Portraits From the Edge
Kiribati
Putting a Face to Climate Change

The small Republic of Kiribati, consisting of x 33 atolls and situated in the Equatorial Pacific, is slowly and surely going down. Storm surges, freakish waves, salination of fresh water wells and lands, un-predictable weather and tidal increases, are all contributing to the country’s physical demise.  X 30-40 years is all they have left.

As yet there is no policy from industrial countries, or the UN, as to our collective responsibilities to people such as the I Kiribati. Where will these environmentally displaced people migrate to, and how many? Who will be their host countries?

The I Kiribati remain now, literally on the very edge, as the most vulnerable of peoples, living with climate change.

What we are looking at here is the eventual extinction of a distinct race of people, through loss of their home- lands, and with it their vibrant social system and culture. This is irreversible.