Dear friends at Climate Change Action,
First and foremost my apologies for several months of silence since
joining this important group, and Anne's subsequent much appreciated
welcome, reason being that my hard drive crashed and in my stress to
recover some 70,000 files collected in the past 10 or more of
research, I could think of little else!

That aside, and with most files now retrieved [be all in quite an
alarming disarray], I have a question, namely why am I reading about
the Australia's climate change victims in a British newspaper?

Surely if this does not stir our politicians to pull their fingers
out, what indeed might?

In solidarity and with best regards, Lynette
^^^^^^^^^^
Formatted version of "Sinking without trace: Australia's climate
change victims" with photograph, at:
http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/2105/59/
^^^^^^^^^^
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/sinking-without-trace-au\
stralias-climate-change-victims-821136.html
The Independent ~~ London ~~ Monday May 5 2008
Sinking without trace: Australia's climate change victims

Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly
being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of
their inhabitants is being overlooked.

By Kathy Marks
Photo: Masig Island, one of the low-lying islands of the Torres Strait

Ron and Maria Passi, who operate Murray Island's only taxi, were out
driving the night the king tide struck. Neighbours flagged them down,
asking for help, and so it was not until some time later that they saw
their own grandchildren standing in the road. "They were shouting
'Granddad, stop the car, the water is coming in the house'," says Ron.
"I just slammed on the brakes."

The couple's son, Sonny, was outside his fibro shack with his five
children, watching the monster surf, lashed by north-west winds, rise
ever higher. In the commotion, everyone had forgotten that Sedoi, the
baby, was still inside. They heard her crying and found her in her
cot, covered in sand. Water had surged in after a wave picked up a big
wooden pallet and flung it through the front wall.

No one on Murray had ever seen such a high tide before. Other islands
in the Torres Strait, which lies between the far north-eastern tip of
the Australian mainland and Papua New Guinea, have witnessed similar
scenes in recent years. Houses, roads and graveyards have been
flooded, and the locals believe they know the reason: climate change.

The low-lying islands that dot the sparkling waters of this region are
facing similar challenges to South Pacific nations such as Kiribati
and Tuvalu. But while the plight of those countries is well known and
is regularly discussed in the international arena, few people outside
Australia have even heard of the Torres Strait. Even Australians would
have difficulty locating it on the map, and the remote islands –
accessible only by light plane – receive few visitors.

Donna Green is one exception. A scientist at the University of New
South Wales, English-born Dr Green is educating the islanders about
the possible impacts of climate change and ways in which they can
adapt. She embarked on the project after discovering that no one else
was doing it. In fact, although the Torres Strait is considered the
most vulnerable area of Australia, it is barely on the radar, either
as a subject of scientific research or a focus of government policy.

There is no action plan for the region, and the newly formed
Department of Climate Change was unable to cite any studies relating
to these northerly islands. A search for the words "Torres Strait" on
the department's website yields no results.

Until the end of the last Ice Age, the strait was a land bridge
connecting northern Australia with New Guinea. Some islands lie only a
few miles off the Papua New Guinea coast, and the locals have more in
common, ethnically, with the Melanesians of Papua New Guinea than the
Aborigines of the Australian mainland. But they consider themselves
proud Australians, and feel mildly aggrieved that it is not widely
known that Australia has not one, but two indigenous races.

Six of the inhabited Torres islands are low-lying coral cays or swampy
mud islands, with little or no elevation. As you fly over them, they
look like smudges of green in a shimmering expanse of blue. Others are
granite or volcanic, with some higher land. Even there, though, people
are accustomed to living by the beach, their days revolving around
fishing and collecting shells.

At dusk, walking along the water's edge on Murray Island, the scene is
idyllic. A local man is fishing for mackerel with his young son, as
shoals of sardines dart along in the shallows. Children play in the
sand, and reggae music drifts from one of the simple houses built
along the beachfront, in the shade of coconut palms and almond trees.

But, after generations of living by the sea, many locals no longer
feel comfortable. Maria Passi says: "At night I can't sleep if the
tide is high." Her house was flooded by the king tide as well as her
son's. "There was water everywhere, and rubbish floating around, and
coconuts under the bed," says her husband Ron, as his wife adds: "When
I saw how it looked, I just sat down and cried."

Abnormally high tides are not the only phenomenon that the islanders
have observed. The seasons are shifting, and the land is eroding.
Birds' migration patterns have altered, and the turtles and dugongs
(sea cow) that are traditionally hunted for meat have grown scarce.
People are no longer certain when to plant their crops: cassava, yams,
sugarcane, bananas, sweet potato.

Murray, home to about 400 people, is the birthplace of indigenous land
rights. It was five Murray Islanders, led by Eddie Mabo, who brought a
legal action contesting the idea that Australia was uninhabited and
belonged to no one when the British arrived. After a landmark High
Court decision in 1992, Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders
regained ownership of their traditional lands. But now the land for
which Mr Mabo fought so long and hard is being swallowed by the sea.

Dr Green has organised workshops on the islands, offering information
and practical advice. She has also held meetings with community elders
in order to record their observations of weather patterns and
environmental changes, in a project that blends traditional knowledge
with Western science.

"There are very few formal records for this area, but the people who
have lived here for generations have got these amazing banks of
knowledge in their heads," Dr Green says. "If we can understand the
past, through people's memories of extreme weather events, for
instance, we can make projections for the future and work out what
kind of action needs to be taken.

"Some of the people I've spoken to have already passed away. So that
knowledge of theirs, which is like a library, is already being lost
and it's irreplaceable."

Ron Day, a Murray Island elder and community leader, says he has
witnessed disturbing changes. "We see the big trees near the beach,
like the wongai trees, falling down. The seagrass that the dugongs
eat, you used to find long patches of it, but not any more. The corals
are dying, and the sand is getting swept away and exposing the rock.

"We were taught by our grandfathers and fathers to read the sky and
forecast the weather. You see this cloud, you go to your garden and
start planting. You see that cloud, it's time to clear your land. But
nowadays the weather is unpredictable."

Others report that the rainy season is rainier, the dry season drier.
And the marine life is behaving oddly. Julie Zaro, administration
officer at the school on Murray, says: "Normally, at this time of
year, you just throw out a line and get a mullet. But I sat there all
weekend and didn't see one fish. When it's turtle time [the mating
season], you usually see hundreds of them up on the beach, laying
their eggs. But this year I saw only five or six."

The people of this area – already socially and economically
marginalised – face an uncertain future. Yet they barely figure in the
Australian climate change debate, which has largely focused on the
prolonged drought and its impact on farmers. About 7,000 people live
on the islands, 18 of which are inhabited. Some want an evacuation and
relocation plan; others are determined to stay put. They have a
visceral connection with their land, and fear that their identity and
culture will be extinguished if they are dispersed.

In the absence of any significant outside assistance, individuals are
taking the initiative. On Murray, some locals have built makeshift
fortifications against the waves, using fallen tree trunks, beach
debris, rubber tyres and concrete blocks.

Mr Day is encouraging the islanders to move to higher ground. "We're
sea people, and the sea is in our blood," he says. "But living on a
small island surrounded by ocean, it's very dangerous. We have to face
facts: the water is rising."

One of his fellow islanders, Sarie Tabo, is considering relocating.
"But it would be very hard for me, because I fish every morning and
every afternoon," he says. "I wake up and I go to sleep with the sound
of the waves. Up on the hill, it would be a whole different way of life."

At least he has that option. On islands such as Saibai, there is no
high land to move to. The islanders are squeezed on to a narrow strip
of ground, between the encroaching ocean and the encroaching swamp.
They have raised their houses, and sandbagged their families' burial
plots. The sea wall gets washed away during floods.

Father Ezra Waigana, priest of St Matthias Church on Saibai, says: "We
were told there's an iceberg melting and the level of the sea is going
up. We don't know how we will survive. Our island is only flat, and
the water seems to be taking all the land."

There was an exodus from Saibai after a major flood in 1948 but elders
of Mr Waigana's clan decided to stay on, in the place where their
ancestors are buried. Their descendants feel it would be disrespectful
to move – and some people cite God's promise to Noah never again to
flood the Earth.

Politicians from Canberra and Queensland occasionally fly into the
islands and fly out. The locals call them seagulls. Asked whether the
government is doing enough to help, Mr Day replies: "Most of the time
they play deaf." The islanders, he says, "need to make ourselves known
to people in the global village".

Dr Green says: "It's been said to me by some islanders that they're
very happy that the Australian government is investing in the Pacific,
to help their brothers and sisters deal with the impact of climate
change. But they wonder why the government is not more strongly
investing in similar communities in Australia, and they feel a bit overlooked.

"This is an area with few resources, and limited capacity to adapt,
and it does seem a little forgotten at the moment. But these problems
are not in Australia's backyard. They are right in the front room."