Fiji's sinking islands

On the Fijian island of Serua, the water breaks through the dike at high tide and enters the village of the same name. Wooden planks are stretched between some houses to form makeshift walkways, as the salt water floods the gardens and makes it impossible to grow crops.

Semisi Madanawa is raising three children. Here, his daughter, Aliti Madanawa, 3, rests on his lap. He says in the face of flooding, erosion and extreme weather conditions, the entire village of Serua must move to Fiji's main island to secure the future for the next generation.

Ratukali Madanawa, 8, takes a break from diving in the sea in Serua village. Village elders wonder if artificial land reclamation could stop the sea from swallowing up more villages and cemeteries. But all available options seem to be exhausted.

Roemoni Tubivuna and his grandson, Roemoni Tubivuna Jr., 10, prepare for a fishing trip at Veivatuloa village on the island of Viti Levu. The village elders always believed they would die here on the cherished land where their chiefs are buried. But when the community runs out of ways to adapt to the rising Pacific Ocean, the 80 villagers will be faced with the painful decision of whether to move.

Seawater floods over an ineffective dike in the Veivatuloa municipality. Building dikes, planting mangroves and optimizing drainage are in many cases no longer enough to save the villages, said Shivanal Kumar, a climate change adaptation specialist with Fiji's Economic Affairs Ministry.

The funds pledged by the industrialized countries at the UN climate conferences do not cover resettlement, only adaptation, such as dike construction. Nations bearing the brunt of climate change, such as Fiji, have said the countries causing the problem of global warming should be paying out much more in compensation.

In early August, COP26 President Alok Sharma said in the capital, Suva, that he understood the frustration of villagers directly affected by climate change. "You are forced to deal with the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions generated largely by the biggest emitting countries, who are a long way from here. This is not a crisis of your making."

Children from the village of Vunidogoloa now sit in front of their houses with dry feet, instead of standing knee-high in water. Their new village is 1.5 kilometers (approximately 1 mile) further inland on the island of Vanua Levu. Ramatu, 63, says it took some time to persuade the elders to move, but the village ended up listening to the experts. The new village has been called Kenani (Canaan).