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 the country and its bizarre and sad fate, that a few years later in 2006 I was aboard a twin engine plane from Fiji to the tiny airport on the capitol island of Tuvalu, Funafuti.

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

The widely unspoken truth here is that in spite of renewable energy, many climate change models say it’s too late for Tuvalu and a dozen other low-lying nations. Even if all emissions stopped today there’s too much momentum in the global system to stop rising ocean levels and increasing severity of 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 will probably be lost.

The scenarios and warnings of international scientists on climate change and its inevitable consequences predicted that the Pacific Region will likely warm at a rate which is much larger than the observed changes during the last century and very likely without precedent during at least the last 10,000 years. Estimates are that within 50 years much of the chain will be under water during high tide, with saltwater infiltration of vital farmlands rendering it uninhabitable long before then. A pinprick in terms of the geological timeframe.

I hope the small selection of work you can find on this website helps in making 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