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International migration in Kiribati and Tuvalu: A context for evaluating the impact of global warming on population movement in atoll territories
Abstract
The February 18 issue of the Victoria University of Wellington’s very useful “Security Monitor” contains a link to a Radio Australia report that the Autonomous Province of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea is “searching for land to resettle around 1,400 people from the sinking Carteret Islands”, a group of atolls to the northeast of he Bougainville mainland. The report goes on to say that: “Residents are facing food shortages as sea levels rise, swamping their islands. If they are forced to leave their homes, the Carteret Islanders will be amongst the world’s first “climate refugees” (Nanoi, 2009). Similar stories have been circulating about other coral island groups in the Pacific, especially Kiribati and Tuvalu. In this presentation Bedford reviews briefly the history of population movement in these two central Pacific countries, including previous resettlement schemes that were influenced in part by the vagaries of the climate, with a view to providing a more informed context for the debate about the impact of global warming on atoll societies.
Citation
Bedford, Richard. 2009. International migration in Kiribati and Tuvalu: A context for evaluating the impact of global warming on population movement in atoll territories," Motu Public Policy Seminar, Wellington, March (photographs removed to reduce file size).
Motu code: WPS0903
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