Kiribati and climate change Maria Tiimon 2011

1. Human faces and stories of climate change

3. Kiribati Long, thin islands – sea on one side lagoon on the other side

4. I visited my home island Beru in 2009 and found many drastic changes such as breadfruit trees dying from drought

5. Longer droughts: decreasing well water

7. Intrusion of sea water into the Babai (giant taro) pit

8. Best babai pit on Abaiang destroyed by salt water inundation

9. Dying Pandanus tree. Many more trees and plants are salt and drought affected

10. Erosion is eating up land, trees and buildings. How long can this go on?

11. Disappearing shoreline

12. Wave caps mark old shore line – Abaiang

13. People are building more seawalls but how long will they last? (Living coral is a natural protection)

14. Concrete seawall and yet it’s not strong enough to hold back the storms

15. New sea walls protect public assets With more adaptation funding we could build more of these stronger, bigger sea walls Kiribati Adaptation Project www.climate.gov.ki

16. We love our traditional dance Human face of culture

18. How long will we keep smiling?

19. We don’t want to go under water

20. Please help to save my future

21. Thank you all for your participation