[As the climate emergency threatens its existence, the tiny
Pacific nation is not only trying to reclaim physical land but create
a ‘twin’ to survive in future]
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FACING EXTINCTION, TUVALU CONSIDERS THE DIGITAL CLONE OF A COUNTRY  
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Kalolaine Fainu
June 27, 2023
The Guardian
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_ As the climate emergency threatens its existence, the tiny Pacific
nation is not only trying to reclaim physical land but create a
‘twin’ to survive in future _

Lily Teafa works on climate change initiatives in Tuvalu. ‘Now
we’re afraid of the future.’ , Kalolaine Fainu/The Guardian

 

When Lily Teafa was growing up in Tuvalu
[[link removed]], her uncles would go
fishing every day and come home with a big catch to share with the
neighbours. Now, they’ll come home most days and say “sei poa”
or “bad catch”.

The 28-year-old, who works with a youth-led organisation on climate
change projects such as coral restoration in the tiny Pacific nation,
says signs of her homeland slipping away are everywhere.

“Whenever we go for a picnic, especially at the northern and
southern ends of this beautiful island, we always notice that a piece
of land has been washed away by the sea.”

Tuvalu is expected to be one of the first countries in the world to be
completely lost to climate change. The three coral islands and six
atolls that make up the country have a total land mass of less than 26
sq km. At current rates of sea level rise, some estimates suggest that
half the land area of the capital, Funafuti, will be flooded by tidal
waters within three decades
[[link removed]].
By 2100, 95% of land will be flooded by periodic king tides, making it
essentially uninhabitable. That’s within Teafa’s lifetime.

The question of survival is an urgent one. Teafa says that for youth
in particular, fear is the predominant emotion. “It’s the worst
feeling ever; worse than being afraid of heights, afraid of the dark.
Now we’re afraid of the future.”

In the face of this reality, work is under way in Tuvalu to reclaim
land, along with attempts to preserve its culture and history online,
in groundbreaking plans that could see Tuvalu become the first wholly
digitised nation existing in the metaverse.

A precarious existence

Funafuti covers the entirety of the atoll on which it is located, with
one main road bisecting the length of the island, at one point
narrowing to 20 metres between opposite shorelines. Most buildings
already cluster as close to the centre of the island as possible;
homes, shops, churches and community halls are positioned right up to
the edge of the road. Passing by, you can see directly into people’s
homes – in their kitchens, cooking on open fires, fixing their cars
– while children play in the yards.

The waters are rising so fast that Tuvaluans everywhere recount
stories of finding themselves standing knee deep in seawater, which
bubbles up through the porous ground in the centre of the island.
Erosion and large amounts of washed-up debris are evident along the
exterior coastline. Remnants of infrastructure and vacated homes lie
abandoned along the edges of the shore. Cemeteries are being worn away
and residents have resorted to creating tombs next to their homes.

The surging waters, fuelled by the climate crisis, also pose extreme
risk to drinking water, food security and energy supply. Critical
subsistence food crops such as coconuts and pulaka (taro) are failing
in the high-salinity soil and weather and temperature changes bring
devastating cyclones, record temperatures and more frequent periods of
drought. Fresh food is almost nonexistent, making the population more
reliant on imported products, which are expensive and lack nutritional
value.

[Children ride bikes on the airport runway in Funafuti]
Children ride bikes on the airport runway in Funafuti. Photograph:
Kalolaine Fainu/The Guardian

“That is the only way we survive, on our local food. But now it is
very hard to get the food from the land, plantations are damaged by
saltwater, even the land is being taken away by the sea.”

‘Betraying my people’

About a fifth of Tuvalu’s population of 12,000 have already
relocated, many to New Zealand under the Pacific Access Category, a
ballot that allows up to 150 citizens to be granted residence in New
Zealand every year. Many struggle to earn a living and are concerned
about losing their cultural identity.

Kelesoma Saloa has been living in New Zealand for more than 10 years
and feels a strong sense of dislocation. “Coming from a
self-sufficient society to a very commercialised society is so, so
difficult,” he says. “If you have no money here, you can’t
survive. Not like in the islands, if you have no money, you have your
family, your small land, your fish.”

Saloa, a former fisheries officer in Tuvalu, now works as a guide and
educator at the Auckland War Memorial museum. “I feel sometimes that
I betrayed my people, that I walked away from my people. But I have
the chance to talk about the plight of my people here.”

[Piles of debris seen on the coastline]
Piles of debris washed up on Tuvalu’s coastline after king tides.
Photograph: Kalolaine Fainu/The Guardian

Although Saloa migrated to ensure a more certain future for his
family, he does not think relocation is the solution. “My third
child was born in New Zealand so she doesn’t know anything about
Tuvalu; she’s lost something that’s so important. It makes me sad;
she has lost those beautiful Tuvalu values she should have grown up
with: respect, helping each other, working together – we don’t
have it over here; they teach it in school but it’s totally
different.”

Australia has offered land for relocation but only in exchange for
maritime and fisheries rights, a proposal rejected by the Tuvaluan
government. Neighbouring Fiji has also offered land but is battling
its own climate change threats. Since there is no current provision
for the protection and assistance of climate refugees under the 1951
UN Refugee Convention, Tuvaluans are looking to other options.

Push to reclaim land

There is no higher land on which to rebuild but many Tuvaluans do not
want to leave their ancestral home. Operations are already under way
to reclaim land under the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project. Launched
in 2017 with backing from the global Green Climate Fund and in
partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, the project
aim’s is to reduce exposure to coastal hazards and provide a
longer-term adaptation strategy for the country, called the L-TAP or
“Te Lafiga o Tuvalu” (Tuvalu’s Refuge) Project.

The collection and analysis of high-quality land elevation and
sea-floor depth data shows that 46% of the central built area of the
largest of Funafuti’s islets, Fongafale, is, in effect, already
below sea level. This data is crucial to the evolution of L-TAP. The
vision: 3.6 sq km of raised, safe land with staged relocation of
people and infrastructure over time; a sustainable water supply;
greater food and energy security; and space for expanding civic and
commercial areas, including government offices, schools and hospitals.
The minister of finance and economic development and the minister
responsible for climate change in Tuvalu, Seve Paeniu, says the aim is
to demonstrate to current and potential international funding agencies
the viability of investing in the longer-term project.

[Seve Paeniu walks along the foreshore where land reclamation is
taking place]
Seve Paeniu, the finance and climate change minister, walks along the
foreshore. Photograph: Kalolaine Fainu/The Guardian

Poliata, who used to work as a seafarer before studying theology, is
now a local foreman on the project. “It’s a big challenge but it
also gives me new experience,” he says. “I didn’t know you could
suck the sand from the lagoon and make more land.”

Poliata believes the reclaimed land will help the community to make a
living and provide an incentive to stay. “As Tuvaluans, we have to
stay here and protect our country, because if we save Tuvalu, we also
save the world.”

A digital twin

In 2021, Tuvalu’s minister for justice, communications and foreign
affairs, Simon Kofe, made headlines when he addressed
[[link removed]] Cop26, the UN
climate change conference, standing knee-deep in seawater
[[link removed]].
“We are sinking,” he told the world.

Facing potential extinction, Tuvalu has formulated the Future Now
Project [[link removed]], a set of
three major initiatives designed to preserve its nationhood,
governance and culture in the event of a worst-case scenario. First,
encouraging the international community to work together on
implementing climate-change solutions, embodying the Tuvaluan cultural
values of “olaga fakafenua” (communal living systems),
“kaitasi” (shared responsibility) and “fale-pili” (being a
good neighbour). Second, securing Tuvalu’s statehood and maritime
boundaries under international law in the event their land ceases to
exist. Third, the development of a digital nation.

One strand of the digitising process involves transferring access to
government and consular services and all accompanying administrative
systems into the cloud. This would enable elections to continue to be
held, and government bodies to continue in their roles.

“If we have a displaced government or population dispersed across
the globe, we would have a framework in place to ensure that we
continue to coordinate ourselves, continue to deliver our services,
manage our natural resources in our waters and all our sovereign
assets,” Kofe says.

[Kofe gives a Cop26 statement while standing in the ocean in Funafuti
in November 2021]
Kofe gives a Cop26 statement while standing in the ocean in Funafuti
in November 2021. Photograph: Tuvalu Foreign Ministry/Reuters

Kofe’s address during Cop27 last year was recorded in front of a
virtual copy of Te Afualiku, the first island in Tuvalu to be
digitally recreated through satellite imagery, photos and drone
footage able to capture grains of sand on the beach and the direction
of water currents in the ocean. Te Afualiku is the blueprint for the
digitisation of all Tuvalu’s islands and its geography; the coral
atolls and reefs, the lagoon, the porous sandy soil, the palm trees
and what is left of the pandanus, breadfruit and taro – a landscape
that may cease to exist in the real world. Singapore, also vulnerable
to the threat of rising sea levels, has already created a digital twin
of itself that informs decisions around urban planning and development
in preparation for a potential natural disaster.
 
Tuvalu, however, is taking this concept one step further. Confronted
with the prospect of losing its cultural identity, the government is
examining how to use augmented and virtual reality to allow displaced
and future generations of Tuvaluans to continue to exist as both a
culture and a nation, complete with ancestral knowledge and value
systems. If this concept becomes a reality, the Tuvaluan people will
be able to interact with one another in a digital dimension, in a way
that imitates real life and helps to preserve shared language and
customs.
 
“We have such a strong connection with our land and our oceans, our
ancestors are buried here, so we have that spiritual connection as
well,” Kofe tells the Guardian. “We want to be able to capture our
culture as it is today.”

Nobody has yet demonstrated that nation-states can be successfully
translated to the virtual world in this way – the technical, social
and political challenges are immense – and Kofe emphasises that the
government is still in the early stages. He adds that a number of
metaverse companies reached out to Tuvalu after his Cop27 address, and
cited an upcoming trip to Korea to advance the project.

Preserving a rich culture

Like most Pacific Island nations, Tuvalu is a devout Christian
country. Every day at 6.45pm, all traffic and people in the streets
must come to a complete stop until 7pm, to respect a national time of
devotion. Hymns are sung in spirited harmony and church groups gather
at community halls to feast and dance. The faitele is a traditional
dance performed to a beat tapped out on an empty tin that once held
cabin biscuits; drummers slap their hands along a communal wooden
drum, building the beat up faster and faster until the dancers can’t
keep up and the group erupts in laughter. Older women pass down
protocols to youngsters on how to greet elders in the fale kaupule,
the traditional meeting hall.

[Locals take part in traditional dancing during church celebrations in
Funafuti]
Locals take part in traditional dancing during church celebrations in
Funafuti. Photograph: Kalolaine Fainu/The Guardian

[Members of the Bahá’í church in Funafuti celebrate the end of
fasting at a community hall]
Members of the Bahá’í church in Funafuti celebrate the end of
fasting at a community hall. Photograph: Kalolaine Fainu/The Guardian

This is what Tuvalu wants to capture and preserve: stories and
experiences in their cultural and socio-historical context, as well as
their evolution over time. For the diaspora in particular, a digital
nation could accommodate everything from traditional wedding
ceremonies to the language that successive generations are beginning
to lose.

Saloa is enthusiastic about the idea of a digital twin, a reflection
of the deep homesickness he feels. “It sounds crazy but I think
it’s a great idea,” he says.

“Tuvalu is at the crossroads of Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia
and we have learned a lot from each other: we are all brothers and
sisters. How we settled and survived for 2,000 years on those small
islands, how we cultivated the land and survived droughts and famine
and sickness, how our culture changed with the arrival of the Palangi
[caucasians], how Samoan pastors influenced our language. And the sea.
The sea has always been our lifeline but now it has become a threat
… so what do we do? Create this space!”

Teafa agrees Tuvalu needs to explore a possible digital future but
says some things should still be learned firsthand.

“Personally, I don’t want to learn my culture from technology,
from a metaverse, I want to learn it physically, on the land where I
grew up, with the people that I grew up with, with the language that I
speak every day.”

Others hold concerns about who would own and control their data.

Facing the unexpected

Kofe describes the Future Now project as plan B, but reiterates that
plan A is to do everything in their power to save the island for as
long as possible.
“We are at the forefront of climate change, yet we contribute
negligibly to climate change through emissions – and therefore the
responsibility should squarely fall on the shoulders of the large
emitting countries to really take proactive and ambitious action,”
minister Paeniu says.

For now, Rev Fitilau Puapua, president of the Tuvalu Christian Church,
reiterates the importance of maintaining culture, values and religion,
no matter what happens.

“This is what we are trying to teach our people, get them ready to
face the unexpected – a world that is very different to the one that
they have been living in all their lives.”

Or as Saloa puts it: “People are hiding their [traditional]
knowledge for their own families, but it’s time to reveal it to the
world. Because soon no one will remember you as a Tuvaluan.”

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* Tuvalu; First Digitised Nation; Pacific Islands and Climate Change;
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