Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, I started a post on Kiribati, but when it was half written I found Andi Cockroft had beaten me to it with his post. His analysis was fine, but I had a different take on the events. President Tong of Kiribati says the good folk of the atolls are again looking for some place to move their people if they have to. However, this time, it’s different. This time, they’re not blaming it on sea level rise. This time, they’re not talking about suing the industrialized nations. And this time, they’re making their own plans, they’re not waiting for the world to act. The headline in USA Today says:
Pacific nation may move entire population to Fiji
Figure 1. The island nation of Kiribati, which is comprised of the Gilbert and Phoenix groups and the Line Islands. I call it the world’s biggest tiny country. The Kiribati EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) is the eighth largest in the world … and it is 99.99% ocean.
Let me comment that if I had a chance to pull up stakes in Kiribati and move to Fiji, I’d do it in a second. Fiji is high volcanic islands, with rich soil and lots of it. And Kiribati, on the other hand, is tiny coral atolls with … well … nothing. Life on the atolls is tough, tough, tough. The highest point on any of the atolls of Kiribati is about 3 metres (10 feet) above sea level, and there is no real soil, only lime coral sand. It is a testament to the ingenuity and perseverance of humans that anyone lives on the atolls at all. The people from Kiribati are great folks, consummate seamen, and very interesting people in general. The ones I’ve known have been great folks. Don’t cross the women, though, bad mistake, the women will clean your clock if you cross them, that’s one of the reasons I like them so much.
But the fact that life is tough in Kiribati is not the reason that they’re talking about moving. And indeed, although the report mentions climate change, the President of Kiribati actually didn’t blame rising sea levels. The article goes on to say:
Fearing that climate change could wipe out their entire Pacific archipelago, the leaders of Kiribati are considering an unusual backup plan: moving the populace to Fiji.
Kiribati President Anote Tong told The Associated Press on Friday that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu. He said the fertile land, being sold by a church group for about $9.6 million, could be insurance for Kiribati’s entire population of 103,000, though he hopes it will never be necessary for everyone to leave.
“We would hope not to put everyone on one piece of land, but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it,” Tong said. “It wouldn’t be for me, personally, but would apply more to a younger generation. For them, moving won’t be a matter of choice. It’s basically going to be a matter of survival.”
Kiribati, which straddles the equator near the international date line, has found itself at the leading edge of the debate on climate change because many of its atolls rise just a few feet above sea level.
Tong said some villages have already moved and there have been increasing instances of sea water contaminating the island’s underground fresh water, which remains vital for trees and crops. He said changing rainfall, tidal and storm patterns pose as least as much threat as ocean levels, which so far have risen only slightly.
Now, before getting into the story, a few facts. First. name of the nation is pronounced “Kih-rih-bas”, with the accent on the first syllable. Why the strange spelling? Turns out that’s how you spell “Gilberts”, the old name of the islands, in the local language. There’s no “s” in the language, so they use “ti” for the “s” sound, based on how “ti” is pronounced in “motion”. Also, as in many Pacific missionary-derived orthographies of the local language, there are no diphthongs consonant pairs in the Kiribati language. So the “lb” in “Gilberts” becomes “rib” because … you guessed it, no “l” in the language, so they use “r” instead. So in Figure 1, you see that “Christmas” in the local language is spelled “Kiritimati”. Also, the people are called “i-Kiribati”, with the “i” pronounce like “ee”.
Returning to the idea of the i-Kiribati moving to Fiji, curiously, that would not be the first historical intersection between the people of Kiribati and the people of Fiji. In the early days of WWII, it became obvious that the Japanese would invade one of the Gilbert Islands called “Ocean Island” or Banabas. The Gilberts were British at the time, as was Fiji, so the Brits decided to act.
Basically, the British took all of the inhabitants of Banabas Island, and moved them lock, stock, and fishing lines to the island of Rabi in Fiji. Rabi is a beautiful island, and it is ruled domestically not by the Fijians, but by the Rabi Island Council. It’s like a little bit of Kiribati in Fiji, almost everyone on the island is i-Kiribati. So this would not be the first group of i-Kirbati to resettle in Fiji.
Nor would it be the first move by i-Kiribati away from the Gilberts group. The Phoenix group of islands were settled in the late 1930s by people from the Gilberts group. This occurred as a direct result of what would become a recurring problem—when atoll populations intersect with modern medicine, overpopulation is not far off.
As a result, the obliging British, who likely felt some responsibility, gave the Phoenix group to be settled by the i-Kiribati. They settled the islands between 1938 and 1940. But the water was bad and scarce. Communications were hard, as was transportation, and the war made it worse. In 1952, after a series of dry years, the experiment was declared a failure.
However, of course, by then there was no room for the Phoenix folks back in the Gilberts. Besides, by then there were newly overcrowded islands in the Gilberts too, people keep having kids. So … the Brits were looking for people to work on the plantations in the Solomon islands. In the early 1950s, they gave Wagina Island and land on Gizo Island in the Solomons to anyone willing to sign up for the Solomon Islands Settlement Scheme. Many of the folks who emigrated were from the Phoenix Islands, where poor water sources and a drought had combined to make the islands uninhabitable. Compared to that, the Solomons were a paradise. Except for the malaria, of course.
Drought has long been the bane of Kiribati. When your only water comes from a small lens of fresh water renewed only by rain, it is a matter of life and death. There is a fascinating report by some National Academy of Science folks, published in 1957, of their researches in Kiribati in the early ’50s. It was very clear, even back then, that droughts were a huge issue. Among many other interesting things they say are:
As for the rainfall, the attached graphs will show how it varies between the groups in the North, Central and South Islands (Fig. 4). One of the most important ecological factors in the Gilbert Islands is drought. These islands are periodically affected by it. There was a two-year drought in 1917-1919, a three-year drought in 1937-1939, and another which lasted a year and a half in 1949-1951. These periods of drought particularly affect the south islands. Comparative statistics in Figure 4 show the’ monthly rainfall of one island of each group over a period of 4 years, comparing periods or normal rainfall with periods of drought which occurred from August, 1949 to December, 1950.
And here is their Figure 4:
Figure 2. Monthly rainfall on three different atolls of Kiribati. Click image for a larger version.
Tarawa, the middle row, is the capital of Kiribati. Like the other islands, it depended entirely on rainfall for drinking water. Look at what happened in 1950 to the rainfall in Tarawa … yes, that would definitely cause problems. You can see why the British were wanting to move people in the early 1950s, they’d been dying of thirst on some of the atolls. Plus the population on the atolls was already very high. The NAS report says:
It would seem that the Gilbert Islands, where the soil is so poor, and which suffer from recurrent severe droughts, should have a small population. We observe, on the contrary, a very high demographic density. The population of the sixteen islands of the Group amounted at the time of the 1947 census to 27,824, or an average density of 243.9 per square mile. This figure is just given as an average and does not claim to have any great demonstrative value as, in fact, the density varies considerably as between one island and another. Thus Tamana has 441.5 per square mile while Aranuka has only 61.3.
But of course, moving folks from the Gilberts to the Solomon Islands didn’t solve the population problem either. To understand why it made no difference, here’s a historical look at the population of Kiribati
Figure 3. Kiribati population change over time. I picked the photo because for me it exemplified the irrepressible spirit of the i-Kiribati people. Population information is from the FAO and the NAS report cited above.
Remember that in 1947, people were already commenting on the high population density … and now the density is three times as great. So you can understand why the President is looking for more land. Here’s another bit of information. The article says that they want to buy a 6,000 acre parcel in Fiji. In Texas, that would only be a small ranch.
But that land in Fiji is nearly 10% of the total area of Kiribati, and nearly 15% of the inhabited area of Kiribati. So I understand why they want to buy it.
You can see the danger. The population is skyrocketing. And unlike just about every country on the planet, there is absolutely no sign of any slowdown in the Kiribati population growth rate.
But the rain … the rain is unchanged. It’s still years of wet and then years of dry, just like always … but when you have three times the people, the dry years become unsustainable. President Tong correctly notes “increasing instances of sea water contaminating the island’s underground fresh water”. He does not note the obvious reason that the well water is becoming brackish—there are three times the people drinking from each and every well, while the rainwater recharging the wells hasn’t changed.
As a result, I fear there is no obvious solution. Buying land in Fiji in 2012, while it is a good stopgap measure, will do no more to solve the underlying problem than did exporting people to the Solomon Islands in 1954. There is only one solution to their problem, and it has nothing to do with CO2, or the climate, or the industrialized nations, or the sea level. The people of Kiribati have to, must, reduce their birth rate.
I understand that there are issues of religion and social pressure and the like, but look at the blue line in Figure 2. Kiribati is already busting at the seams with people, and the rate of population growth is not decreasing … they will be lucky to come out of this without huge social, economic, and political problems. So I wish President Tong the best of luck in his efforts to reduce some of those problems.
And if anyone can pull it off, it would be the i-Kiribati. Let me close by quoting the 1950s NAS report again:
Another aspect of their nature is their total confidence in others, both in moral and material dealings. We also appreciated their independent spirit and their frankness, which is often disarming. Their answers, whether positive or negative, are always direct. But the Gilbertese’ forthrightness does not preclude a form of respect devoid of obsequiousness. His often unexpected reactions are never arrogant, and are a corollary of his independent, individualistic nature, as are his teasing spirit and fanciful mind. Both are expressed in choreographic attitudes, in which mimicry always has a deserved success.
Finally, these people have a highly-developed artistic sense, and it would be difficult to find anything to equal some of their extraordinarily beautiful choral singing, It is really in their dances and choral singing only that the Gilbertese express the whole genius of their race, and can give rein to an exuberance which, because of a surprising modesty, is no longer manifested in the ordinary course of their everyday life.
The Gilbertese are an intelligent people. Many show real pride in having risen above the general level, but it did not seem to us that this was ever expressed in a contemptuous or even haughty way. Those working with Europeans are generally avid to learn and to understand everything and are full of gratitude for whoever may have increased their knowledge, even about their own territory.
Yeah, that’s the i-Kiribati I know. Interesting, good-natured, hardworking folks. I wish them only the best.
w.
PS—Population density in Kiribati is currently about 750 people per square mile. If they were all moved to the land in Fiji as the headline claims, the population density there would be about 11,000 per square mile … by comparison, Bangladesh has a density of about 2,500 per square mile. So whether they buy the land or not, they won’t be able to move everyone there.
Paul Deacon says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Banaba has indeed been extensively mined. But so has Nauru, and the folks still live there. The mining, while incredibly extensive on both islands, doesn’t require the removal of the people.
I was wrong about the timing and the reason, however. A Rabi Island activist site says:
So you are correct.
It’s an outstanding book, I read it decades ago. Although from memory, my opinion was that he was told some tall tales and reported them as truths … but hey, that’s part of what made it so great a book.
w.
A sun-powered desal/greenhouse design suitable for hot arid seaside areas:
http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/technology.html
Generates valuable minerals etc. as a byproduct.
About the implied solution mentioned involving emigration to Japan, it would be a reversal of every cultural and political choice made by the Japanese, ever. Its demographic implosion might — might — induce them to consider it. especially on some of the islands disputed with Russia. How the i-Kiribati would handle the 50°N climate of Etorofu is hard to say, though!
The NELHA project in Kona, Hawaii addresses all the needs of many island nations.
http://www.nelha.org/
It appears to have generated $250 million in income so far. (said tongue in cheek)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Energy_Laboratory_of_Hawaii_Authority
All you need in this life is to find a way to get on the dole. Anyway, somehow they’re finding a way to mine fresh water in the depths of the ocean which they sell. It could as easily be used to recharge the lens.
“Scientists have been surprised by the findings, which show that some islands have grown by almost one-third over the past 60 years. Among the island chains to have increased in land area are Tuvalu and neighbouring Kiribati … In Kiribati, the three of the most densely populated islands, Betio, Bairiki and Nanikai, also grew by between 12.5 and 30 per cent. … “Eighty per cent of the islands we’ve looked at have either remained about the same or, in fact, got larger.” “We’ve now got evidence the physical foundations of these islands will still be there in 100 years,” he told New Scientist magazine. “It has long been thought that as the sea level goes up, islands will sit there and drown. But they won’t,” Professor Kench said.”
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/Kiribati.htm
“He said changing rainfall, tidal and storm patterns pose as least as much threat as ocean levels, which so far have risen only slightly.”
============================================
wrong…………………
Here you go……the trend is negative…..sea levels are falling fast at Kiribati
Kiribati* 75 -22.0
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/carvingout/issues/sealevel.htm
Latitude says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Thanks, Latitude. The info on that site seems to be over a decade old. The best info on South Pacific sea levels is from the “SEAFRAME” project run by the Aussies. Their country-by-country reports are here.
The Kiribati report says the net movement (after adjustment for the rising/sinking of the land) is 2.6 mm per year, or about 26 cm per century (~ 10″). So President Tong is right, the ocean levels are rising slightly, at something like the historical rate that they’ve been rising for the last century.
w.
Latitude says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I love the short memory. The fact that atolls go up as the ocean rises was discovered by none other than Charles Darwin a century and a half ago. “Long been thought that islands will drown”? Nonsense, the opposite is true. It has long been known, and recently forgotten, that atolls float.
So a more correct statement would be “Recently it has been mistakenly claimed by climate alarmists that the ocean will sit there and drown.”
w.
“…there are no diphthongs (consonant pairs) in the Kiribati language.”
A diphthong is a vowel pair.
Hello Willis,
For a future thread, if you have the chance, can you check out Moon Handbooks Tahiti guide (7th edition) by David Stanley.
http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Tahiti-Handbooks/dp/1598807382
Pages 250-251 has a section on climate change that would, I think, make Peter Gleick proud.
regards,
I lived in a small tropical island state for a number of years – Singapore.
In 60 years Singapore increased the island’s land area by 27% and continues to do so.
Concrete sea walls may not be pretty, but they are effective at extending the land area of island states. They would also help solve the sea water infiltration problem.
That this simple and cheap solution never gets mentioned in the endless reports on ‘rising sea levels’ illustrates how poor a job the media does and how little environmentalists care about the people on these low lying island states.
The Kiribati report says the net movement (after adjustment for the rising/sinking of the land) is 2.6 mm per year,
====================================
au contraire….that’s hogwash 😉
Open your link and look, open Kiribati 2010, their figure 4….
Only if you start measuring from the 1997-98 El Nino…..ever since then, sea levels have been slowly falling
Look where they say sea levels were at Kiribati in 1992 when they installed the SEAFRAME gauge…..
The only way they get sea level rise is by counting those two El Nino dips………
I experienced a rising sense of dread as I read your article, Willis. Their continued rising population, limited and naturally variable fresh water supplies, and lack of any other viable natural resources will mean disaster if nothing changes. This is a slow motion train wreck, in progress.
I may have missed it in the article (or comments) but what was/is the original source of the phosphates that were mined on the islands? Centuries of bird droppings or ??? What effect did/does the phosphate concentration have on the fresh water lense under the atoll?
The major problem seems to be with the water supply.
Now, who do we know who is claimed to be an expert on water supply and seems to have time on his hands? Would keep him out of mischief and give him something really useful to do. The name seems to have escaped me …
The population density of Singapore is 7,150 per sq kilometer, which is about 18,000 per sq mile, and the government actively promotes immigation. Aiming to increase the population by another 2 million.
So clearly population density per se in Kiribati isn’t the problem.
Kiribati’s problems could easily be solved by modest amounts of money and technical help.
George [March 10, 2012 at 7:32 am]
“…On the other hand, Japan has a population implosion clocked to occur over the next generation. Seems like a “two birds with one stone” proposition?”
According to the CIA World Factbook, Japan has a population growth rate of -0.077%.
We took a cruise out of Hawaii when I retired- Norwegian Cruise Lines, so they had to make a stop outside the US. They went down to Kiritimati overnight, and stopped in a TINY man-made harbor so we could get off the ship and basically wander around. Kiritimati is tiny, two roughly quarter circile islands with some reefs partially around the circle. NCL was apparently developing a resort on the north island. The south island was about a mile and half long and a quarter mile wide. I took a walk down the dirt strip, maybe a mile or so. There were maybe 100 “houses” on both sides of the path, a house consisting of a raised stick platform for sleeping with a palm thatch roof. Just a rough guess, but maybe 500 people, it looked like 2-3 young ‘uns per house. The agriculture to be seen consisted of at least one pig under just about every house and maybe 1000 coconut palms, plus some fishing canoes. Bought a dozen very pretty, nicely worked bead necklaces for cheap, even though I paid twice what the ladies asked for them.
As Willis says, a very tough place to eke out a living. Without outside help there ain’t no way at all for those people to build a water still. The few people there need all the help they can get from NCL
It was just amazing watch them pilot the 1000 ft. ship through an S-shaped channel maybe 800 ft wide and into a lagoon about 1500 ft. square. With the bow thrusters and stern drives they can turn the ship 360 degrees in its own length. They also used the on-board radar, on autopilot for most of the maneuver. It is just mind bending to see all that technology side by side with literally dirt poor islanders. I still think about them often and wish them well.
Gee sound like “State of Fear” is coming true.
In re: Willis Eschenbach 1:34 pm Atolls and tsunamis;
Thanks for that information. Glad nothing like that happened
when I went to Kwajalein in the 1960’s on work assignments.
Willis, this is also from memory, as I do not have “A Pattern of Islands” with me, but I seem to recall that the purchase of Rabi and the relocation was paid for out of the phosphate mining royalties (or something like that).
All the best.
I am surprised that they have not blamed Global Warming on the amazing amount of rubbish now littering their beaches, this is typical in poor nations, as uneducated people have no idea about rubbish disposable. Have a look at this photo:
http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2009/09/14/return-to-tarawa/cooper-jpg-w560h842/
Mark and two Cats says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Dang, well aren’t I a dipthong. Always more for me to learn, many thanks.
w.
Philip Bradley says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Singapore is not an atoll. It is a pile of rock. You can put concrete sea walls on a pile of rock with few problems.
Kiribati atolls, on the other hand, are just piles of lime sand. Heck, it’s not even real sand, so you can’t even use it to make strong concrete.
Puttting seawalls on a pile of sand, especially weak crumbly lime sand, has big odds of not working. There are occasionally walls seen on the atolls, but typically they are overtopping walls set a ways back from the ocean and designed to keep waves from washing over the entire atoll.
So I’d be a bit cautious about abusing the media and the environmentalists until you’ve spent some time on atolls. Atolls are not “islands” as we generally understand an island, a fixed pile of rock in the ocean.
Instead, atolls are a temporary resting place for sand. The sand is being constantly added and constantly being washed away from the atoll, and the atoll exists because the balance is maintained … and putting up a sea wall is very likely to destroy the balance by stopping sand from being added to the islands from the reef.
And of course, that won’t stop sand from being eroded away from the atoll … so since it may stop coral sand being added from the reef to the atoll, your seawall has big odds of causing the atoll to disappear entirely.
Cf. Alexander Pope, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. There are ways that marine engineers can extend and build up atolls, but they don’t involve building Singapore style seawalls.
w.
Latitude says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Sorry, my friend, but you’ve totally misinterpreted Figure 4. The big swings are what happen at the start of this type of tidal analysis, which is called an “asymptotic trend analysis”. The swings occur, not just from El Ninos, but from any type of phenomenon that affects the sea level.
What they do is take whatever length record they have, and calculate the best estimate of the various lunar “tides” that go to make up that record. Then they subtract the best estimate of the lunar “tides”, and what is left is the best estimate of the trend. As you can imagine, with a short record, the results swing widely. But as the record becomes longer and longer, the estimates of the lunar tides improve, and the results asymptotically approach the true value of the actual sea level trend.
There is a good description of the “Asymptotic Trend Evaluation” starting on p. 6 in Mitchell, “Sea Level Rise in Australia and the Pacific” (PDF) that talks about the advantages of the method.
All the best,
w.
Willis,
In your excellent article you wrote;
“Don’t cross the women, though, bad mistake, the women will clean your clock if you cross them,”
Did anyone else miss-read that the first time around, or was just me?
Mac the Knife says:
March 10, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Centuries of bird droppings is correct. However, as you might imagine, the birds prefer to roost on rock islands like Banaba and not atolls, so only very few islands in Kiribati have guano deposits.
Finally, on those guano islands the water is generally not all that good, even though it is not in the form of a “freshwater lens”.
Slow motion train wreck is indeed a good description.
w.