Death by water torture

Editor’s note: This story is part of a project spearheaded by GlobalPost’s Study
Abroad team and summer interns. They spent the summer learning about
the world’s endangered oceans and their work is displayed in this interactive graphic.

BOSTON — The Republic of Kiribati, whose 33 tiny, low-lying islands are sprinkled across an enormous swath of the Central Pacific, will be the first country to completely disappear under the waters of global warming, according to climate change experts.

I-Kiribati, as it is known, is tropical paradise decorated by clear waters, languid palm trees and blazing sunsets. But it has also suffered from overcrowding, a long-standing problem exacerbated by the fact that residents of the lowest-lying atolls were forced to relocate to other islands due to overcrowding.

Few residents expected those islands to be more than 3,000 miles away in Oceania and near Asia.

As rising sea levels flood backyards and creep into living rooms, refugees have left Kiribati, taking with them its economy and culture. Mass emigration from overcrowding has scattered an ever-increasing diaspora of Kiribati’s people across New Zealand, Australia and Asia, where they often struggle to earn even a living wage.

“Some of my friends have migrated … looking for greener pastures,” said Pelenise Alofa Pilitati of the Kiribati Church Education Directors’ Association. “But I refuse. I chose to return to Kiribati and to stay in the Pacific so that I could help my people.”

Other small, developing countries, such as Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, are rapidly losing residents as well.

“Our traditional way of planting, where we dig down to the underground water table, can no longer be done because the underground water has been salinated by the seawater,” said Pilitati. As sea water saturates fresh water, farming is impossible, residential drinking water is contaminated and flora and fauna die.

Now, climate change has wreaked havoc on weather patterns, causing seawater intrusion, drought and contaminated drinking water, said Tukabu Tereroko, Kiribati’s Minister of Environment, Lands and Agricultural Development. The production of dried coconut, Kiribati’s main export crop, has been threatened.

“Kiribati is a Christian country and has a strong belief … that the Almighty God will surely not destroy His own creation,” Tereroko said. “However, we know that the rising sea level is caused by human greediness to have more than enough.”

Meanwhile, Kiribati continues to lose other important economic footing. Under international law, a sovereignty’s land boundaries determine its exclusive economic zone, the tract of ocean to which it can claim exclusive fishing rights. Very little of the country rises three meters above sea level.

Shrinking landmass means the nation has rights over less sea territory, putting this fish-exporting economy at risk — what Susan Taei of Conservation International terms a “double whammy” for countries like Kiribati.

The globe’s most imminent climate change victim, however, is also a world leader in conservation efforts.

Collaboration among the New England Aquarium, Conservation International and the Kiribati government created a marine preservation the size of California comprising nearly 15 percent of marine preservation efforts around the world.

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) is home to the world’s only healthy supply of skipjack tuna and to myriad other endangered species, according to its website. The reefs within the area are considered among the most pristine in the world, Taei says, though even these have been tainted by climate-related threats like coral bleaching, the whitening and eventual death of corals due to rising water temperatures.

But PIPA’s relative isolation from other sources of pollution makes it the perfect place to study climate change, Taei adds — without chemical discharge, urban development or large-scale coastal fishing to complicate tests, the isolated region provides a natural test tube to study the effects of global climate change.

“The most common-sense tool we have at our fingertips, that would give anyone the best chance of looking at climate change, is marine protected areas,” Taei said. “They fundamentally strive to reduce human impacts.”

Kiribati’s President Anote Tong spearheaded PIPA’s creation in an unusually smooth and transparent process for a nation traditionally plagued by corruption. The nation’s first president after it gained independence from the British, Ieremia Tabai, dominated the country from 1979 until 1991. More recently, Tong gained the presidency in 2003 after a contentious court battle that involved allegations of campaign finance violations.

Travel writer Maarten Troost, who documented the two years he spent in Kiribati in his 2004 memoir, "The Sex Lives of Cannibals," describes the pre-Tong era as “Coconut Stalinism.”

“The government controlled everything and did nothing,” Troost said. “Back in the day … officials in Kiribati were blithely confident that when push came to shove, God would step in and save the islands of Kiribati. So it’s good to see President Tong looking toward a Plan B should divine intervention fail.”

By tapping into the vast network of international NGOs, Tong’s so-called Plan B propelled the marine preservation into existence, ensured a reliable influx of capital from a combination of government organizations and NGOs and took serious measures against exploitative fishing.

As important as land and safe housing are to the islanders, the seas are still the most important sustenance to the people of Kiribati, Troost said. “When fishing cultures lose their connection to fishing, they lose part of their collective soul."

Learn more about the endangered oceans in an interactive graphic.

This report comes from a journalist in our Student Correspondent Corps, a GlobalPost project training the next generation of foreign correspondents while they study abroad.