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Paradise on the front line of global warming
By Christopher Johnson
MAJURO, Marshall Islands - Perhaps more than anywhere else on Earth, the catastrophic fear of rising seas hits home when flying into Majuro atoll, a narrow strip of land in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean.
Hovering above turquoise waters until the last moment, the plane lands on a runway protected from crashing waves on both sides by nothing but a meter-high wall. Driving the atoll's only road, the sea is always lurking on both sides, with nothing to stop its advance. Other than a few two- or three-story buildings, there is no high ground at all in this idyllic atoll nation of 1,200 islands. None.
A natural disaster such as the recent tsunami in Samoa could wipe the entire nation of 60,000 people, and 3,000 years of culture, off the surface of the Earth. "Some people say, in 2012, the water will come," says Mentil Laik, making a wave motion with his hand. "Majuro, all gone."
Yet he does not seem overly worried, because the Marshallese have a history of surviving almost anything, including more than 60 US nuclear tests. Raised on Ailuk Atoll, which suffered high radiation levels after the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test in 1954, Laik, who was born at that time, has been showing younger Marshallese how to carve and sail traditional canoes which for centuries have carried islanders on epic voyages. In a worst-case scenario, he says his largest craft could sail "all the way to America".
While delegates in Copenhagen debate the science of global warming [1], Marshallese on the front lines of climate change see the impact of rising seas on a daily basis. "The sea is too hot. The ice is melting. The water is rising. The coral die, the fish die, the people die," Laik says in limited English. Asked why, he points to the sky. "Ozone," he says. "Too many holes." The solution, he says, is also simple. "Stop pollution. Everybody."
For many Marshallese, who have never spent a moment of their lives away from the roaring ocean, evidence of climate change is everywhere. Laik says the tide-line has been creeping up to the level of his boathouse in recent years. Taxi drivers talk about ancient trees on their home islands falling into the sea. Fishermen say they are catching fewer and smaller fish, while Japanese and Chinese vessels keep most of the tuna for sale back home. Puddles of rain and sea water dot the landscape, causing bacterial infections in locals who saunter in flip-flops, unable to afford expensive imported shoes.
"Our land is very low, so we are very vulnerable to changes in the environment," says Morean Kabua, a hospital employee. "The weather has become very unpredictable. In the past few years, the rainy season has been going into December and January. Now it can rain anytime in Majuro."
Last Christmas, a storm mixed with unusually high tides flooded Majuro, which is teeming with shops and a faded old-time Pacific charm. The ocean poured across the defenseless land from east to west, blowing holes in homes, sweeping garbage into the lagoon, and scaring residents on smaller islets such as Ejit, who dreaded being washed out to sea. Locals and aid workers also worry that future storms could uproot Christian cemeteries perched dangerously beside the raging Pacific.
"Graveyards are about to fall into the ocean," says Ingrid Ahlgren, a Stanford-educated anthropologist who was born and raised on Kwajalein atoll. "There's a potential that corpses can be exposed, and that's a health risk."
While Marshallese traditionally only built homes on the calmer lagoon side, and buried their dead at sea, a population explosion on scarce land, plus the influence of Christianity, led them to build homes and cemeteries on the rougher ocean side. "What are you going to do with all these bodies," says Ahlgren. "It's going to become a bigger problem over the next 50 years."
Many wonder who will take the initiative to deal with climate-related problems. Given their nuclear history, Marshallese have long felt abused or neglected by the outside world, which can only be reached by four- or five-hour flights to Guam or Hawaii costing US$1,500 on Continental Airlines. Even with some of the most pristine beaches, reefs, and surfing waves in the world, and quality hotels including the Marshall Islands Resort, Hotel Robert Reimer's, and the Long Island Hotel, the country receives only about 1,500 tourists a year - about what a beach in Thailand would see in a single day.
"The industrialized nations of the world have to realize they have a responsibility for the future, not just profits," says Bill Weza, a native of Newfoundland in Canada who has managed more than 80 local staff at the upscale Marshall Islands Resort for the past seven years. Like others, he says the world should not underestimate the threat of rising seas to atoll nations such as Kiribati and the Maldives. "If there's a big storm on top of a super high tide, we're screwed."
Fortunately, the Marshalls have normally stayed outside the zone for typhoons which devastate Fiji, Tonga and the Philippines further west. Many islanders believe the coral reefs would shelter them from tsunamis. Yet some researchers have estimated the Marshalls could become uninhabitable in 50 to 100 years - within the lifetime of children playing in puddles today. "If that day comes, it will be a disaster," Ahlgren says, because the country only has two operational planes, and not enough boats to evacuate 60,000 people from hundreds of distant islands.
She says that even if the entire populace relocated to the United States or neighboring Micronesian islands with higher ground, the Marshallese government would also have to think of how to manage the tuna fishing grounds, which Japanese and Chinese already exploit by paying small fees to the government. "They are faced with the entire destruction of their culture," says Ahlgren. "Land is everything here. It's where all the power exists. People are so connected to their land, they're reluctant to ever leave it. If you take away the land, the culture disappears. People are so afraid of this, they don't even want to broach the subject in public."
While the government has hosted conferences in Majuro at their hotel and convention center, one non-governmental organization (NGO), Women United Together for the Marshall Islands, has conducted four forums to reach people on 24 outer island groups, which can take days to reach by boat.
At first, many devout Christians wouldn't believe the warnings about global warming, because "God promised Noah he wouldn't flood the world again," says the group's director, Daisy Alik-Momotaro. "Many people believe that God will save them, and they don't worry about it. They've been living on the same island their whole life, and they never show fear, unlike the younger generation who have gone to the US or read about these things. So we have to convince these islanders that they have to save the world themselves."
To do this, NGO workers show them before-and-after photos of eroded coast lines and fallen trees. "It makes them think for a long time. They don't understand what makes the water rise, but they see it. Eventually they realize that God is not happy, because we've been abusing the world. Maybe they will not do anything about it yet. But now many people understand that global warming is a big issue."
Note 1. The two-week United Nations summit on climate change underway in Copenhagen, Denmark, is due to end with a meeting of world leaders on Friday. Attended by more than 190 countries, the summit aims to seal national pledges to curb the heat-trapping carbon gases that cause climate change, and set up a mechanism to provide billions of dollars for poor countries facing worsening drought, flood, and rising seas. However, as of Thursday, talks on a deal remained deadlocked, due to a split between rich and poor countries over cutting carbon emissions.
