Extract from ABC News
Updated
It's a lazy Sunday afternoon in the village of Nanikai and the equatorial sun is beginning to mellow.
Ataia is sitting cross-legged with his family in their debweeah — a hut on stilts with a roof made from thatched palm leaves. Their mood is upbeat: the morning's fish catch has been good.
One cousin strums a guitar while another plucks the ukulele and the men sing in a rich tenor while an aunt wails over the top. They clap three times to signal the end of the song.
"That one was a love song," says Ataia, 28, who is a little intoxicated after drinking from the shared bowl of kava.
In the background, waves pound against the coral wall. The tide is coming in.
Photo: Singing traditional songs is key to Kiribati culture. (ABC News: Kurt Johnson)
A doomed country?
Ataia's village is on South Tarawa, the capital and most populated atoll in the Republic of Kiribati (pronounced khi-ra-bus).It is a tiny piece of land, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean — driving from one end to the other takes just an hour.
Kiribati is made up of 32 atolls like this, spread across three time zones and an area as large as India. But these tiny, remote landmasses are now bursting at the seams.
South Tarawa has one of the highest population densities in the world and it's evident everywhere: shorelines spoilt by floating plastic, families building out into the lagoon with sandbags or coral wrenched from nearby sea walls.
But Kiribati faces an even greater challenge.
South Tarawa's highest point is just 3 metres above sea level. With sea levels rising, many believe swathes of Kiribati will be inundated within 25 years.
As a result, Kiribati has become a powerful symbol for climate action.
Even the country's former president, Anote Tong, has no hope.
"As for Kiribati? It is already too late," he wrote recently.
In 2015, he bought 2,000 hectares of land in Fiji so that Kiribati's population of nearly 120,000 could be relocated to higher ground.
Mr Tong stressed this was a last resort. But the sale made headlines around the world and seemed to confirm that even Kiribati's leaders believed the country's fate was sealed.
Could the atolls grow not shrink?
Not everyone in Kiribati is grateful to Mr Tong. Many residents of the sprawling nation — one of the poorest in the world — refuse to accept that Kiribati is gone."When we talk about migration it means we really have no hope," says Pelenise Alofa from the Kiribati Climate Action Network.
"If they really care for us, they will help us stay in Kiribati".
Some experts believe Kirabati's fate is more nuanced than the narrative has allowed for.
Geomorphologist Paul Kench says his research into Pacific atolls shows they are dynamic structures.
The surface area can actually expand as sea levels rise: during stormy seas, waves deposit more sand onto the coral landmasses.
But human development of causeways and seawalls, like those in South Tarawa, can interfere with an atoll's adaptation.
God 'vowed not to flood the Earth'
Research like Professor Kench's offers a glimmer of hope, but another force plays a greater role in keeping the I-Kiribati (the inhabitants of Kiribati) optimistic.Earlier today, Ataia and his family joined a procession of I-Kirabati streaming out from brightly painted Catholic churches and Protestant maniabas — vast open structures for community meetings and masses.
Religion provides solace in the face of climate calamity, and in the last census, only 23 people said they followed no religion.
You can tell someone's denomination from their dress — the Catholics in fluoro tones and the Protestants in simple, starched whites.
Many I-Kiribati, including one ex-president, refer to the Bible story of Noah's Ark which ended with God vowing never to flood the earth again. For a deeply religious population, this story is as good as science.
While the current President, Taneti Mamau, acknowledges the threat of climate change, he does not believe the country will disappear.
"We don't believe that Kiribati will sink like the Titanic ship. Our country, our beautiful lands, are created by the hands of God," he said in a recent promotional video."Instead, President Mamau has a 20-year plan to turn Kiribati into the next Dubai or Singapore. It is an ambitious project for a nation that struggles to provide its population with safe drinking water and electricity.
Kiribati's Government seems keen to retain control of the narrative.
Last year, documentary maker Matthieu Rytz was deported after screening his documentary Anote's Ark, about the fight to save Kiribati from climate change.
As with so many other countries, the climate debate in Kiribati has been politicised. Two sides wrestle to control the narrative, leaving concrete action and scientific reality behind.
This isn't the first challenge
Tomorrow is a school day. Ataia's son is old enough to wear the crisp white school uniform and, in bare feet, navigate the short, puddled road to school.It is so close to his debweeah that Ataia can hear them sing from the windowless classrooms, where they will also learn about their precarious future.
Yet this is not the first time that Kiribati has faced potential catastrophe because of the actions of faraway powers.
The string of atolls was invaded by Polynesian and Melanesian groups hundreds of years ago.
European sailors visited in the 17th century and the British colonised the Gilbert Islands — part of what is now the Republic of Kiribati — and used another atoll, Kiritimati, to test nuclear weapons in the 1950s.
It remains to be seen how this new challenge will shape the I-Kiribati's culture and way of life.
Some fear a mass migration could extinguish it.
But Ms Pelenise is more hopeful.
"There are some aspects of our culture we may lose, but we can still sing, we can dance, we can tell stories, we can fish, we can weave nets from the Pandanus tree. If there is no Pandanus tree, maybe we can weave from something else," she said.
Life for Ataia's grandchildren
Kiribati is at a crossroads and families like Ataia's face an uncertain future.In one possible scenario, Ataia and his family are forced to resettle on a remote Fijian island, 2,000 km away.
The land is poor but they must learn how to farm. His children's children risk forgetting their Kiribati culture and language for that of their host country.
In another, the international community meets its carbon targets and pours resources into Pacific atolls.
The I-Kiribati fight to adapt to rising seas and changing weather patterns.
Whichever scenario plays out, it seems inevitable that Ataia's grandchildren will have a life harder than him.
But he hopes they can sing the same songs in the same language as their grandfather.
Kurt Johnson is a freelance writer who travelled to Kiribati for an international development project.
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