‘Moving to the mountaintops’: rising seas displace tens of thousands in Papua New Guinea
Share:
Gulf province councillor says growing numbers are leaving, in what climate activist describes as a ‘humanitarian crisis’. Two years ago fisher Siri James lived on the southern coast of Papua New Guinea, in a small village near Pariva beach. But as the tides continued to rise, James was forced to move further in from the shore.
![[Beach in Papua New Guinea]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/830b70cdc01d5335a7f5c0f075b473590e29fc87/0_361_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“It’s not easy moving inland, I was born and raised by the seas, I am a fisherman. I know the flow of tides and currents, I know when the wind will come strongly and when it will rain – but now I don’t understand why everything is changing,” says James, who is in his early 40s.
He says the tides “seem to be growing every day”. “I heard them say it’s global warming. I left school and ran away to go fishing, so now I don’t know what’s global warming, but the rains don’t come when it’s supposed to, the winds have changed,” James says.
“Maybe we offended the sea gods, I don’t know, but now I have to move my family inland,” he says. Pariva beach is part of Kerema in Papua New Guinea’s Gulf province. In that area, rising sea levels and sand erosion have forced about 40,000 people to move inland over the past decade, a local councillor says, in what a leading climate change activist describes as a “humanitarian crisis”.
The Kerema councillor Mai Trevor says 80,000 people lived in the local area, however, since 2015, almost half of the population has moved inland due to high tides and sand erosion. Trevor says residents first began moving in 2015, but over the last four years the number of people leaving has grown.
