Story by Jacob Miller
The entire archipelago will go, it’s just a question of time. These are the words of environmental expert Joseph Rahall, ringing out across Sierra Leone’s Turtle Islands, where the sea is consuming houses, history, and dreams at a rate that’s both frightening and obscenely unfair. In just ten years, two-thirds of Nyangai Island has vanished beneath the waves away into the ocean, with only 300 residents holding on to whatever remains. For the others, existence is a life of perpetual battle with overcrowding, saltwater pollution, and the constant loss of all that they’ve ever known. Our worry is the water, that the water will destroy us, says community leader Amidou Bureh, his voice speaking for the uncertainty that hangs over every tide.
The Turtle Island crisis is a homegrown disaster only it’s also an up-close-and-personal glimpse of the climate injustice phenomenon. Sierra Leone’s fishing communities have done nothing to contribute to emissions driving sea levels up, yet they’re among the first to lose their homes, livelihoods, and cultural heritage. As one of the fishermen detailed, Where we are now, it used to be my house, and we used to have a big football field, but the water destroyed everything (the water destroyed everything). The damage is not just physical if the sea takes over, an entire lifestyle is lost, along with “traditions, culture, the way of doing business.”
There is strength in numbers. As Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. tells the world, Like rain, it isn’t a single drop that stills the ocean; rather, it is many, many droplets. We need a monsoon of sustained effort, funding and commitment. The tale of the Turtle Islands is one of call to action one that doesn’t so much demand sympathy, but solidarity, imagination, and the will to build a fairer, more resilient world, together.
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/science/ecology/what-sierra-leone-s-sinking-turtle-islands-reveal-about-climate-justice-and-how-to-find-hope/ar-AA1J8fTN?ocid=BingNewsVerp