STATEMENT

The first time I heard of Tuvalu was when I read about it in a newspaper, I had never heard of the country let alone know where it was. I was so fascinated by Tuvalu — and by its bizarre and tragic fate — that a few years later, in 2006, I found myself aboard a twin-engine plane from Fiji to the tiny airport on Tuvalu’s capital island, Funafuti.

The reason I went to this frontline of climate change was to get a real sense of the impact on a nation where plans for evacuation were already being made. The Tuvaluans could become the first complete nation of climate refugees — banished from their home islands, with their culture and identity at risk of being taken away.

The widely unspoken truth is that, in spite of renewable energy, many climate models suggest it may already be too late for Tuvalu and a dozen other low-lying nations. Even if all emissions stopped today, there is too much momentum in the global system to prevent rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms from rendering low-lying countries uninhabitable. In the end, leaving for higher ground may be the only choice — creating an entire nation of environmental refugees.

If Tuvaluans will resettle to any other country, this will mean the irreplaceable loss of the island’s unique traditional skills and knowledge, including agricultural technologies and long-established societal arrangements. In Tuvalu connection to the land and sea makes up an indispensable element of local cosmology, without their home islands to anchor them, their beliefs, customs and cultural identity may be lost.

Scenarios and warnings from international scientists on climate change and its consequences predict that the Pacific region will likely warm at a rate much larger than the observed changes during the last century, and very likely without precedent for at least the last 10,000 years. Estimates suggest that within 50 years much of the chain could be under water during high tide, with saltwater infiltration of vital farmland rendering it uninhabitable long before then — a pinprick in geological time..

I hope the small selection of work on this website helps make Tuvalu a powerful symbol and example to the world in the fight against climate change — the biggest environmental crisis of our time.

Juriaan Booij
June 2007