalating problems they face.

NGOs like WWF Pacific, scientific bodies like the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), and the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), and even a European Union-funded NGO, Alofa Tuvalu, are among the bodies working closely with Tuvaluans to help them better understand and respond to the many challenges they face.

A Japanese environment NGO pays for Radio Tuvalu to put its news on line in English and Tuvaluan.

Global warming just makes the effects of modernity, and the news about them, all much worse.

To respond to global warming's assaults, and to the environmental effects of development caused by severe population pressure and the accompanying solid waste problems, Tuvalu is implementing a National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA) which is slowly adjusting Tuvaluan lifestyles to the more threatening environment that surrounds them.

Septic tanks are being replaced by composting toilets; water security is improving; most houses now have gardens supplying vegetables to improve local diets; solar power is being trialed to reduce the cost of diesel generated electricity; and Tuvalu invests an enormous proportion of its tiny, $AU23 million, budget in education so more of its people have employable skills when they emigrate, some doing so as environmental refugees.

Some scientific, policy, and popular writing on global warming warns about probable environmental refugees seeking succour from sea level rise inundating their coastal or island homes. While New Zealand has a special category allowing 75 Tuvaluans a year to immigrate on environmental grounds, though they don't advertise this as the primary reason, Australia refuses to acknowledge or allow environmental refugees from the Pacific.

But they're already here, and some of the migrated Tuvaluans are friends of mine.