<
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/1/15/graves-sink-fisheries-shrink-as-climate-change-hits-fiji>
"The sea has already swallowed the village graveyard in Togoru, Fiji, and
longtime resident Lavenia McGoon is dreading the day it claims her house.
She piles old rubber car tyres under the coconut trees that line the
beachfront, hoping this makeshift seawall will at least buy some time.
The 70-year-old believes climate change, and the creeping ocean, will
inevitably force her family to leave.
“Nobody can stop it,” said McGoon, as the tide sweeps in and crabs scuttle over
the headstones. “Nobody can stop water.”
Togoru is a small settlement on the south coast of Fiji’s largest island, Viti
Levu. It is one of the dozens of coastal villages in the Pacific archipelago
now confronting the reality of climate change.
Fiji has been meticulously preparing for the day it needs to relocate coastal
villages. The scale of the challenge is enormous: The government estimates more
than 600 communities could be forced to move, including 42 villages under
urgent threat.
More than 70 percent of the country’s 900,000 people live within five
kilometres (three miles) of the coast.
According to Australia’s Monash University, sea levels have been rising in the
western Pacific Ocean two to three times faster than the global average.
Entire low-lying nations such as Kiribati and Tuvalu could become uninhabitable
within the next 30 years."
Via Tess.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
