Viewpoint by Volker Boege<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article was issued by the<\/em> Toda Peace Institute<\/em><\/a> and is being republished with their permission.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n BRISBANE, Australia (IDN) \u2014 On 25 February, the government of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea (PNG) declared a State of Emergency in the Atolls Constituency of the region. On 28 February, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest climate science report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the state of emergency in Bougainville was hardly noticed internationally, the release of the IPCC report drew comprehensive international attention (although less than it deserved, because it was overshadowed by the war in Ukraine).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both events are closely linked. The state of emergency is a real-life expression of what the IPCC report deals with in a scientific way, and the IPCC report provides an explanation of what is happening on the Bougainville atolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) was forced to declare the state of emergency<\/a> because the people on the atolls \u201care currently suffering the aftermath of the King tide that swept across all the outer low lying islands throughout the Atolls Constituency\u201d. People on the atoll islands of Nissan, Mortlock, Fead, Nukumanu (Tasman), Nuguria and the Carterets \u201care severely affected, with their homes, gardens and properties now underwater\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The emergency started in December last year, when a first wave of king tides battered the atolls, low-lying areas of mainland Bougainville and the neighbouring island of Buka, with the sea running into swamp taro food gardens and even taking several houses on Iangain island in the Carterets atoll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The United Nations said in December that \u201cas many as 7,000 residents had to move their homes<\/a> due to flooding from king tides\u201d. In fact, the Bougainville atolls \u201care considered to be among the most threatened parts of the Pacific from climate change and sea level rise\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile people \u201care going hungry<\/a> with the strong winds and king tides destroying food gardens\u201d. These food gardens are the basis of the subsistence economy of atoll communities. The food security of the people is severely threatened, and they are dependent on food support from the outside. The ABG and the government of PNG have promised to send relief supplies<\/a> to the atolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experience shows, however, that government emergency responses are slow and insufficient. And so is long-term planning. In the light of the current disaster, PNG\u2019s Prime Minister James Marape declared that, in addition to the provision of relief supplies, his government will at the same time be \u201clooking at a permanent solution that could mean relocating islanders<\/a> to mainland Bougainville.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Government plans to relocate Carterets islanders go back as far as October 2007, when the PNG government allocated 2 million kina (800,000 USD) for a \u2018Carterets Relocation Programme\u2019; over the following years more plans and programmes were made, without any relocation actually happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why the community leaders on the Carterets took things into their own hands and established the NGO Tulele Peisa<\/a> (which in the local language means \u2018Sailing the waves on our own\u2019) which organised the resettlement of Islanders to mainland Bougainville. Tulele Peisa\u2019s activities drew considerable international attention, gained the support of donor agencies and the Catholic Church in Bougainville, which provided land for resettlement. Tulele Peisa successfully relocated families to new homes, starting in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, its \u2018Carterets Integrated Relocation Programme\u2019 was up against considerable obstacles, from lack of funding through problems in the relationship with state institutions to challenges in getting access to sufficient suitable resettlement land and conflicts with recipient communities. Therefore, small numbers of people have been resettled so far; most Carterets Islanders are still stuck on their atoll today, exposed to the devastating king tides and other effects of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ABG\u2019s emergency declaration of 25 February is referencing the resettlement of the Carterets Islanders when it posits that the atolls people \u201care the very first environmental refugees<\/a> in the world due to rising sea levels and the dilemma they face in the islands is no longer a local issue but has become a global issue\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, in the international media the Carterets Islanders had been presented as the world\u2019s first environmental refugees. Even if the term \u2018environmental refugees\u2019 is contested these days, it is a fact that people are forced to leave their home islands and to relocate elsewhere\u2014and this indeed has become a global issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n