Climate change in the Solomon Islands

The ocean is part and parcel of the livelihood of 500,000 people of this country situated just north of Australia. But the ocean is turning against the very people it is supposed to serve and is destroying their coastal areas and homes. Away from the international conferences and negotiations, climate change is a matter of life and death here. Taro, the staple root crop in Ontong Java atoll, is dying due to salinity of the swamp and sandy soil. And graves at the Tuo village cemetery, an island in the eastern Solomons have been exposed by eroding waves. "During the 1980s the burial place was about 50m away from the beach. Today the beach is about 1m with only one cross remaining as the rising sea had washed most away. Tuo village of Reef Islands currently do not have a proper cemetery to bury its dead. It is estimated that by 2015 most houses in the shoreline will be washed away," says Lawrence Nodua, an islander.