Perched on the prow of a small wooden
boat, Hilia Vavae, director of Tuvalu's
meteorological office, heads across the
lagoon, eventually spotting a forlorn sandy
dome. It is all that is left of Tepuka
Savilivili, the islet that vanished after the
1997 storms. Today there is nothing living
left on the few metres of sand, only
several odd flip-flops and a rusty tin.
Further south is Vasuaafua, an island of
nine coconut palms clinging to a scrap of
sand. Vavae points to a small sand cliff:
"Erosion," she grimaces. Two years ago,
the island was buttressed by several
hundred yards of beach.
Vavae's meteorological office is huddled
next to the airstrip on Funafuti. This is
where research meets the reality of
climate change. Vavae has a picture on
her wall from the highest tide last year, in
which she and her staff are standing on
their office doorstep, up to their ankles in
water. She quietly explains that NTF's
scientists have misrepresented their data.
"Their analysis of their information is
correct, but it is inappropriate," she says.
"You need to look at the extremes -
examining average sea levels doesn't
reflect the impacts that the small island
states are facing." It only takes one high
tide to permanently wash away fragile soil
or kill the precious vegetation that holds
small islands together. Tuvalu's highest
tide gets higher, its low tides lower, and
so NTF's "average" stays the same. There
is another, less well publicised tide gauge
on Tuvalu - also focusing on tidal averages
- run by the University of Hawaii's sea
level centre, covering a much longer
period, from 1976 to 2000. It has recorded
a 2.2cm rise per decade in average sea
levels.
Vavae has plenty more evidence of global
warming in the 20 years she has been
working in the met office. Higher tides are
flooding the island more frequently. "In the
mid-1980s, it was only February. Now it is
November, December, January, February
and March," she says. One or two serious
cyclones used to hit Tuvalu every decade.
In the 1990s, the islands faced seven.
Floods and storms cause more erosion.
Several outer island farmers report that
their crops of pulaka - swamp taro, a
traditional accompaniment to fish - have
yellowed and yielded less in recent
seasons, a probable sign of rising salinity.
Like the government, and the scientists at
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, who predict a sea-level rise of up
to 88cm in the next century, she believes
the islands will not simply be swamped by
water. It is far more likely that the ferocity
and frequency of storms and high tides
will simply make Tuvaluan daily life
untenable.
Regional analysts in Sydney scathingly
refer to the South Pacific as a "basket
case". The island nations are
characterised by government corruption,
corporate exploitation and, with a
population explosion in most Pacific
countries, ethnic tension over increasingly
scarce land. The economy of Fiji, the
Pacific's hub, has yet to recover from the
disastrous coup in 2000, triggered by
tension between indigenous landowners
and Fijian Indians. Papua New Guinea's
rainforests are being plundered as the
government struggles to maintain law and
order. The Solomon Islands lie ruined by
civil war, while Nauru is a virtually
bankrupt detention centre for 1,118
migrants unwanted by Australia.
Against this backdrop, the Tuvaluan
government is a beacon of sanity. The
only national tax is a A$10 (£3.60) annual
levy on the islanders, but the government
raises funds through a trust fund it created
in 1987, which has grown from A$27m
(£9.9m) to more than A$60m. There are
rumblings of discontent: four PMs in the
past three years have left many local
people murmuring that ministers put
self-interest above the general good. Aid
agencies privately expressed misgivings
after the government made an
uncharacteristically large withdrawal from
its trust fund last year to cover ambitious
spending programmes. Tuvalu's
government counters: "It is a good thing to
keep on developing," says Talake. "If you
reduced development because of the
rising sea level, you would be
discouraging or frightening your own
people."
A government-funded road sweeps from
one end of Funafuti to the other, awaiting
surfacing, and the new A$14m (£5m)
government office will become the island's
tallest building - three storeys - when it is
constructed with money donated by
Taiwan later this year. A new hospital is
planned: there are three HIV-positive
Tuvaluans, but diabetes and heart disease
are more serious problems, as naturally
large islanders gradually replace their
traditional fish diet with all the corned beef
and fizzy drinks their wages can buy. It
may not live to see its centenary as an
independent nation, but the country is still
determined to develop politically as well
as physically: a referendum is planned
this year to see if Tuvaluans want to
discard the Queen as head of state and
become a republic.
In choosing independence and its own
name, Tuvalu also had a strange stroke of
financial fortune. When country code
top-level domain names were shared out,
most countries got a mundane ".uk" or
".fr". Tuvalu was granted the eminently
marketable ".tv", and sold the right to
license it for US$50m (£35m) to American
entrepreneurs. In a separate deal, Tuvalu
is now guaranteed an annual payment of
US$2m per year "in perpetuity". Virtual
Tuvalu could now outlive real Tuvalu.
From the article Going down
BY Patrick Barkham
Saturday February 16, 2002
The Guardian
guardian.co.uk
(Continued) |
