A good thing going
As sea levels rise, Tuvalu, one of the world's most isolated nations, is struggling to keep its heads above water, writes Matt Siegel. Pictures by Andrew Quilty
Down the only road that runs the length of the island. Past the dump, with its rusting skeletons of cars and heaps of fetid household refuse. Through the jungle of towering coconut trees. Along the talcum-powder beach, beyond the point at which it gives way to shattered rocks and bleached coral. That is where the concrete sentinel stands. Out alone in the sea, it keeps a silent vigil, waiting for the end of the world as they know it to arrive in Tuvalu.
This ziggurat – that now stands surrounded by surf several metres from the end of the islet – was built by the United States military during the second world war. It served as the pedestal for a large anti-aircraft gun, says Emilio Eliapo, a 24-year-old local. Once the conflict in the Pacific had come to a bloody close, the Americans removed the gun but left the concrete base standing. Over time, the ground disappeared beneath it, as erosion nibbled away at the shore and the sea rose up.
“When I was little, that used to be in the jungle, just like over there,” Eliapo says, pointing towards a mesh of trees back along the coastline that would have provided natural cover for an anti-aircraft position.
“The only thing we have here in Tuvalu is to pray. We are a very small island and very poor. We can’t go and buy more land.
“Climate change,” he says with a sigh.
Tuvalu is one of the most isolated countries on the planet, with two small propeller planes flying weekly from neighbouring Fiji providing its only air bridge to the world. It did not have television until 10 years ago, and it still lacks a hard-wired, underwater-cable internet connection.
But few other countries are as close to the front line of the battle against climate change as Tuvalu, a cluster of nine tiny islands and coral atolls tucked away in a remote corner of the South Pacific. The main atoll and largest population centre, Funafuti, appears from the air as an apparition: a spectral ring of thin jungle and dazzling white sand wrapped around a deep azure lagoon and nothing more. Half the country’s minuscule population ( just over 10,500) live here, despite the main islet being less than 500 metres wide at its broadest point and just two metres above sea level. The atoll is so low that in places it tricks the eye into thinking you’re looking up, rather than down, at the surrounding ocean.