Facing Oblivion, Island Nation Makes Big Sacrifice 360
Damien1972 writes "Kiribati, a small nation consisting of 33 Pacific island atolls, is forecast to be among the first countries swamped by rising sea levels. Nevertheless, the country recently made an astounding commitment: it closed over 150,000 square miles of its territory to fishing, an activity that accounts for nearly half the government's tax revenue. What moved the tiny country to take this monumental action? President Anote Tong, says Kiribati is sending a message to the world: 'We need to make sacrifices to provide a future for our children and grandchildren.'"
Re:Accordians:hunting::the french:war (Score:4, Informative)
Presumably it ensures that there will still be decent fish stocks in the area in decades to come.
Re:They're gonna feel like... (Score:5, Informative)
They're gonna feel like fools when the doom and gloom prophesies don't pan out.
According to the South Pacific Regional Environment Program, two small uninhabited Kiribati islets, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, disappeared underwater in 1999.
And in other parts of the world:
-A tiny island claimed for years by India and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal has disappeared beneath the rising seas, scientists in India say.
-Over the last century, sea levels have risen about 20 centimetres (8 in);[17][18] further rises of the ocean could threaten the existence of Maldives, being the lowest country in the world, with a maximum natural ground level of only 2.3 metres (7 ft 7 in), with the average being only 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) above sea level.
Atol Growth (Score:2, Informative)
Studies show that atols and coral islands maintain their height above sealevel. The coral grows upwards as sealevel rises.
So....what? (Score:4, Informative)
How much of their fishing territory does this eliminate (article says 150,000 square miles, but doesn't mention the current total area)?
Basically, the article is poorly written, even mixing units - square miles, then square kilometers. Has all the appearance of a "puff piece."
Re:They're gonna feel like... (Score:5, Informative)
The doom and gloom prophecies for fish-stock collapses, at least, are pretty much already halfway through panning out.
Re:They're gonna feel like... (Score:5, Informative)
The claim about the island by India/Bangladesh was discussed here on /. recently and was shown to be total bunk.
As of right now no island or territory had sunk due to rising sea levels.
Any islands that have disappeared in the last 100 years or so did so due to erosion - either natural and slow or, on occasion, due to storms and hurricanes.
As far as Kiribati goes, there is precisely 0 chance of them sinking due to rising sea levels. The real problem is the unregulated phosphate mining that essentially destroyed their island and, likely, undermined (pun intended) the natural strength of island formation. If it disappears beneath the sea - they can only blame themselves.
Good on them for closing their waters to fishing, though. Of course with ever-increasing world population that wants to eat (go figure) that just means some other place will be over-fished.
Re:dont bother with google maps (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Atol Growth (Score:5, Informative)
You're (and the article) are talking about low-level atolls (not coral islands) which are mildly to unvegetated and not at all the type of atoll or island suitable for human habitation, thus not the subject of this discussion.
Not to mention, atolls won't rise as fast as the sea. They will be under water for thousands of years before once again cresting. Nothing in your linked article successfully argues otherwise.
Re:They're gonna feel like... (Score:5, Informative)
"Any islands that have disappeared in the last 100 years or so did so due to erosion - either natural and slow or, on occasion, due to storms and hurricanes."
However, increasing the base ocean level greatly increases erosion. The height of waves is something like Gaussian distribution, and increasing the level greatly increases the number of high waves in the 'long tail'.
Re:Sounds like simple government oppression (Score:5, Informative)
Do you even know anything about Kiribati?
Of course not. Is that a rhetorical question? Do the people of Kiribati know about me? Are they interested in my problems?
They kind of have to, because your activities, and mine, are putting the very existence of their country into doubt.
And that is why they are speaking out.
He is closing the fishery to protect fish stocks and to make a point for the world at large.
Protecting people from eating and making a spectacle. Bravo.
Protecting fisheries so they don't get annihilated is the most important task for any Polynesian nation.
As for sea walls, those would do nothing against the salinization of groundwater on those islands. When your well draws sea water, you have to leave the island anyway, which is what is happening in those islands.
I admit to not knowing about island fresh water supplies. I'm not sure I believe a small rise in sea levels would automatically change ground water to salt water. Perhaps there is something constructive to be done about it. But I'm pretty sure whining and prohibiting fishing isn't a remedy.
Well, then, do a Google Image Search on Kiribati. And Tuvalu. You'll find pictures of beaches lined with dead palm trees. Those trees are dead because sea level rise raised the average salinity of the ground water they're rooted in. This is what they are "whining" about: our energy consumption is raising sea levels and making their islands uninhabitable.
The islands are NOT sinking/shrinking ! (Score:3, Informative)
"And the research showed similar trends in the Republic of Kiribati, where the three main urbanised islands also “grew” – Betio by 30 percent (36ha), Bairiki by 16.3 percent (5.8ha) and Nanikai by 12.5 percent (0.8ha).
Webb, an expert on coastal processes, told the New Scientist the trend was explained by the fact the islands mostly comprised coral debris eroded from encircling reefs and pushed up onto the islands by winds and waves.
The process was continuous, because the corals were alive, he said."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/02/tuvalu-and-many-other-south-pacific-islands-are-not-sinking-claims-they-are-due-to-global-warming-driven-sea-level-rise-are-opportunistic/
Worries about the small islands are alarmist propaganda.
See also
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/19/despite-popular-opinion-and-calls-to-action-the-maldives-is-not-being-overrun-by-sea-level-rise/
The I-Kiribati (Score:4, Informative)
I have seen quite a bit of wild speculation here as to the motives of the I-Kiribati, and their President as concerns this initiative. I have had the opportunity to visit Kiribati, to install a SolarNetOne solar powered internet infrastructure package, as part of a project with the Internet Society http://www.isoc.org You might remember the SolarNetOne: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/07/02/1330252 Having been to Kiribati and worked with the I-Kiribati, I would like to offer my perspective on this topic, as well as a little history.
Kiribati has been inhabited for several thousand years or so by people who have managed to not overfish their waters, not cut down all the trees, not drive the local wildlife to extinction, and not overpopulate their lands. They KNOW how to live in harmony with one another and with their environment. They have a complex system of protecting their own genetic stock that traditionally would not allow a young couple from the same island to mate. They have no homeless, hungry people, or crime. In addition, they are one of the most sincere, honest, and friendly peoples that I have had the opportunity to be around.
Most of the water for drinking and cleaning there is not groundwater. Coral atolls are essentially ancient coral reefs that have grown upon the rims of slightly more ancient volcanic caldera. Underneath a few meters of soil, which is mostly composed of a fine grit of coral dust, is the reef, or the fossil of the reef. In low areas of the ancient fossilized bedrock of reef, fresh water lenses develop. These are areas where fresh water will pool under the soil, and is isolated from the ocean. There is no aquifer to draw from. The fresh water lenses are a source for agriculture, to be sure, but not the main source of drinking and bathing water. That water is rainwater collected in cisterns or barrels for the most part. One of the main impacts upon them will be sea level rise, and no, it will not erode the ancient bedrock of fossilized coral reef away, but it is already taking a toll on the shoreline: http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0614.jpg
Notice the old growth palms that have had their roots undercut. Here is the reef bedrock near the shore:
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0589.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0591.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0592.jpg
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0584.jpg
Notice in the last image there(584), how small the ankleslapper wave is breaking on shore, as opposed to the next to last image(592), where a 15 foot barrel is peeling 1/2 mile offshore. This is because the wave comes up on the shallow outer reef, which rises from VERY deep water, much like on the north shore of Oahu. This forces the wave to expend all its energy on the outer reef, with very little of that energy making it to shore, as one days photos above show. The following image is from the next day, when the wavers were a bit smaller... only 12' or so on the outer reef, and makes the point very well:
http://gnuveau.net/kir/pict0611.jpg
Kiribati is not in the path of Tropical cyclones to cause erosion, being in the region where many of the storms start their lives, like the tropical wave region over and off the east coast of Africa which leads to the Atlantic hurricanes.Needless to say, I do not buy the argument that normal erosion will cause this. Erosion with higher sea levels, which makes the outer reef deeper and allows more wave energy to reach the beach, however, will.
Government is essentially enacted for the most part in what is called Manaeba, or village council, which includes not only an open meeting to discuss events, topics of the day, and courses of action, but also includes a "coverd dish buffet" with each family preparing part of the feast, singing, dancing, and closes with time for socialization. Ideas therefrom are passed up to island council members, and on to members of Parliment, which meets on the capital island of Tarawa. There is no "slick politics" going on in Kiribati, unlike many more developed but imh
Re:The I-Kiribati (Score:1, Informative)
Kiribati [wikipedia.org]
Looks like Hawaii.
It's rather easier for 100,000 people in paradise islands to adapt and be flexible.
Try that in India..
Maybe the earth is just not sufficiently large for 5 billion (and growing) people.
Re:They're gonna feel like... (Score:1, Informative)
That chart shows, if anything, that global temperature (which zig-zagged, rather than increased monotonically in the 20th century) is statistically unrelated to sea levels rising.
Atols don't work that way. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They're gonna feel like... (Score:3, Informative)
Do you remember the story about peer review being highly sensitive to poor refereeing? It was only a few days ago, on this very website. Maybe this is one of those great experiments with an unsupported conclusion and will get peer-reviewed into the bin?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/17/1416201/Peer-Review-Highly-Sensitive-To-Poor-Refereeing [slashdot.org]
"A new study described at Physicsworld.com claims that a small percentage of shoddy or self-interested referees can have a drastic effect on published article quality. The research shows that article quality can drop as much as one standard deviation when just 10% of referees do not behave 'correctly.' At high levels of self-serving or random behavior, 'the peer-review system will not perform much better than by accepting papers by throwing (an unbiased) coin.' The model also includes calculations for 'friendship networks' (nepotism) between authors and reviewers. The original paper, by a pair of complex systems researchers, is available at arXiv.org. No word on when we can expect it to be peer reviewed."
Re:Accordians:hunting::the french:war (Score:5, Informative)
Over the past two years, President Tong has brought together 16 Pacific Ocean nations to develop the initiative, which seeks to maintain ocean health by improving management of fisheries, protecting and conserving biodiversity, furthering scientific understanding of the marine ecosystem, and reducing the negative impacts of human activities.
Whether you agree that closing this fishing area is good for the planet or not it looks like they are doing this because they want to do their part in keeping earth healthy and they consider this to be it, not to generate awareness or bring in tourists.
Thank you for understanding. The Pacific nations who stand most to lose from global climate change are making a symbolic gesture: They're saying, in effect, "Even though we have less than the rest of the world, we at least are willing to take action to protect the world's ecosystems."
Implicit in this action is the question, "So what have you done for the planet lately?"
Remember back in Copenhagen, it was neighbouring Tuvalu who exposed just how much of a farce the gathering was by leading a walk-out on the second day. They deliberately timed it early in the conference so that the negotiations among the largest nations didn't steal their thunder. With a bit of principle and a canny sense of timing, they controlled an entire news cycle.
Pacific nations are becoming increasingly adept at the politics of public opinion. They know they have no clout whatsoever on the world stage, and very little economic or geopolitical leverage, so the only alternative left to them is the noble gesture.
(Cute anecdote - The globe in the foyer of the main meeting venue in Copenhagen featured a huge hanging globe. The creator of the globe had, however, neglected to draw in all of the tiny Pacific islands. The Prime Minister of Tuvalu, seeing this, asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, "So I take it this is a representation of the UN's climate action plan?")
Re:So....what? (Score:5, Informative)
If you'd RTFA, locals are totally allowed to fish, only large foreign companies are banned from fishing! I can't believe this was modded insightful. the point of this ban is to create a marine preserve out of kiribati territories, so even with the loss of their homes, they leave the earth a substantial patch of pristine (as possible) ocean...
Re:Sounds like simple government oppression (Score:4, Informative)
The summary talked about islands threatened by rising sea levels.
So, I take it you're defending your decision to attack the government of this island without actually reading the fucking article? I assume you also prefer to just skim the headlines in a newspaper, rather than actually reading the stories?
Christ, and we wonder why the US electorate is so god damned uninformed and gullible...
Re:Accordians:hunting::the french:war (Score:3, Informative)
Kiribati has two international airports - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_Kiribati [wikipedia.org]
Re:Accordians:hunting::the french:war (Score:3, Informative)