Why the people of Tuvalu want to leave paradise islands behind
They live among their gardens on tropical islands where the average temperature is a clement 28C but almost a third of people in the Pacific nation of Tuvalu want to flee by using a climate change escape visa.
Australia has been offering the visas to citizens of the Pacific island nation, which has a population of fewer than 11,000, on a yearly basis under a climate migration plan. It is designed to allow eligible islanders to escape rising sea levels and storm surges which are more frequently overrunning the low-lying nation, which lies about midway between Hawaii and Australia.
More than 3,000 Tuvaluans have scrambled to enter a ballot for the initial batch of 280 visas — the first of their kind in the world — according to official figures on the Australian programme, which amounts to nearly a third of Tuvalu's population.
Composed of three reef islands and six atolls in a chain spread over a distance of some 420 miles (676 km), Tuvalu is one of the world's least populated countries, exceeding only the Vatican City and two other Pacific states, Niue and Tokelau.
Part of the Commonwealth, the island is an independent constitutional monarchy with King Charles III as its monarch. Climate scientists fear that the nation has just 80 years before it becomes uninhabitable owing to rising sea levels, and two of the archipelago's coral atolls have already largely disappeared under the sea.
The visa programme has been hailed as a landmark response to the looming challenge of climate-forced migration.
On Thursday, Australia's foreign affairs department said: 'At the same time, it will provide Tuvaluans the choice to live, study and work in Australia.
'Australia recognises the devastating impact climate change is having on the livelihoods, security, and wellbeing of climate-vulnerable countries and people, particularly in the Pacific region.'
The visa scheme has generated fears that nations such as Tuvalu could be rapidly drained of skilled professionals and young talent.
A total of 3,125 Tuvaluans entered the random ballot within four days of it opening last week, while the last census had the population as 10,643. Registration costs A$25 (£11.90), with the ballot closing on July 18.
John Connell, a geographer at the University of Sydney, warned that a long-term exodus of workers could imperil Tuvalu's future.
'Small states do not have many jobs and some activities don't need that many people,' he told AFP. 'Atolls don't offer much of a future: agriculture is hard, fisheries offer wonderful potential but it doesn't generate employment.'
Tuvalu has very few resources and few sources of income, forcing the nation to rely on the sale of fishing licences, remittances from its workers overseas and small-scale exports of copra — the dried flesh of coconut from which oil is extracted. The average yearly income is a tenth of Australia's $100,000 (£47,500) annual average salary.
During a diamond jubilee tour in 2012, the Prince and Princess of Wales were carried shoulder-high by more than 25 men in leaf skirts in a 'carriage' with a thatched roof of leaves.
As the physical reality of the nation slips beneath the ocean, the government is building a digital copy of the country, mapping everything from its houses to its beaches to its trees. It hopes this virtual replica will preserve the nation's beauty and culture — as well as the legal rights of its citizens — for generations to come.
The initiative was announced in 2022 by Tuvalu's minister for foreign affairs, Simon Kofe, who delivered a video speech to world leaders while standing in the sea to highlight the nation's climate crisis.
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