Menu Close

Articles on Kiribati

Displaying 1 - 20 of 24 articles

AAP Image/Mick Tsikas.

Their fate isn’t sealed: Pacific nations can survive climate change – if locals take the lead

Pacific communities have always been resilient, surviving on islands in the middle of oceans for more than 3,000 years. But climate change is an unprecedented challenge.
In this October 2011 photo, members of the Royal New Zealand defense force pump sea water into holding tanks ready to be used by the desalination plant in Funafuti, Tuvalu, South Pacific. The atolls of Tuvalu are at grave risk due to rising sea levels and contaminated ground water. AP Photo/Alastair Grant

UN ruling could be a game-changer for climate refugees and climate action

A recent ruling by the UN’s Human Rights Committee recognized that climate refugees do exist, and acknowledged a legal basis for protecting them when their lives are threatened by climate change.
Fish are attracted to floating objects, especially with dangling ropes or nets. WorldFish/Flickr

Tens of thousands of tuna-attracting devices are drifting around the Pacific

Fishers who hunt wild tuna use fish’s natural attraction to floating objects to lure them to known positions near GPS-equipped rafts. However, these rafts are attracting increasing concern.
Boys play on a beach in Kiribati in 2014. Cuba is training doctors to tend to people on the Pacific island nation, struggling with disease amid the worsening effects of climate change. (Shutterstock)

Cuban compassion: Training doctors for a Pacific island nation running out of time

Cuba is offering a compelling example of how we can take care of each other during the climate crisis with its work training doctors on Kiribati, a nation that is being devastated by climate change.
An atoll in the Republic of Kiribati, an island nation in the South Pacific that’s in danger of disappearing due to climate change. (Shutterstock)

What happens when a country drowns?

Island nations composed of low-lying atolls are at risk of being wiped out by rising sea levels in the era of climate change. Yet the international community is doing next to nothing to help them.
If New Zealand introduces a climate refugee visa, 100 Pacific Islanders could be granted access on the basis that their home islands are threatened by rising seas. Reuters/David Gray

Six things New Zealand’s new government needs to do to make climate refugee visas work

New Zealand’s plan to create the world’s first humanitarian visa for climate refugees has to consider ways people from Pacific Island nations actually want to be assisted.
COP 22 President Salaheddine Mezouar from Morocco, right, hands over a gavel to Fiji’s prime minister and president of COP 23 Frank Bainimarama, left, during the opening of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, Monday, Nov. 6, 2017. AP Photo/Martin Meissner

Many small island nations can adapt to climate change with global support

Although climate change threatens the world’s small island nations, many can find ways to adapt and preserve their homes and cultures – especially if wealthy countries cut emissions and provide support.
Climate fight: a traditional Fijian warrior poses at the UN climate summit in Bonn. Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

Don’t give up on Pacific Island nations yet

To many people, island nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands are synonymous with climate catastrophe. But prophesies of doom aren’t all that helpful.
This wood tower on Bikeman islet, in the central Pacific island nation of Kiribati, used to be on the sand. Now it’s in the water. Further out, locals fish. David Gray/Reuters

Rising sea temperatures will hit fisheries and communities in poor countries the hardest

A new study finds that even in best-case scenarios, the fishing communities most hurt by climate change are on small island nations such as Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and the Maldives.
Traditional taro pits can be used to grow nutritious vegetables for the entire household. Graham Lyons

How food gardens based on traditional practice can improve health in the Pacific

We set out to discover whether it’s possible to reduce the alarming rates of non-communicable diseases in Pacific nations while improving nutrition security and income.
The site of the hillfort of Vugala, northern Viti Levu island (Fiji). This was one of many hillforts in the area – home to a few hundred people according to reports from the 1840s – that were probably established around AD 1400 in response to conflict resulting from a food crisis that had come about as a result of an enduring fall in sea level. Patrick Nunn

Rise and fall: social collapse linked to sea level in the Pacific

Rising seas are one of the major concerns of Pacific Island nations, and looking at past sea-level change can help understand the future.

Top contributors

More