|
Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2009 20:21:51 GMT
It hasn't happened yet, but Tuvalu will be one of the first countries in the world to disappear, along with the Maldives.
The surface of the country is only 26km² -- it is the 4th smallest country in the world, just ahead of Vatican City, Monaco and Nauru (21 km²). The greatest altitude of the various island and atolls is 5 meters.
So, what's on the menu in Tuvalu? Mostly swamp taro (pulaka), a sort of elephant ear plant, crab, turtle, fish, bananas, breadfruit, coconut and pork. That's all.
It is expected that the population of Tuvalu will evacuate to New Zealand when the time comes. They have already faced freak 4 meter tides which made almost all of the country vanish. Not many people will miss it, since there are only about 100 tourists a year.
Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state of this Commonwealth country. Is she doing anything about the situation?
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Feb 4, 2009 23:00:03 GMT
When it is supposed that the population will have to de-camp? Five years? Ten years?
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2009 18:36:42 GMT
I came across this article from October which contradicts what I said before and tells of plans for everyone to go to Australia. SPECIAL REPORT: THE first nation likely to be overwhelmed by climate change wants Australia to take its population in a mass evacuation if sea levels keep rising.
Tuvalu, in the South Pacific, is one of the world's lowest-lying countries and faces being inundated by rising tides linked to mankind's impact on the climate within a generation.
In a twist with far-reaching implications, Tuvalu Government officials and community elders are hoping in a worse-case scenario Australia will accept its 10,000 inhabitants. Tuvalu Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia visited Canberra in August in what Tuvalu officials described as a "secret visit" to float the migration plan with the Federal Government.
Under the plan, Tuvalu would be based in Australia but continue to function as a sovereign nation, in the hope of one day returning to its island home.
The Tuvalu Government would continue to exercise its economic exclusion zone of about one million square kilometres and maintain its seat and vote at the United Nations.
It also would continue to compete in the Olympic Games and maintain its membership of the Commonwealth.
Australian officials have refused to comment on the August meeting.
Such an unprecedented environmental evacuation could become the model for other low-lying nations such as Kiribati and the Maldives.
Tuvalu's government previously approached Australia and New Zealand with pleas to open up a migration channel – Australia's previous government twice refused but New Zealand now accepts 75 immigrants a year.
Data from groups including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the CSIRO and the Adelaide-based National Tidal Centre indicate a mass evacuation might need to occur within decades.
A sophisticated tidal measuring gauge installed by the National Tidal Centre at Tuvalu's main port in 1993 shows the sea level there has been rising by 5.7mm a year.
While this is relatively small, most of Tuvalu is just 1m above the high tide mark and water already bubbles up through the porous coral during high tides, flooding the land during king tides.
IPCC projections show that over the next century sea levels will rise by up to 0.8m, making Tuvalu uninhabitable.
The nation already faces problems from chronic flooding, storm surges and king tides battering its coastline.
Encroaching seas have caused widespread shoreline erosion and contaminated freshwater swamps where farmers used to grow the staple root crop pulaka.
Long-term research by the Tuvalu Meteorological Service shows the nation, which has just 26 sq km of land mass, has lost several per cent of land in recent years, including a number of small islands.
Tuvalu spokesman on climate change, acting environment director Kilifi O'Brien, said the Tuvalu Government was drawing up contingency plans for a mass evacuation. He said such evacuation would revolve around maintaining Tuvalu as an entity.
"This is our ancestral land, our identity; if we lose our land, we risk losing our identity," he said.
"But we know if the worst comes to the worst we would have to relocate. But we would be looking at taking one sovereign country to another – we would want to keep our economic exclusion zone, our United Nations seat and so on.
"We would want to keep our identity as Tuvalu, in another location. The government is considering how to do this, and Australia is certainly seen as an option."
The powerful traditional councils of elders, which operate in tandem with the government, also is pushing for a whole-of-nation contingency rescue plan. Community elder Laloniu Samuelu said citizens of Tuvalu were well aware they faced losing their nation before their children become grandparents. "We hope it won't come to this but in 50 years all people might have to move," he said. "We hope a nation like Australia would welcome us, but we don't know – would they be so kind? Once we do move to a country like Australia it is so important to us to keep our culture.
"We have been discussing in seminars and forums how we can move as a nation so we keep our economic zone, our United Nations seat and so forth – but most of all we want to keep our culture and identity."
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith declined to be interviewed about whether Australia would take Tuvaluans as environmental refugees or whether the government would consider allowing a sovereign nation to operate within Australia.
His office released a general statement saying climate change was a reality.
"Where it is necessary, Australia will consider in close consultation with others in the region how best to respond to the needs of people displaced by the impact of climate change," it says.
The Niue Declaration on Climate Change, recently agreed by Pacific Islands Forum Leaders, including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, recognises the desire of the Pacific peoples to continue to live in their own countries and the importance of retaining the Pacific's social and cultural identity.
The Federal Government has committed $150 million over the next three years to address high-priority climate adaptation needs in vulnerable countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
|
|
|
Post by auntieannie on Feb 10, 2009 13:35:57 GMT
I understand that the Maldives' newly elected president (first democratically elected if I am not mistaken) is looking at many options, such as buying swathes of land for its people in either India, Australia or similar large countries. Unfortunately, I hear many of his people don't understand the issue.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2009 20:44:14 GMT
They'll need to make enough money off tourism before the imprecise deadline (or parlay their fishing rights, like Tuvalu).
Everybody always talks about the first 3 countries to go -- Tuvalu, Nauru, Maldives -- but I have no idea which is the 4th country.
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Feb 15, 2009 10:49:29 GMT
A Nepalese friend of mine recently told me that she will buy land in the Maldives (she knows the president!) ...she understands they will go underwater in the next 50 years but doesn't care since she'll be dead anyway. Hmmmmm......
|
|
|
Post by komsomol on Feb 17, 2009 19:15:28 GMT
Samoa, Bangladesh and the Netherlands are greatly at risk for large areas of their territory.
|
|