Sea walls fail as rising sea level threatens Kiribati villages

By Stephanie March
8 Mar 2011 The President of Kiribati says an increasing number of coastal villagers are asking to be relocated because of rising sea waters. Anote Tong says Kiribati is in urgent need of funding to build sea walls to prevent sea water destroying villages and crops. President Tong has recently come back from a tour of Kiribati’s outer islands. He says the situation is dire. “Previously [the villagers] used to ask us to build sea walls so they can stay on in the village,” he said. “But this time around they said no, we are not asking you to build sea walls, we realise we have to relocate, can you as a government assist us with relocating.” President Tong attended a climate conference in Vanuatu last week, where the European Union unveiled more than $US120 million in funding for climate projects. But he says none of it though, was earmarked to help those people on Kiribati’s outer islands. …  [S]ea waters are rising faster than the nation can cope. One part of the government’s strategy is to look at ways to relocate i-Kiribati, both within and outside the country. President Tong says the concept of ‘climate refugees’ is too controversial for the international community to realistically consider. He says the government is trying to facilitate ways for its people to migrate on the basis of the skills they can offer a new country, rather than the urgency of their need to relocate “We have schemes both with Australia and New Zealand, and of course they would never say that it’s a response to climate change, because that would bring in a flood of similar applications or requests for similar schemes, we understand that.” …

Rising waters in Kiribati threatening villages: president