CARTERET ISLANDS

The 'Carteret Islands' (also known as 'Carteret Atoll', 'Tulun' or 'Kilinailau' Islands/Atoll) are Papua New Guinea islands located 86 km (53 mi) north-east of Bougainville in the South Pacific. The atoll is a scattering of low lying islands in a horseshoe shape stretching 30 km (19 mi) in north-south direction, with a total land area of 0.6 square kilometers and a maximum elevation of 1.5 m (5 ft) above sea level.
The group is made up of islands called Han, Jangain, Yesila, Yolasa and Piul, and were collectively named after the British navigator Philip Carteret who discovered them in the sloop ''Swallow'' in 1767. As of 2005 about one thousand people live on the islands. Han is the most significant island with the others being small islets in the lagoon.

Contents

Flooding

Disagreement over causes

References

External links

Flooding

It was widely reported in November 2005 that the islands have progressively become uninhabitable, with an estimate of their total submersion by 2015. The islanders have fought a more than twenty years battle, building a seawall and planting mangroves. However, storm surges and high tides continue to wash away homes, destroy vegetable gardens and contaminate fresh water supplies. The natural tree cover on the island is also being impacted by the incursion of saltwater contamination of the fresh water table.

Disagreement over causes

On November 25, 2003, the Papua New Guinean government authorized the government-funded total evacuation of the islands, 10 families at a time; the evacuation is expected to be completed by 2007. It has been said that the islanders are the first climate refugees due to sea level rise attributed to global warming and climate change.
Fred Terry, the director of the United Nations Development Project on Bougainville, said the destruction of reefs in the Carterets with dynamite might be the cause of flooding on the Carteret Islands. "During the Bougainville conflict people went to the atolls to get away from the conflict," Mr Terry said. "The islanders had all these extra mouths to feed and needed more fish. They have a history as reef destroyers."
Paul Tobasi, the atolls' District Manager with Papua New Guinea's Bougainville Province, denied that reefs were being destroyed by dynamite.^[1] Tobasi and regional environmentalist groups have stated that the flooding is tied to global warming. However, satellite imagery shows that two large man~made passageways have been punched through the outlying protective coral reef.^[2] In the absence of any excavators or dredges, the only possible way these channels could have been produced, was with substantial and prolonged use of explosives. The consequences of these actions may have also exacerbated the islands' erosion and eventual submergence.
It has also been suggested that the movement of tectonic plates could be responsible. The islands lie in one of the most complex tectonic areas of the earth. They sit next to a plate convergence zone at the boundary of the Pacific Plate, Indo-Australian Plate, and South Bismarck Plate on a subduction zone next to the New Hebrides Trench (Bougainville Trench), where the earth's crust is disappearing. There is an active volcano on Bougainville Island, 86km away.
Last but not least, it should be noted, that the Carteret islands are built entirely on a base of coral that sits atop of an extinct volcanic mount. In the usual course of events, such islands eventually subside simply due to the underlying volcanic rock being worn away and not replenished. The Carteret islands are a classic example of such coral islands in their final stage of existence. Interestingly, Charles Darwin was the first to propose such a system of creation and submergence.

References

1.
2. http://www.oceandots.com/pacific/png/kilinailau2.htm

External links

★ God Help Me and My People Carteret Islander Ursula Rakova describes her life on the island and her thoughts on losing them.

★ ABC TV report on the Carteret Islands by Steve Marshall 13 March 2007

★ Carteret Islands to be evacuated - Video report by Pip Starr

★ Tectonic plates in region - University of North Dakota

★ Estimation of current plate motions in Papua New Guinea from GPS observations - Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University,Canberra, A.C.T., Australia

★ Pacific Atlantis: first climate change refugees - The Guardian November 25, 2005

★ Islands battle rising seas for survival - Reuters Alertnet Nov 23, 2005

★ Islanders face rising seas with nowhere to go - Sydney Morning Herald March 30 2002

★ Photographs taken on Tulun in 1960 - National Library of Australia

★ Kilinailau Islands at oceandots.com (includes satellite image)

★ http://edition.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/tech/2007/01/16/geissler.big.melt.carteret.island.itn at cnn.com (includes video coverage)

★ http://www.coexploration.org/bbsr/coral/html/body_reef_formation.htm