climate change, refugees and the torres strait islands
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This is a policy report I prepared for Friends of the Earth in Melbourne as part of a public affairs internship through the University of Melbourne, Australia. It examines the crisis facing the world due to climate change, with a particular focus on vulnerable native communities in Australia's Torres Strait Islands at risk of becoming climate refugees.TRANSCRIPT
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Climate Change, Refugees and the Torres Strait Islands
A policy report for Friends of the Earth, Australia
Adam Schwartzbaum
May 24, 2006
Introduction
For weeks you couldn’t escape the image: a lone polar bear perched on the edge of a
melting sheet of ice, looking down into the dark waters below; above, the words in large bold
print: “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.”1 In the last week of March 2006, this was the arresting
image splayed across the cover of Time magazines across the world. Inside, article after article
explained in careful detail what so many climatologists, environmental activists, and informed
citizens across the world have been saying for well over a decade: climate change is real, it is
human induced, and it is already happening.
In the United States, where politicians continue to stubbornly refuse to sign the Kyoto
Accords or make any substantial effort to curb their nation’s voluminous carbon footprint, it
appears a sea change has begun to swell amongst public attitudes towards climate change. In a
recent poll, “85% of respondents agree that global warming probably is happening. Moreover,
most respondents say they want some action taken. Of those polled, 87% believe the government
should either encourage or require lowering of power-plant emissions, and 85% think something
should be done to get cars to use less gasoline.”2 In a country that produces 25% of the world’s
carbon output every year, these numbers illustrate that Americans are finally beginning to
understand the inevitable truth: our world is getting warmer because of our oil-addicted, energy-
inefficient, unsustainable societies.
1 Time Magazine. 3 April 2006: cover. 2 Kluger, Jeffrey. “Global Warming Heats Up.” Time Magazine. 3 April 2006.
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With so much public support for action against climate change, now is the time for
environmental organizations like Friends of the Earth to capitalize on public sentiments
worldwide and push to enact real policy change to deal with the coming ecological crises. In
Australia, the country with the largest per capita production of greenhouse pollution in the
world,3 it is essential that the government begin working in earnest to address climate change.
An important area where good public policy making is currently needed is the often overlooked
issue of ecological refugees, also referred to as climate refugees. Though not yet officially
acknowledged by the United Nations and the majority of world governments, climate refugees
are a very real group of human beings who have been displaced from their native homes due to
changes in the environment directly linked to global warming and climate change. They are
Inuits fleeing an indigenous community inhabited for 4,000 years because of rising water tables
in Shishmaref, Alaska.4 They are Chinese peasant farmers, fleeing ancient cities lost to
desertification of the Gobi desert, a phenomenon that already affects 8 percent of Chinese
territory and threatens the livelihood of 170 million people.5 And they are Aboriginal Australians
on Coconut Island who have seen 60 meters of their island home consumed by the wave since
the year 2000.6
For some Australians, the problem of climate refugees is probably seen as something
remote, affecting people in other countries, but not of concern to Australian citizens. However,
this is not the case; in fact, there are already clearly documented cases of climate refugees in the
pacific islands just bordering Australia to the North, and most significantly, climate change is
3 Beazley, Kim C. “Protecting Australia From the Threat of Climate Change.” Blueprint Number Six. Sydney, 7 March 2006. 4 Arctic Change Indicator Website. “Human and Economic Indicators: Shishmaref.” 10 June 2006. http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/human-shishmaref.shtml 5 US Embassy-China. “PRC Environmental Grave Concerns.” February 1999. 10 June 2006. http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/svhards1.htm 6 Madigan, Michael. “Rising Seas Threaten Homes.” Courier-Mail. 5 April 2006.
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beginning to raise questions about the sustainability of at least six Torres Strait Islands like
Coconut, York, and Saibai, home to thousands of indigenous Australian citizens.7
This policy paper will explore the problems of climate change and climate refugees with
a particular emphasis on communities already in distress. Using the Torres Strait Island of Saibai
as a case study, it will focus on the strategies needed to help Torres Islanders adapt to climate
change, and suggest several action oriented responses to the looming crisis. Ultimately, our goal
should be to have climate refugees recognized alongside political and religious refugees in the
law of the United Nations, so that these people can be taken out of the shadows and be accorded
the respect and dignity their lives are worth. For the preservation of global security, for the
humane treatment of tens of millions of affected peoples all across the globe, and perhaps most
importantly, to uphold our shared value of environmental justice, this is a cause that demands our
attention and our governments’ legal recognition.
Part One: What are Climate Refugees?
In 2001, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a coalition of
thousands of scientists from around the world, published its Third Assessment Report (TAR), at
the behest of the United Nations. Among other things, this report states in no uncertain terms that
“emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the
atmosphere in ways that are expected to affect the climate.”8 The way this works is fairly
straightforward; a good explanation can be found in a Climate Change FAQ published by
Australian Government. It explains that
The Earth is covered by a blanket of gases which allows energy from the sun to reach the
Earth’s surface, where some of it is converted to heat energy. Most of the heat is re-
7 Madigan, Michael. “Rising Seas Threaten Homes.” Courier-Mail. 5 April 2006. 8 IPCC TAR “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Summary for Policy Makers. A Report of Working Group 1.
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radiated towards space, but some is re-radiated towards the ground by greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere. This is a natural effect which keeps the Earth’s temperature at a level
necessary to support life. Human activities—particularly burning fossil fuels (coal, oil
and natural gas), agriculture and land clearing—are generating more greenhouse gases.
Greater concentrations of greenhouse gases will trap more heat and raise the Earth’s
surface temperature.9
Over the past century, concentrations of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere have
increased from 250 parts per million (ppm), a level sustained for nearly 400,000 years, to about
370 ppm, and is currently increasing at a rate of about 1.5 ppm a year. This in turn has caused the
earth to warm by an average of 0.6 degrees Celsius.10 This is unprecedented warming not seen in
thousands of years, and is best illustrated by this first graph, a now famous chart known as “the
hockey stick.”
9 Department of the Environment and Heritage, Australian Greenhouse Office. Climate Change Q&A. Canberra: 2005. 10 Athanasiou, Tom and Paul Baer. Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002.
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Compare this graph to the one below, illustrating levels of CO2 in the atmosphere over
the past 400,000 years:
By comparing these two charts, it is obvious that increasing levels of CO2 in the
atmosphere due to our use of fossil fuels, about 120 ppm higher than they have ever been in the
past 400,000 years, corresponds directly to the global increase in average surface temperature.
Similar increases of greenhouse gas concentrations have been observed with Nitrous Oxide,
Methane, and Sulfate aerosols deposited in Greenland ice.11 Again, as levels of greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere increase, more heat is trapped, temperatures rise, and climate is affected. This
is the trend commonly known as global warming.
Practically, global warming has and will continue to exert a profound influence on the
climate all over the world. The IPCCs Third Annual Report paints a somewhat grim picture of
the future. Massive disruptions in climate will likely affect every ecosystem and human
community on earth, some quite profoundly. Human influences will continue to change
11 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Indicators of Human Influence on the Atmosphere During Industrialization.” <http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/02.01.htm>. 18 May 2006.
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atmospheric composition throughout the 21st century. By 2100, models project CO2 (carbon
dioxide) concentrations to increase somewhere between 90 - 250% above pre-industrial
concentrations. The globally averaged surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8
degrees Celsius from 1990 to 2100. Compare this to the fact that our last ice age was on average
only 5 degrees Celsius cooler than Earth is now!12
As temperatures rise and more ice melts at our poles and in permafrost, global mean sea
level is projected to rise by an average 5mm per year over the next 100 years. This is primarily
due to thermal expansion and the loss of mass from global ice deposits. More water means global
average precipitation is projected to increase, though at regional scales both increases and
decreases are projected, meaning there will be droughts in some places, floods in others. Some
extreme weather events, e.g. droughts, floods, heat waves, avalanches, and windstorms, are
projected to increase in frequency and/or severity, depending on the place. Generally, Hurricanes
and Cyclones, as well as earthly climate patterns like El Nino and La Nina, are expected to
increase in intensity and destructive force.13 More will die in floods and storms.
Still other changes threaten human health. In a globally warmed world, tropical and
swampy areas increase in size, causing indirect changes in a range of disease vectors like
malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Water-borne pathogens may spread easier, while water quality, air
quality, and food availability and quality will all suffer. In most tropical and subtropical regions,
potential yields of cereal crops are projected to decrease for most temperatures increases.
Climate change will exacerbate water shortages in many water scarce areas of the world. These
detrimental impacts to health will occur particularly in lower income populations, and
predominantly within tropical and subtropical countries. And it is not only humans that will
12 Athanasiou, Tom and Paul Baer. Dead Heat. Seven Stories Press: Canada, 2002. P34.
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suffer; ecological productivity and biodiversity will be altered by climate change and sea-level
rise, with an increased risk of extinction of some vulnerable species.
Populations that inhabit small islands and/or low-lying coastal areas are at particular risk
of severe social and economic effects from sea-level rise and storm surges. Once they begin to
go under, it is not likely that they will be resurrected anytime soon. A recent article in the journal
Science predicts a six meter rise in water levels by the year 2100 if we continue at current levels
of carbon output.14 That’s enough water to flood every major coastal city from Shanghai to New
York City. Because of the long timescales on which the deep ocean adjusts to climate change,
Global mean surface temperatures and rising sea level from thermal expansion of the ocean are
projected to continue for hundreds of years after the stabilization of greenhouse gas (ghg)
concentration (even at present levels).15
Vanished land mean vanished homes; therefore, it is not surprising that as scientists learn
more and more about the specific affects these changes in climate will have on ecosystems, some
have also begun to think critically about how they will change the lives of real human beings,
and the challenges these disruptions present to the global community. For over two decades,
Oxford Professor Norman Myers has written extensively about peoples displaced from their
homes due to changes in climate. In an article written for the Royal Society, Myers gives an
excellent definition of this modern crisis:
There is a new phenomenon in the global arena: environmental refugees. These are
people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought,
soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems, together
with the associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty. In their
14 Kluger, Jeffrey. “Global Warming Heats Up.” Time Magazine. 3 April 2006. 15 Davissen, Jane and Stephanie Long. “Impacts of Climate Change on Small Island States.” Friends of the Earth Australia. June 2003. <http://www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/island.pdf>. 18 May 2006.
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desperation, these people feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere,
however hazardous the attempt. Not all of them have fled their countries, many being
internally displaced. But all have abandoned their homelands on a semi-permanent if not
permanent basis, with little hope of a foreseeable return.16
It is a fact that global climate change is producing irreversible changes to entire cultures
and homelands. Myers estimates that, by 1995, 25 million people had already been displaced due
to environmental problems, and his conservative projection for number of environmental
refugees by the year 2050 is an astounding 200 million people.17 The reality of environmental
refugees poses enormous challenges to Australia, both in its domestic policies towards internally
displaced peoples, as well as international policies towards its 7 million Pacific Islander
neighbors.
Part Two: Torres Strait Islands: Australian land in crisis
At a recent White House press conference, President George W. Bush went on record
saying “We -- first of all, there is -- the globe is warming. The fundamental debate: Is it
manmade or natural.”18 Whether one acknowledges the overwhelming scientific consensus that
climate change is human induced or clings to the minority belief that present warming is a
natural event, the truth is that, as President Bush stated, “the globe is warming.” One’s personal
opinions make no difference in regards to practical policies that must be implemented to deal
with the severe weather events human societies are already experiencing in a globally warmed
world. With the impact of Cyclone Larry and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 alone, and with special
16 Myers, Norman. “Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century.” The Royal Society. Oxford: 2001. 17 Myers, Norman. “Environmental Refugees: An Emergent Security Issue.” 13th Economic Forum. Prague: 22 May 2005. 18 Bush, George W. “President Discusses Democracy in Iraq With Freedom House.” Hyatt Regency Capital Hill. Washington DC, 29 March 2006. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-6.html> 26 May 2006.
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regard to the botched response to the latter, it is obvious to people of every political persuasion
that our governments must come up with responsible policies in preparation for massive natural
disasters that threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of their citizens.
For the Australian government, global warming poses multiple challenges. One region
of the country with a unique set of circumstances is the nearly one hundred Torres Strait Islands
that lie off the coast of the Northern Territories, above the Cape York Peninsula. For thousands
of years, they have been the home to a group of indigenous peoples of Papuan and Aboriginal
Australian descent known commonly referred to as the Torres Strait Islanders. Known to
Europeans as early as 1606, these islands became a regular seaway with the founding of the first
colony in 1788. Unlike the mainland Aborigines, conquest did not deprive them of their land or
deprive them or their traditional means of subsistence. Rather, as anthropologist Jeremy Beckett
notes, “through a coincidence of commercial and government policies, they were confined to
their islands as a labour reserve, dependent on certain commodities yet able if need be to
maintain themselves by subsistence activities.”19
These islands exhibit a considerable variety of resources and physical features, of which
there are four major types. On the Eastern end of the Strait, within sight of the Great Barrier
Reef, is the first type: small, high volcanic islands with relatively fertile soil and dense
vegetation. These include the Murray group, Darnley, and Stephens Islands. The second type,
found to the west of the first type and collectively known as the Central Islands, are small,
vegetated sand cays built up on coral reefs, consisting of Yorke, Coconut, Aureed and Waraber
Islands. The Western Islands are large, high islands covered with mounds of basaltic rocks, but
lightly vegetated in open areas and mostly well watered. Like some of the Central islands, these
islands enjoy the protection of extensive mangrove swamps that ring their mainland. They 19 Beckett, Jeremy. Torres Strait Islanders: custom and colonialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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include Prince of Wales, Thursday Island, Yam Nagir, Moa, Badu, Mabuyag, and Dauan.
Finally, the fourth set of islands are large, low lying swampy islands formed in the same manner
as the adjacent Papuan coast. Alluvian soil carried down by the great rivers of the Papua New
Guinea have collected over time to form these delicate ecosystems, where vegetation is sparse
save for the extensive mangrove swamps. On the Australian side of the border, these include the
islands of Boigu and Saibai, an island we will look at more closely in the following section.20
Climate change already poses a serious threat to the continued habitability of these
delicate natural ecosystems. Rising water tables and hotter weather will pose enormous
challenges for swampy low lying island communities perched atop ancient coral reefs and giant
heaps of alluvial soil. Marine and Atmospheric Research by the CSIRO provides a general
overview of the likely impacts of global warming on these natural ecosystems, as well as human
livelihoods and communities in the Torres Strait Islands. Our first task is to understand precisely
what the specific effects of global warming will be in this area.21 First, “temperatures in the
Northern Territory will increase as the rest of the world warms. A ‘middle-of-the-road’ estimate
is that temperatures will increase by approximately 1.3-1.8°C by 2050 (Figure 1) and 2.6-3.6°C
by the year 2100. However, warming both above and below this range is possible.As
temperatures rise, the oceans will warm and glaciers and ice caps will melt.” This will contribute
to a sea-level rise of somewhere between 9 and 88 cm, with some scientists projecting a rise in
sea level of up to six meters by the year 2100.22 Finally, global warming will also “likely change
the variability of climate, including potential increases in the frequency or severity of extreme
20 Beckett, Jeremy. Torres Strait Islanders: custom and colonialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 21 The information below comes from the CSIRO website, which has published projections for the effects of climate change on the nearby Cape York Peninsula. http://www.dar.csiro.au/sharingknowledge/files/capeyorkv1_2006.pdf 22 “By one recent measure, several Greenland ice sheets have doubled their rate of slide, and just last week the journal Science published a study suggesting that by the end of the century, the world could be locked in to an eventual rise in sea levels of as much as 20 ft.” Kluger, Jeffrey. “Global Warming Heats Up.” Time Magazine. 3 April 2006.
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weather events,” with more intense cyclones posing a serious threat to island communities, in
addition to “extreme heat days and heat waves, extreme rainfall events, and more intense or
prolonged droughts,” all potential consequences of climate change in Australia. Climatologist
Kerry Emanuel’s recent study, published in the journal Nature less than a month before
Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, reconfirms what many already intuited: hurricanes
are becoming more powerful because of climate change. In the period of time in which man has
used fossil fuels to power civilization, “the power of the storms doubled.”23
Some of the effects of these changes on human societies in the Torres Strait Islands are
obvious. The most terrifying is the possibility that rising water levels could completely
overwhelm these islands, especially low lying ones like Coconut and Saibai Islands,
necessitating a massive evacuation of their citizens to mainland Australia. Such an event would
be traumatic, but not unprecedented; there has already been one full evacuation of at least two
Pacific Islands known as the Tulun or Carterets Islands due to climate change,24 and dozens of
families have fled the large island of Tuvalu due to rising water tables as well.25 Citizens of
islands inundated by rising waters are the most glaring example of how climate change is turning
people into refugees, and appropriate policy responses to such a cataclysmic event will be
explored further in the following section. However, barring the total destruction of at least some
23 Kluger, Jeffrey. “The Man Who Saw Katrina Coming.” Time Magazine. 8 May 2006. 24 “The Kilinailau Islands—also known as the Tulun Islands, or the Carteret Atoll—which lie four hundred miles from the coast of Papua New Guinea, are tiny, low, and impoverished. Their fate, thanks to global warming, has long been a foregone conclusion. In 1995, most of the shoreline of Piul and Huene washed away, and the island of Iolasa was cut in half by the sea. Saltwater intrusion has now reached the point where islanders can no longer grow breadfruit, and have to rely on emergency food aid. Last month, Reuters reported that the decision had finally been made to give up. The islands’ two thousand residents are being relocated, at the expense of the Papua New Guinean government, to the slightly higher ground of Bougainville Island, some sixty miles to the southwest.” Kolbert, Elizabeth. “The Talk of the Town: Comment, Global Warming.” The New Yorker. 12 December 2005. <http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051212ta_talk_kolbert> 25 May 2006.
25 Price, Tom. “The Canary is Drowning: Tiny Tuvalu Fights Back Against Climate Change.” Global Policy Forum. 3 December 2002. <www.globalpolicy.org/nations/micro/2002/1203canary.htm> 25 May 2006
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of the lower lying of these islands in rising waters, other more immediate challenges face these
human communities.
The most immediate threat is to human health. In a comprehensive report on the effects
of climate change in the Northern Territory, CSIRO explicates these challenges succinctly:
There is likely to be more heat stress, more flood-related injuries, more diarrhoeal admissions to hospitals, and greater risk for Dengue fever, but little change in malaria transmission provided existing bio-security measures are maintained. The adverse health impacts of climate change will be greater in lower income populations, especially the elderly, sick and those without access to good housing including air conditioning and adequate fresh water supply.26
Global warming has a direct effect on the spread of certain diseases. For example, an average of
624 diarrhoeal admissions is recorded among Aboriginal children at the Alice Springs hospital
each year, with a peak between March and May. A warming of 0.5-1.0oC by 2020 would lead to
a 3-5% increase in diarrhoeal admissions, while a 1.0-3.5oC warming by 2050 would lead to a 5-
18% increase.”27 As recently as 8 June 2006, there were 16 confirmed cases in the
Cairns/Mission Beach area in the latest outbreak of the disease28, which continues to afflict
Australian citizens every year. Finally, warming is also expected to increase the number of cases
of Ross River Virus, a widely distributed disease in Australia easily transmitted by several kinds
of mosquitoes that afflicts an average of 4500 Australians a year with “epidemic polyarthritis,
which consists of arthritic symptoms that persist for several months or years and can be severe
and debilitating.”29 Documented proof of health effects due to increased warming that has
26 Hennessy, K., C. Page, J. Bathols, K. McInnes, B. Pittock, R. Suppiah and K. Walsh. Climate Change in the Northern Territory. Climate Impact Group, CSIRO Atmospheric Research, School of Earth Sciences, Melbourne University. Melbourne: CSIRO, 2004. p10. 27 Ibid. p54. 28 “Outbreak Update.” Queensland Government. 8 June 2006. 15 June 2006. http://www.health.qld.gov.au/dengue/outbreak_update/current.asp 29 Hennessy, K., C. Page, J. Bathols, K. McInnes, B. Pittock, R. Suppiah and K. Walsh. Climate Change in the Northern Territory. Climate Impact Group, CSIRO Atmospheric Research, School of Earth Sciences, Melbourne University. Melbourne: CSIRO, 2004. p54.
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already occurred should be evidence enough for government to take these threats to human
health seriously.
CSIRO has identified at least four additional sector based issues affected by climate
change in the Northern Territory. These include water resources, agriculture, livestock and
fisheries, ecosystems, and settlements and infrastructure. Each of these sectors will likely be
affected in the Torres Strait Islands. Water resources may become scarcer, with greater
evaporation stressing already water-scarce areas, and salt water intrusion poses a serious threat to
freshwater systems. For Torres Strait Islanders in particular, threats to fisheries place much of
their traditional economy at serious risk. Delicate and rare ecosystems like mangrove areas and
coral reefs are particularly at risk of destruction due to rising sea levels for the former and heat
induced coral bleaching for the latter. Their destruction would seriously disturb the way of life
for many indigenous peoples who rely on these ecosystems for sustenance. Finally, increased
extreme weather events like cyclones and flooding will put a greater stress on settlements and
infrastructures. In the Torres Strait Islands, this kind of destruction has been recently experience
on several islands overwhelmed by the King’s Tide just this year.
Torres Strait Islanders themselves have already begun to notice significant changes to
their environments due to climate change. At a recent workshop entitled “Sharing Knowledge”
held in Darwin on March 29th, 2006, indigenous peoples from these islands shared their
observations and expressed concerns about the changes they are currently experiencing. Citizens
noted that water spouts have become less common since the 1970s, and that the Kings Tides that
haven’t happened since the 1940s returned in 2005-6. Seaweed distribution and quantity has
changed, as well as shifts in the range of bird life, especially on the NW mud islands. Bird
migration patterns have been reduced, while new birds are arriving on the Islands just during the
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rain season, raising concerns about bird flu. Torres Strait Islanders expressed concerns that
climate change may be exacerbating problems with traditional subsistence due to over-fishing
and depletion of stocks. Islanders complained that no serious attempts have been made to deal
with sea-level rise and erosion in Torres Strait, and wondered why foreign aid is given to other
nations but not extended to the Islanders, who are Australian citizens. They also expressed
concerns that decisions made without the consultation of indigenous communities can force
unwelcome lifestyle changes upon them. They challenged Westerners to hear their worries about
the land, as well as work with natives to develop “natural protection from climate change that
doesn’t conflict with traditional ways of life.”30
Let us turn now to the Island of Saibai, one island that recently experienced near
unprecedented flooding due to resurgent Kings Tides. An exploration of this event will provide
us with a concrete example of the way in which global warming is affecting human communities
presently. Furthermore, Saibai’s past dealings with catastrophic climate events provides a
historic example for ways of dealing with overwhelming climate challenges. Ultimately, we can
use this example to draw ideas for adaptation, as well as prepare a policy that will be practical
and just in the event that these islands are permanently overtaken by the rising waves.
Part Three: Saibai
On January 27 and 28 2006, Torres Strait Islanders across the Straits panicked as a fierce
Kings Tide swept across low lying areas in many of the Islands, rising 0.3 meters above the
HAT, or Highest Astronomical Tide.31 Occurring naturally twice a year, once in the spring and
again in the summer, King tide is a common term referring to tide levels that are the highest for
30 “Sharing Knowledge.” CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research. 13 June 2006. 15 June 1006. http://www.dar.csiro.au/sharingknowledge/files/environmentalobservations_tsi.pdf 31 “Fact Sheet, 2006 Kings Tide In Torres Strait.” Queensland Environmental Protection Agency. 7 March 2006. 15 June 2006. http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/publications/p01864aa.pdf/2006_King_Tides_in_Torres_Strait.pdf
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the year. Usually, they reach levels near HAT, but this January, the waters reached terrifying
levels. Entire streets and homes were inundated with water, as frightened citizens scrambled to
higher ground. Photographs taken by victims of the flooding depict buses surrounded by waves
and entire homes sitting in pools of water. Islanders claim that at least 2000 Islanders are in
danger of losing their homes. On Yorke Island, the church has been threatened by sea waters
coming 100 meters inland. On Coconut Island, natives have watched more than 60 meters of
land disappear into the ocean in the past six years. And on Saibai Island, residents watched in
horror those two days in January as the sea washed through residential areas, filling bedrooms
and kitchens with salty water.32
Islanders have identified the six most vulnerable islands - Poruma, Yorke, Warraber,
Yam, Saibai and Bogui - and discussion has already begun about what to do in the event that
these islands are completely submerged in rising seas. For an idea of how such issues have been
dealt with in the past, Saibai Island remains extremely instructive. Immediately after the end of
the Second World War, overwhelming tides of unprecedented heights flooded most of the island,
instigating most of the people of Saibai Island to leave their traditional home and establish a new
settlement on the Cape York Peninsula. A native man named Bamaga Ginau lead a group of 25
people to survey land on Cape York to determine whether a land base could be established that
would meet the traditional needs of their community. In 1946, the islanders established a
temporary settlement at Muttee Heads, 48 kilometers from the top of Cape York. For four years,
this small town grew as islanders worked together to move additional families off the island.
Continued high tides began making the water supplies brackish, eventually coercing the majority
of residents to leave Saibai by 1949. Without government assistance, these determined Islanders
used their own resources and hard work to organize boats to bring citizens to the new settlement, 32 Madigan, Michael. “Rising Seas Threaten Homes.” The Courier-Mail. 5 April 2006.
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and worked together to establish a livable society at the temporary site of Muttee Heads. In 1947,
the Torres Strait Islanders held elections to represent them to the Department of Native Affairs
and the government. With legitimate leadership speaking in a unified voice, the Islanders were
able to acquire land from the government that was theirs under native title. Finally, in 1950, they
made the final move to Bamaga, which remains a thriving community to this day. In a book
recently published by the Bamaga City Council to commemorate the historic move, the support
of the Australian government is called “essential for the provision of land, capital and expertise
in a range of areas. When combined with the determination of the Saibai Islanders to create their
own community, it proved to be a successful partnership.”33
We can learn much from this partnership between the government of Australia and
Torres Strait Islanders; from its great success, and also from where it fell short. On the positive
side, the migration of Torres Strait Islanders from Saibai to Bamaga, and their successful
establishment of a new settlement wholly owned and controlled by natives with the blessing of
the government, is a wonderful instance of the Settle government acknowledging the rights of
these indigenous peoples to their own land and working with them to assure that their traditional
way of life was preserved. The Department of Native Affairs listened to the concerns of the
indigenous people, allowing them to survey the land of Cape York and chose a site that would be
more appropriate for them, rather than an inappropriate area imposed upon them by bureaucrats
or politicians. Once the site was chosen, the DNA worked with the Australian government to
grant land titles to the natives, assuring the autonomy of the Saibai community despite the loss of
their traditional homeland. This cooperation set a historical precedent for communities including
Saibai itself now dealing with similar environmental concerns to those faced by Torres Strait
33 Ober, Dana, Joe Sproats and Rik Mitchell. Saibai to Bamaga: the migration from Saibia to Bamaga on the Cape York Peninsula. Townsville: Joe Sproats & Associates, 2000.
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Islander in the late 1940s. The refugees of that period were an early example of environmental
refugees, and though their movement was not motivated by climate change, they nonetheless
prove a precise example of how entire communities can be forced off their native land because of
extreme weather events. Now, with climatologists clearly linking rising sea levels to climate
change, and unprecedented flooding once again threatening the lives of hundreds, if not
thousands of Australian citizens, the government must once again meet its obligations to its
people by providing for the safe settlement of these people on Australian soil should their
traditional homes be permanently swept up in the rising seas.
We can also learn much from the limitations of the mid-century expedition, and identify
areas where government should take further steps to ensure the safety of its citizens. In the
original journey from Saibai to Bamaga, the movement was entirely locally motivated and
orchestrated. Saibai natives were forced to use their own ingenuity to scrap together vessels for
transporting families to the mainland, often in hazardous conditions that nearly resulted in
fatalities. Tales of broken masts, encounters with cyclones while sailing to the peninsula, and
decrepit boats patched together by families are a testament to the local character of this move,
and emphasize just how independent the Islanders needed to be in order to successfully complete
their mission. While the bravery and ingenuity of these natives is admirable, it also reminds us of
how dangerous and difficult a task it is to move an entire community from an island community
to a mainland settlement. In our modern world, such risks could easily mitigated with the support
of the federal and state governments, which could easily provide safe passage for Torres Strait
Islanders on military or commercial vessels should such a move be necessary, and help
coordinate a faster and more efficient journey.
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Such a coordinated plan requires that the Australian government begin preparations now
for the event that water permanently renders the most vulnerable islands in the Torres Strait
Islands uninhabitable. Beyond that, strategies for adaptation must be developed to ensure that
Islanders on the more stable Islands to ensure that erosion and extreme weather events do not
devastate those communities as well.
Part Four: Solutions and Conclusions
Immediately following the recent Kings Tide, the six at risk communities finalized
applications to the State Emergency Service for disaster relief after the flood devastation.
Furthermore, in light of the destruction of Cyclone Larry, the worst cyclone on record to strike
an Australian coast since 193134, Torres Shire Mayor Pedro Stephens demanded “a centralized
disaster co-ordination plan in case islands are flooded simultaneously.”35 At the present moment,
the Australian government has no predetermined, detailed plan to deal with such a catastrophic
event. For Friends of the Earth, this is an area where determined and focused policies could make
an enormous difference for the lives of thousands of Australian citizens. Intensive lobbying by
FOE and other environmental organizations can help put the appropriate pressure on government
authorities to begin preparations in the event of such a disaster. The plight of the Torres Strait
Islanders also presents an enormous opportunity for FOE to present the issue of climate refugees
in a local context to a national audience.
The immediate focus of Friends of the Earth should be the effective implementation of
policies within the Torres Strait Islands that will assure the preservation of communities that can
be saved and the orderly and safe evacuation of communities that cannot be recovered if and
when rising seas overwhelm them. In discussions with Alan Tate from Cambiar, a business
34 Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Summary of Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry. 16 June 2006. http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/qld/cyclone/tc_larry/ 35 Madigan, Michael. “Rising Seas Threaten Homes.” The Courier-Mail. 5 April 2006.
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designed to dealing with climate change and trying to get the country moving on a government
and corporate level, he identified three different areas that the government needs to move on
immediately if it is to properly address the challenges of climate change in the Strait. These areas
are Education, Adaptation, and Preparation/Evacuation.36
On the most basic level, the government needs to develop an education and
communications campaign to inform the islanders of the reality of their situation now and in the
future. A good strategy for effectively implementing this policy would be to create an indigenous
resource of people who can go into their own communities and speak the language in a way the
islanders can respect. Creating indigenous capacity and giving them resources builds on the
natural strengths of local communities, who know the most about the land and the specific ways
in which it is being affected by changes in climate. It also makes adaptation easier, as
government can work with an educated populace to decide where resources need to be spent and
for what purpose. This will increase efficiency and also assure that the process of adaptation and,
if necessary, evacuation, will be one lead by peoples within Torres Strait Island communities,
rather than imposed upon them by government officials in Canberra and the mainland Northern
Territory. A good place to begin would be the Torres Strait Regional Authority,37 a government
infrastructure already in place and designed to govern this region while preserving its unique
culture and autonomy. Working with officials from this Authority, the state and federal
government could develop an education program that would suit the specific needs of individual
island communities. Friends of the Earth should encourage the government to move forward with
such an educational scheme and establish contacts within the Torres Strait Islands that can
independently lobby for such a measure within their own communities.
36 Tate, Alan. Telephone Interview. May 2006. 37 http://www.tsra.gov.au/www/index.cfm
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The second and perhaps most complex area for action is Adaptation. In Chapter four of
the important government publication Climate Change – An Australian Guide to the Science and
Potential Impacts, an analysis of the “Vulnerability of Aboriginal and Islander Communities”
ends with this statement:
The present social circumstances of indigenous peoples provide a poor basis on which to build adaptation responses to climate change threats. Thus, policies that aim to improve resilience to climate change impacts could encompass efforts to reduce relevant social liabilities such as poverty, poor education, unemployment, and incarceration, and support mechanisms that maintain cultural integrity. Adaptive strategies could pursue economic development of these communities while sustaining the environments on which these populations are dependent (Howitt, 1993). Strengthening communication between indigenous communities, scientists, health workers and decision-makers is essential (Baker et al., 2001).38
Obviously, this is a heavy burden for any one organization to take on. The position of indigenous
peoples in Australia is a complex one, with a long and troubled history. For Friends of the Earth,
strategies for adaptation need not be as ambitious as to “reduce relevant social liabilities such as
poverty, poor education, unemployment, and incarceration,” but there are small, concrete goals
which concentrated lobbying could help further. These include plans to immediately build up sea
walls defenses of the islands, and to freeze construction and make sure it fits in with impacts in
the future. FOE should also establish a policy that supports the long term management of erosion
on the cay Islands of the Torres Strait Islands. This means coming up with “credible, strategic,
costed options that are achievable and backed up by science, so that communities have a good
basis for obtaining funding for the implementation of works and procedures to address the
coastal erosion problem in a long-term and sustainable fashion.”39 FOE can help this process
along by urging members to lobby government for the implementation of specific programs and
38 Pittock, Barrie ed. Climate Change – An Australian Guide to the Science and Potential Impacts. Canberra: Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2003. http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/science/guide/ 39 Parnell, Kevin. “Management of Coastal Erosion and Inundation.” Sharing Knowledge: A Workshop on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Strategies For Northern Australian Indigenous Communities. Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. 29-31 March 2006.
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procedures that will identify areas that need reinforcing and ensuring government provides a
protocol for obtaining the necessary funding to make sure those areas are strengthened quickly.
Finally, the Australian government needs to make preparations in the event that rising
seas completely submerge Torres Strait Islands like Saibai and Coconut Island. The Primary
focus must be on logistics. Government officials must being formulating strategies now for
dealing with a large amount of refugees from these islands, with logistical plans for transporting
refugees from the islands, temporary housing, and ultimately working with indigenous
communities to determine where new settlements could be created under native title, as the
government did when confronted with a similar problem in the late 1940s in Saibai. Importantly,
any new settlement must take into account indigenous claims to land rights, and ensure there are
mechanisms to help preserve the cultural integrity of these communities as well. Without proper
planning, the Australian government is gambling with the lives of thousands of its citizens. As
we saw in Hurricane Katrina in the United States, even the world’s greatest superpower can be
humbled by catastrophic weather events, and inadequate planning is a recipe for humanitarian
disaster.
To put it bluntly, the situation of Torres Strait Islanders is one which requires more
attention and work than Friends of the Earth can provide alone. In the areas of Education,
Adaptation and Preparation/Evacuation, major efforts need to be made by members of the
government, scientific community, Torres Strait Islanders, and other sectors of Australian
society, in order to effectively meet the challenges that face Islanders in the Northern Territory. I
believe the area where FOE policy can make the greatest impact is by publicizing the plight of
the Torres Strait Islanders, and using it as an instructive example of how people across the world
can and will be affected by rising sea levels and other effects of climate change. FOE must
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publicize these realities, specifically those affecting Australian citizens, and then use public
support to leverage the Australian government to adopt a unified policy that specifically lays out
the rights of climate refugees within Australia as well as acknowledging the rights of all climate
refugees across the globe.
At the present time, the United Nations definition of a refugee is woefully inadequate. In
the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees published by the U.N. in 1951, a
refugee is defined as
any person who… As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.40
Ten years later, this definition was amended, so that “the term ‘refugee’ shall, except as regards
the application of paragraph 3 of this article, mean any person within the definition of article 1 of
the Convention as if the words ‘As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and ...’
‘and the words’... ‘a result of such events’, in article 1 A (2) were omitted.”41
It has been forty five years since this protocol has been updated, and its time is long
overdue. As mentioned before, scientists have been arguing for decades that changes in climate
are forcing millions of people to leave their native lands in search of more livable climes.
Climate refugees are much like the refugee who “not having a nationality” has no home to turn
to. In the past, citizens lost their nationality as entire nations were destroyed or restructured as
the result of massive disruptions due to war. In the modern world, more states face imminent
destruction from the threats of climate change than from invasion by a foreign foe. Luckily, in
40 United Nations. General Assembly. Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. New York: United Nations, 1951, 1967. 41 ibid
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this issue, Friends of the Earth have common sense on their side; even a child would find it
obvious that citizens of countries totally submerged by rising water would need the aid of the
global community in providing a place of safe refuge. Therefore, lobbying the Australian
government and the United Nations to make this change in definition is essential is tens of
millions of potential climate refugees across the world are to be helped by the normal channels of
foreign aid.
In truth, the formal acknowledgement of environmental or climate refugees is much more
than a humanitarian issue; it is fundamentally tied to the important notion of environmental
justice. The argument for this is fairly straightforward. Over the past two centuries, industrialized
nations of the Global North have used and abused our global commons, the atmosphere, in order
to create and sustain their enormously consumptive habits and economies of scale. It is clearly
documented that with the rise of fossil fuel burning energy and manufacturing industries,
greenhouse gas concentrations have risen to heights unseen in at least 400,000 years, and caused
a rise in average surface temperature of nearly 0.7 degrees Celsius. While the Global North has
benefited enormously from these developments, members of the Global South (and, increasingly,
those in the North as well) have already begun to reap the ill effects of this unlicensed growth.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the South Pacific, where Islands like Tuvalu, the Catarets, and
Australia’s own Torres Strait Islands are literally going underwater. The members of the Global
North owe a Carbon Debt to the members of the Global South, who have used a disproportionate
amount of our atmosphere for their own development, and are yet reaping the worst of its costs.
It’s a simple case of distributive justice. Industrialized nations have greedily used far more than
their share of the earth’s resources, and now, as climate change destroys the homes of millions of
people the world over, it is only just and fair that those some nations make some restitution, by
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acknowledging climate refugees for what they are- not poor opportunists looking to make a
quick buck in more advanced countries, but fellow human beings forced to make desperate
journeys to find the most basic of human goods: shelter and food.
It is ironic that as the world economy becomes more globalized, our environmental
struggles also begin to take on a globalized character. For it is not just Australians that must face
the challenge of climate refugees; climate change will change the lives of people on every
continent on our planet, and force tens, if not hundreds of millions of people to seek a new home.
Friends of the Earth must mobilize its membership to force the issue, and make the Australian
government acknowledge the problem in its own country, as well as around the world. It must try
to make inroads with the mainstream media, and present this as an issue of importance not just to
the radical left, but to people of every political persuasion. Democracy is a wonderful tool for
making profound change for the better, but it can only function properly if organizations like
FOE assure that the majority of Australians recognize the plight of climate refugees like the
Torres Strait Islanders. This is an issue whose time has come; it is now up to us to assert real
leadership in guaranteeing that we meet the challenges on the horizon with honesty, courage, and
commitment.