Environment & Energy

Dead_Parrot

(14,478 posts) Thu Mar 8, 2012, 09:29 PM Mar 2012

Kiribati buys land in Fiji to save citizens from sea-level rise

The tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati is in talks to buy land from Fiji where its citizens can move to when climate-change-induced sea level rise inundates their homes.

Kiribati's president, Anote Tong, has said that he's begun talks with the military government of Fiji to buy 20 square kilometres of land on which the population of the the 32 coral atolls that comprise Kiribati can relocate to as their land disappears under the waves.

"This is the last resort, there's no way out of this one," Tong told Fijian TV. "Our people will have to move as the tides have reached our homes and villages."

Fiji has understandably raised concerns over the entire 113,000-strong population of Kiribati landing on its shores in one go, so Tong says he plans to first send over a trickle of skilled workers. "They need to find employment," he said. "Not as refugees but as immigrant people with skills to offer, people who have a place in the community, people who will not be seen as second-class citizens." To that end, Tong has also launched an "Education for Migration" programme, aimed at increasing the employability of the population of Kiribati.

More: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/08/kiribati-buys-land