Watching the Olympics parade thing out the corner of my eye, had never heard of Kiribati and found this snippet from their Wikipedia page interesting:
As sea levels continue to rise, the government of Kiribati is negotiating a deal with Fiji to evacuate the entire population to areas of Fiji that the Kiribati government would buy. The area of Fiji proposed for resettlement is the second largest Fijian island of Vanua Levu. The mass migration is expected to include younger, skilled workers first, and then the rest of the population would follow over a period of years.
That’s something you don’t hear every day.
I’ve only ever heard of Kiribati b/c I read The Sex Lives of Cannibals. Really funny book.
Definitely weird. And it’s interesting that they included the part about the younger, skilled workers being first. I wonder what the country’s population thinks about all of it? Are they just accepting of the fate of their home or are there those who like to try to save it? Weird.
I’ve known about Kiribati for a few years, it’s totally tragic- and definitely gives validation to the data that climate change scientists keep talking about (which is promptly ignored or doubted by the general public). Thinking about Kiribati gives this recent article in Rolling Stone more cred… eh? http://rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
I have been there… amazing place but a place in crisis.
The Sex Lives of Cannibals is great (no cannibalism, though). It is sort of weird to think that 14 years ago when the book takes place the author’s only source of outside news was the BBC World Service on shortwave and magazines that arrived months late if at all. These days the same island is wired for Internet.
You can add to Kiribati the Maldives, the Torres Strait Islands in Australia, and all low-lying coastal property including most of New York. And they say it’s too expensive to act on climate change!
Wow, that’s quite incredible. I hope it works out well for both countries.
many of those folks will continue to migrate to Hawaii…
Why? Fiji seems much nicer than Hawaii.
There are quite a few countries in the South Pacific in this situation. A few years ago a similar deal was struck between the Tokelau islands and New Zealand a few years ago I believe.
Funny Mat… the site i visited before your blog was Google Map looking and what and where was Kiribati (after hearing the olympic guy on TV last night!). They have nice Panoramio photos of it… seems lower but close enough of Hawaii 🙂
by taking part in olympic games people of Kiribati have a chance to take our atention to their problems
“The Island President” is an incredible documentary on then-President Nasheed and his fight for the Maldives:
http://theislandpresident.com/
Strange, but this is life. .. 🙂