Page 22 - IB November 2024

Climate Change Climate Change

WE’RE NOT DROWNING

PACIFIC CLIMATE ACTIVISTS IN AUSTRALIA SHARE
STORIES OF RESILIENCE
By Nic Maclellan waiting for Australia to embrace that friendship. If you do
not know how to treat each other as a fellow human being, it
It’s a warm night in Sydney. A neighbourhood climate action means you’re not a friend.”
group gathers at a pub in the inner-city suburb of Rozelle, to
meet a visiting delegation of Pacific climate justice activists. Working on resilience
For the six young advocates from Tuvalu and Kiribati, From both atoll nations, the stories were the same: the
it’s a chance to share information with their Australian adverse effects of global warming for low-lying islands are
counterparts, and explain how young people across the Pacific hitting home now, not in the future, but there is also local
region are responding to the climate emergency. community activism around adaptation and resilience.
The delegation includes Robert Karoro, Miriam Moriati and Aselu O’Brien works with Tuvalu’s Lands and Survey
Rabwena Ieete from Kiribati, joined by Marion Faleasiu, Aselu department. Within the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Vaguna O’Brien and Gitty Yee from Tuvalu. Hosted by the Development, he is involved in surveys using GIS technology
Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education, for land use and environmental planning.
the young climate activists are touring east-coast Australia “I focus mainly on land surveying and mapping,” he said.
for six weeks, “A lot of my
speaking to work is with
environmental landowners on
groups, land boundary
politicians, local surveying,
councils, church because with
and community climate change,
organisations. there’s a lot of
‘Alopi impacts to land
Latukefu, boundaries in
Director of the Tuvalu. Every
Edmund Rice year I see
Centre, said that Tuvalu’s Aselu Vaguna O’Brien i-Kiribati climate activist Miriam Moriati Tuvalu climate activist Marion Faleasiu changes in the
it was important shoreline, not
for Australians just with my
to directly hear the voices of young people from neighbouring own eyes, but with the surveys we do.
Pacific Island countries. “With these changes of the shoreline, landowners are
“This region is important to us,” Latukefu said. “We cannot fighting for their land. At the end of the islands, one of the
exist without the Pacific, and the Pacific needs us to step up old guys said, ‘This is my land boundary.’ But according to our
on the issue of climate change. They have identified it as the survey, his land has already vanished, taken by the sea.”
most significant existential threat facing the region and have O’Brien also highlighted the diverse effects of climate
done so the last 30 years.” change on health, nutrition and food security.
Presenting images of their low-lying atoll nations, the young “In Tuvalu, we can’t plant using our soil because of the
Pacific activists stressed the importance of partnership with intrusion of salinity as seawater is rising,” he said. “This is
the largest member of the Pacific Islands Forum. But they impacting our food crops. Now we are relying on food that
also highlighted their concerns about Australia’s ongoing comes from overseas such as rice and taro. In the past we
commitment to fossil fuel exports, the failure to implement could grow our own taro, now we can’t.”
pledges on climate finance or provide adequate assistance for At age 21, Miriam Moriati is the youngest member of
loss and damage. the delegation. She said this was her first time in Australia
Robert Karoro is National Coordinator of the Kiribati Climate and her first time advocating on climate change before an
Action Network (KiriCAN). Drawing on his Banaban heritage international audience.
and interest in marine science and geography, Karoro has “I’m the baby of the group,” she laughed. “When I was on
organised community consultations in vulnerable areas for the the plane, I didn’t know where Australia starts and where it
Kiribati Integrated Vulnerability Assessment project. ends – it’s so big! But when you’re on a plane going to Kiribati,
Acknowledging the hospitality shown in Australia, Karoro it’s very thin and it’s flat, just three metres above sea level.
stressed that: “We have always considered each other equals Where I come from, climate change is the reality – it’s what
and friends. We consider Australia as a friend, but we are we live with every day. It’s what we see when we wake up

22 Islands Business, November 2024