Posted By Joshua Keating Share

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The Pacific nation of Kiribati is negotiating to buy land in Fiji so it can move islanders under threat from rising sea levels, in what could be the first climate-induced relocation of a country.

Anote Tong, the Kiribati President, said he was in talks with Fiji's military government to buy up to 2000 hectares of freehold land on which his 113,000 countrymen could resettle.

Some of Kiribati's 32 flat coral atolls, which straddle the equator over 3.5 million square kilometres of ocean, are already disappearing. The total land area is 811 square kilometres and the average elevation is less than two metres above sea level.

Relocation is still a last resort. Kiribati President Anote Tong is hoping to start by relocating some of this citizens to the Fijian island, to farm, and haul away landfill by barge to stop the sea's encroachment on his own country.

Obviously relocation on this scale would be unprecedented, but Kiribati isn't the only Pacific island facing this dilemma. Now-ousted Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed tried to highlight this emerging crisis with his underwater cabinet meeting in 2009. 

Since 2003, the government of Papua New Guinea has been slowly evacuating the entire population of dwindling Cataret Islands. Sun Come Up, a 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary on the Cateret evacuation is well worth a watch. 

TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:THUMBS
 

CHIROHOSTING

7:08 PM ET

March 8, 2012

Close to home

I think this is an issue that effects a lot of us. Even our hometown here in Olympia, WA will potentially be impacted by higher tides. The increased water levels could certainly have a structural impact on our historic buildings considering we're both on a mud flat and a fault line. Potentially relocating over 100,000 people sounds like a daunting task though -- that's nearly our entire city's population.

 

OFERDESADE

5:40 AM ET

March 9, 2012

us too, please

have had more than enuf of religious extremists, pushy market vendors, right wing and left wing politicians, arab neighbors, channel 10 reality shows, everything on 2, hot, channel 1 yes... etc, the media-industrial-military complex, etc.
let's face it, if you isolate the sane israelis they would fit on a small island.
and since they compromise most of the productive sector, it'd be a damned rich island quite soon.
and then within months the religious extremists, pushy market vendors, right wing and left wing politicians, arab neighbors, media-industrial-military shits would move in and make it hell again.

 

AARONJA

6:04 AM ET

March 9, 2012

Kiribati is easy, moving Holland's 16 million will be hard

This is really the tip of the iceberg. The real problems are going to be Holland (where do you find room for 16 million Dutch in crowded Europe? do they get a slice of Germany?), and even worse, Bangladesh's 148 million people.

 

CIRRUSVIA

4:32 PM ET

March 9, 2012

those who cause the least pollution are going to suffer the most

Fijian islanders mostly live off fishing and tourism their environmental impact is probably one of the lowest on the planet. It is the large industrialising countries that caused most pollution; but it will be those of the poorest countries who are in line to suffer the most.
usb disk security - Web Master

 

MAXIMB

1:28 PM ET

March 19, 2012

So as long as we have a

So as long as we have a strong global presence then all is well with the world, is that it? What about the domestic policy that is non existent in the GOP mindset. If America falls into ruin because we put the majority of our attention on the world. Then what good is being strong around the world going to do to while we fall apart at home. Seems like they tried the be strong outside and weak inside experiment in the former Soviet Union. Is that what your advocating?.

"Is rio orange war always forfait mobile illimite inevitable ?"
MaximB

 

MAXIMB

8:54 AM ET

March 22, 2012

Terrorists will just prop it

Terrorists will just prop it up in anger and use it as yet another excuse to attack/bomb innocent "infidels"... It may cost the lives of soldiers and civilians, HOWEVER, it's my opinion that if you let it be built that it will cost more lives in the grand scheme of things..

"Is rio orange war always sans engagement inevitable ?"
MaximB

 

MAXIMB

11:12 PM ET

March 22, 2012

The same background as

The same background as anybody who's spent at least 4 years in college and a couple months lying to the public about her visits to foreign countries.

"Is rio orange war always forfait mobile internet inevitable ?"
MaximB

 

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