Ecologist, 18th September 2018
Pacific Islanders are merging their ancestral knowledge with modern technology in an innovative attempt to combat climate change, writes EMILY EARNSHAW.
Pacific Islanders believe that knowledge from their ancestors will prove crucial in solving the world’s most critical problem: how to protect ourselves against the imminent threat of climate change.
The Pacific Islands are acutely vulnerable to climate change. Islands such as Kiribati and Tuvalu have an average elevation of only 2 metres, meaning rising sea levels threaten to destroy their very existence. Residents are facing the terrifying reality that they may have to abandon their homelands as they are slowly swallowed by the sea.
The islanders, however, are refusing to play victim. As the slogan of environmental activists The Pacific Climate Warriors put it: “We are not drowning, we are fighting”.