Precis

With tourism back and booming, Fiji is again a number one destination for travellers seeking an island paradise experience.

And while water lapping on the shoreline might make for an Instagram-worthy picture, for the people of Fiji, it presents a threat to their way of life. 

This week on Foreign Correspondent, special guest reporter Craig Reucassel travels across the islands of Fiji to see how the nation is combating climate change.

With his trademark style, Craig goes off the tourist track and shows what living with climate change actually means for those who don’t have the luxury of arguing about it.

More than 800 villages are now on a government climate risk list – some communities have already been moved to higher ground but others are resisting.

And many are asking: who caused the problem and who should pay to fix it?

Episode teaser

Music

00:10

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Fiji – it's heaven on a selfie-stick. Hundreds of thousands of people come here every year for a tropical escape – many of them Australians, including me.

00:12

But I want to take you away from the resorts, to the people who live here, but can't escape the impact climate change is having on their lives.

00:25

SAILOSI RAMATU: All the people were crying, because that was their last day.

00:35

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The seas here are rising fast and it's getting worse.

00:40

SAILOSI RAMATU:  I was here.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:  This was your house?

SAILOSI RAMATU: My house.

00:46

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The cyclones are more ferocious than ever, leaving a costly trail of destruction

00:50

RAIJELI ADILABALABA: Just like a monster entering a particular place.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: That's a nightmare.

RAIJELI ADILABALABA: Oh it's a really a nightmare for us.

00:59

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Across the country hundreds of villages are at risk.

01:04

SERA BALEISASA: All the namas are gone- it's the main source of income in our village.

01:10

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: And people are having to leave their homes and change their way of life to survive, whether they want to or not.

01:16

TAIUSI DRADRA:  They just want to stay here in the island.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Yeah.

TAIUSI DRADRA: Because, you know, this is their, their identity is being identified within this island.

01:24

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: They're asking who caused this problem, and who will pay to fix it?

01:34

ALANI TUIVUCILEVU: I think our contribution to the effects of climate change is about a drop in the ocean. So, yes, it is frustrating, because all we do is face the consequences .

01:39

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:  I want to find out how people are coping with this crisis which is lapping at their door. 

01:51

TAIUSI DRADRA: I don't want to leave this island, because it's paradise. It's my homeland.

01:58

Title: THE LAST RESORT

Music

02:02

Craig drives on to ferry to Vanua Levu

02:12

Craig on ferry. Super:
Craig Reucassel

02:30

Ferry to Vanua Levu

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: I'm heading away from the usual tourist trail to one of Fiji's 300 islands - Vanua Levu. 

02:34

Ferries are a vital link for the country's million people, who mostly live along the coast. Villagers still live a fairly traditional life, tied to their land, their kin and their chief.

02:44

Music

02:58

Driving to Vunidongoloa

03:04

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: I'm looking for the village of Vunidongoloa.

03:07

Music

03:10

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:  "How long to Vunidongoloa? Ten minutes this way? Thank you."

03:16

It was the first village in Fiji - and one of the first in the world - to have a government planned relocation because of climate change.

03:26

I think they make the roads like so no one comes into paradise! There it is.

03:37

Craig arrives at chief's house

03:47

I've been told I have to wear a sulu, a traditional Fijian kilt - as a sign of respect for the chief. Although I'm not sure if the chief is wearing the Wallabies shirt as a reciprocal sign of respect. 

03:52

Chief welcomes Craig

CHIEF SIMIONE BOTU: I appreciate your gift of kava as you're here to carry out your work.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: I'm here to get permission from the chief to visit the old village.

CHIEF SIMIONE BOTU: Thank you Craig for being here.

04:14

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Thank you, vinaka."

CHIEF SIMIONE BOTU: Thank you.

04:32

Drone shot over village

Music

04:36

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:  As the crow flies it's only two kilometres from the new village to the old, but it's a heck of a journey.

04:40

Craig drives to old village with Sailosi

We should have got a four wheel drive. Sailosi Ramatu is my guide; he was the village headman when the village relocated.

04:48

Car gets bogged in mud

"Don't tell the hire car company, okay? I think we'll walk from here. Seems like a good parking spot."

05:00

Craig and Sailosi walk

The trek has made fishing harder. Some people come down and camp to harvest copra, a cash earner for the village.

05:24

"Two kilometres doesn't sound long until you're actually walking it."

05:32

Drone shot over old village

The old village here suffered storm surges and flooding, and it got worse and worse.

05:38

Craig and Sailosi walk along beach

SAILOSI RAMATU: When the high tide comes, where the water meets, all the water flows easily into the...

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: So high tide from the sea and the river flowing down hit each other?

SAILOSI RAMATU: Yeah.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Oh okay. I understand. So this is where the village is – in here?"

SAILOSI RAMATU: Yeah.

05:45

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: I'm regretting leaving my shoes on.

06:04

Abandoned village

The village struggled to survive for decades, as the seawater destroyed their crops, and contaminated their drinking water. They tried vainly to save it with concrete walls.

06:12

Concrete seawalls

This is the seawalls that were built to protect it.

06:22

Sailosi and Craig at seawall

SAILOSI RAMATU: Yeah, this one. This is the second one. The first one already in the sea.

06:35

Drone shot over abandoned village and seawall

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The first wall is well under water now, 60 metres from the current shoreline.

SAILOSI RAMATU: We have many houses

06:32

Sailosi and Craig stand in water

already in the sea.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Oh I understand. So these are the ones that are left?

SAILOSI RAMATU: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some posts.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: So that's a post of a house?

SAILOSI RAMATU: Yeah. I was here.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:  This was your house?

06:41

SAILOSI RAMATU:  My house.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: You're kidding?

SAILOSI RAMATU: Yeah.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:   So it's just gone.

SAILOSI RAMATU: Yeah. This is my house. This washroom here.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Are you standing on the water... Oh yeah, I can feel…

06:56

SAILOSI RAMATU: Yeah, yeah. Here. I had already relocated three times within the old village site. That's why they made a decision to relocate the community, the village. A very, very, very big decision.

07:09

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Do you miss the old village?

SAILOSI RAMATU: A lot. Yeah.

07:30

Drone shots over old village to new village

Music

07:36

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Thirty new houses, plus roads and water cost nearly a million dollars US. The government footed most of the bill, with the village paying a quarter share in milling timber from its ancestral lands. The new village has advantages – piped water, flushing loos, solar power and a road to school and into town.

07:41

Adisivo cooking.

08:05

But mistakes were made. At first the new houses had no kitchens. People had to add them on themselves, perhaps the result of leaving village planning to men only.

08:11

Craig eats with Adisivo and Sailosi

"Beautiful curry."

ADISIVO: "Fijian curry- eggplant and tomato."

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: "I needed some vegetables."

08:23

Many traditions are in danger of dying out after the move.

08:37

Women weaving mats

TEACHER: "Weave in fours, interchange the weaves, okay then turn, keep folding..."

08:40

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Mat making is one they're trying to save.

08:46

TEACHER: "A Fijian lady's ability to make mats is what makes her desirable."

08:49

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Woven pandanus mats are a work of art, and, as I was about to find out, not all that easy to make.

08:56

Craig joins mat weaving

Bula… Come and sit here?... Okay, how do you do this? It looks remarkably complex.

09:02

TEACHER: One goes up one goes down.

09:19

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: One goes over, one goes back… How long does it take to make one of these?

SIVO: Two days for her.

09:23

TEACHER: We would've finished a long time ago if we hadn't been doing this lesson.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: What did she say?

SIVO: She said if she was not teaching us, all the mat would be finished.

09:36

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: I'm tired, tired… Go to sleep now.

09:51

Village in rain. Craig with Chief and Sailosi

Chief Botu says the decision was difficult – but for him it was the right call.

10:00

CHIEF SIMIONE BOTU: We have relocated to a new place knowing that current elders and our children we will be living peacefully without being worried about being flooded.

10:07

Craig driving

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Lessons from Vunidogoloa have been taken on board – another five villages have moved, and 42 more are being assessed for relocation. All up, 830 villages sit on the government's climate risk list.

10:32

Craig to Meteorological Service

I wanted to speak with the specialists advising the government on which communities are at high risk. So my next stop is Fiji's Meteorological Service.

10:48

Terry at work

Terry Atalifo has been tracking the impact of climate change on Fiji for many years.

TERRY ATALIFO: Most of the communities

11:07

Terry interview. Super:
Terry Atalifo
FIJI METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE

live along the coast here in Fiji and other Pacific Island countries. And with extreme coastal events most of the damages are to these communities.

11:14

Cyclone tracking on computer

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: And it's not just rising seas and floods Terry's service is recording. Tropical cyclones have always battered Fiji, but they've become far more intense.

TERRY ATALIFO: At the moment there's a lot

11:26

Terry interview

of requests to the government agencies for relocation, because, you know, people, are badly affected when you have these kind of extreme events.

11:38

Archival footage. Cyclone Winston

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:  This one, called Winston, in 2016, was the game changer. The cyclone watchers at the Met service tracked its path as it roared in as a Category 5, the strongest intensity that anyone can face. Cyclone Winston wiped nearly two billion dollars off Fiji's economy – a third of the country's GDP. Forty-four people were killed.

11:47

Meteorological Service office

TERRY ATALIFO: These systems are massive and, you know, with small islands, a Category 5 cyclone can  cover the whole country.

12:16

Terry interview

And with that kind of intensity, weak infrastructures will definitely not be able to stand.  I think in the last 10 years, apart from two cyclone seasons, every other cyclone season, we experience, experiencing a Category 5 in this region.

12:23

Archival footage. Aftermath of Cyclone Winston

Music

12:38

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Winston tore across the north of Fiji's main island, devastating villages, including Namuiamada. 

126:41

Crag visits Raijeli

Who's house is this?

OSCAR: This is Raijeli's house. She's the daughter of the chief in this village.

12:53

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Seven years on, I'm here to see how this village of 480 people has recovered.  Thank you Oscar. Lovely to meet you.

RAIJELI:  Come in.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: I believe that you were in this house the night that Cyclone Winston hit?

RAIJELI: Absolutely.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: What was it like?

13:00

RAIJELI: This is where rough winds come. And then this door blew off. We ran inside to that corner.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: So you were huddling in this corner here?

RAIJELI: We were huddling in this corner. My husband, my four kids and my parents.

13:18

This roof blown off.  So we have to run outside. And when we ran outside, there was a strongest wind ever.

13:32

Village families GVs

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Three people died, 54 families lost everything and another 33 homes were badly damaged; almost the whole village needed help.

13:46

Craig and Raijeli

How was the community after the cyclone? What was the effect on them? 

13:56

Super:
Raijeli Adilabalaba
COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKER

RAIJELI: Our whole mindset, we were affected, psychologically affected, physically affected, socially, emotionally, and financially affected. We start again from nothing. We were zero and we were nil by that time.

14:01

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: But seven years later they still have no safe evacuation centre, despite repeated requests.

14:17

Are you worried about cyclones like that coming again? 

RAIJELI: Yes. I'm really worried. Right now we are making our plans. What we going to do in order to prepare for the type of severe cyclone.

14:24

Drone shot over village

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:  Village economies and food supplies are threatened by the climate too.

14:10

Craig with women nama harvesting

The women of Namuaimada generate most of the village income by harvesting a popular type of sea grape, called 'nama'. I tagged along to see how the harvesting is done.

14:47

WOMAN: "There's two diving over there."

15:03

Sera in boat

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Sera Baleisasa agreed to show me the ropes.

15:05

This is the nama spot, is it?

SERA BALEISASA: Right.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter:  What is it we're actually looking for? Is this nama?

SERA BALEISASA: Yeah, when you see the black pieces like that.

15:14

We have to go down and we use the goggles.  So we can use the goggle, clearly, the green ones…

15:24

Craig into sea with Sera

15:39

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: "Let's get some nama… I popped it already!"

15:42

SERA BALEISASA:  We have to put the mask on so we can see the namas clearly. 

15:50

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: It's not easy…

15:55

Sera shows nama

Oh, wow. So that's the nama. How much would that be worth, that little bit?

SERA BALEISASA:  It's $2 a heap.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: $2. Is that a heap?

SERA BALEISASA:  No. No, it's not too much.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: So can I eat it now?

16:05

Craig eats nama

Like just grab a taste. I've never tasted before. Oh, it's nice. It's kind of quite tart. It's like really a grape. Wow.

SERA BALEISASA:  There's a lot of people, they eat this one.

16:16

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: So I heard when the cyclones come, does this survive it? 

16:33

SERA BALEISASA:  All the namas are gone. It took us three, two to three years, to operate again.

16:38

Sera harvests nama

Music

16:44

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: And now they face losing the income altogether. Heat stress from warming seas turns the nama a sickly colour, ruining the crop.

16:49

SERA BALEISASA:  Because of the climate change it affects the namas. The temperature, when it's hot, all the namas are all gone. And it's changing colours. Like some of them, when you see it's turns yellow.

16:58

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: That's no good to pick?

SERA BALEISASA:  Right.  To pick the fresh one, the green one. Because we sell it in the markets like that. Supermarkets.

17:11

Music

17:19

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The harvesting is harder now, so the women are away from the village for longer.

17:23

Women return to shore

WOMAN:  "We nearly spent 5 hours out at sea."

17:27

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: After a hard day's work, women come back and are still expected to do the household chores.

17:30

ALANI TUIVUCILEVU: Four to five hours is probably just half of their day's work done. They come back, you can see all their kids hanging about.

17:37

Craig sits with Alani

Meals have to be prepared. Clothes need to be washed.

17:44

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Alani Tuivucilevu from the Women in Fisheries Network was invited in to help them deal with some of the problems.

17:47

Super:
Alani Tuivucilevu
WOMEN IN FISHERIES NETWORK

ALANI TUIVUCILEVU: So longer hours out means frustration in the home. The women have talked about domestic disagreements arising because them being absent from home means food has to be cooked by someone else. Children have to be babysat by someone else. And it most often falls on the husband, and that is not a traditional role of husbands. 

17:56

Beach

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Whether it's rising seas, ocean warming or cyclones, the future of villages like Namuaimada hangs by a thread. 

18:18

Alani interview

How does a village like this, that relies so heavily on, you know, that particular stock, how does it survive? 

18:28

ALANI TUIVUCILEVU: A stock being wiped out, not, it does not only wipe out their source of livelihood, it wipes out a way of life for them.

18:34

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: I feel frustrated in Australia about climate. You must feel 10 times more frustrated being in Fiji in terms of your influence on it.

18:40

ALANI TUIVUCILEVU: Yes. Because I think our contribution to the effects of climate change is about a drop in the ocean. So, yes, it is frustrating, because all we do is face the consequences.

18:48

Drone shot over trees and Wailea

Music

18:59

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: But there are people in Fiji who are even worse off, without land or resources.

19:04

Wailea GVs

Squatters are among the most vulnerable groups of people battling climate change in the world. About a third of the capital Suva's population of 180,000 live in informal settlements built on mangrove swamps and marshes; 1500

19:12

Drone shots Wailea

people live here at Wailea, on a river estuary. It's one of the oldest of Fiji's 400 settlements. The most marginal of them all live in the mangroves.

19:27

Craig walks with Mere to Mere's house

So is this low tide or high tide now?

MERE LUSITA: High tide is coming.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: So high tide's about to come in. Okay. Mere Lusita has five children and works in a local shop. At high tide she struggles to get home. This Is your house? Wow. Her parents migrated here from their rural village 26 years ago.

19-40

Mere interview at house

In those 26 years you've been here, has it changed where the water's coming to? How high it comes.

MERE LUSITA: Last three years ago, it's changed like this, the water to come inside like this. Before it wasn't like this.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Really? So at high tide, does it get up to the house or how close does it get?

20:04

MERE LUSITA: If it's high tide, sometimes it's flooding. Yes. So sometimes it's only going up to the second steps or first or second, and finish. 

20:28

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Mere's brothers built this house after a cyclone demolished the one she was living in. It helps keep them above the tides, sometimes.

20:39

And when you get the kind of king tides, what does that do? Does that, how high does that get in the house?

MERE LUSITA: Then nobody can get out.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: You get stuck in the house.

MERE LUSITA: Stuck inside the house.

20:48

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Do you get stuck at work?

MERE LUSITA:  Sometimes.

21:00

Kids dangle legs in water

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The rising water is polluted with sewerage and industrial waste.

21:03

Rubbish in water

MERE LUSITA: It bring the dirt and the rubbish up.

21:09

Mere interview

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The kids play in this; do they get sick?

MERE LUSITA: Yeah, we can see their bodies or we can tell, eh.

21:12

Sores on boy's leg

These small boils coming up to them. Eh? They love playing in the mud.

21:19

Villagers walk through water

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The people here already battle life on many fronts; climate change is another threat to what little they do have.

21:29

Drone shot, boat on way to Serua

Of all the difficulties people face with climate change, perhaps the hardest is deciding when it's time to go.

21:43

Craig in boat with Taitusi

Taitusi Dradra is taking me to the tiny island of Serua, just off the south coast of Fiji's main island. It's one of the hundreds of villages that was ear-marked for relocation. The trouble is they're determined to stay.

21:52

Arrival at Serua

TAITUSI DRADRA: Welcome to Serua.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Thank you for having me.

22:19

It's a very spiritual place as the home of the paramount chief of the Serua province.

22:24

Craig dresses in sulu

So it's on with my sulu again.

TAITUSI DRADRA: Now you look like one Fijian.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Yeah, now, I get the jeans off.

22:31

Islanders play volleyball

Music

22:37

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: At first glance, life is pretty sweet. Nearly 100 people live here in a communal lifestyle. Fishing and homestay tourism bring in some cash, but as Vunidogoloa found before them, the rising seas are unstoppable.

22:42

Taitusi and Craig walk along seawall

TAITUSI DRADRA: This wall was built in the year 2000.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: A seawall on one side of the island kept the island safe, but now the ocean often swamps over it.

23:03

This is low tide right now. So before this seawall was here, what did this look like? Was there actually beach here or what was it?

TAITUSI DRADRA: I was being told that there was a white sandy beaches on this place. Maybe somewhere here, around five metres from here, or 10 metres from here.

23:14

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Okay, so this used to be built on a beach. Now it's built on a wall. So when you were growing up, did it flood? 

23:33

TAITUSI DRADRA: No. Only for the last couple of years.

23:40

Taitusi's video. Flood waters in village

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Tusi's been recording some of the floods.

TAITUSI DRADRA:  "Water is coming through now…"

23:45

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The salt poisons the soil. After storms and cyclones they need canoes to get around the village.

23:51

Taitusi interview on seawall

TAITUSI DRADRA: They're getting more extreme.

24:00

Drone shot over village

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: They're battling to hold back the sea on the other side of the island too.

24:02

Craig and Taitusi walk

TAITUSI DRADRA: This is the land reclamation area.  So what we did is we lay down big rocks.

24:10

Craig and Taitusi on rocks

Before it was working, but now you can see the water is still coming in. You can see it in here, this is the mark of the level of the ground and now it's starting to degrading down again.

24:18

Mangroves

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: And they've planted some mangroves as a buffer against storm surges, but it'll be six years before they start to make a difference.

24:31

Craig and Taitusi at mangrove

And is that fast enough to protect the island?

24:38

TAITUSI DRADRA: It can be. And it might also cannot be.

24:41

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: They're running out of ways to adapt to the sea rising, and can't stave it off forever.

24:46

Drone shot, Serua

The government identified Serua village for relocation in 2018. Some did shift to the mainland, but most of the community decided to stay.

TAITUSI DRADRA: They just want to stay here in the island.

24:55

Craig and Taitusi on seawall

Because, you know, their identity is being identified within this island.

25:08

Craig on boat with Taitusi

Music

25:16

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: The villagers' identity isn't just tied to the land, but to the sea as well.  And this, too, is under threat.

25:26

So what are we looking for?

25:36

TAITUSI DRADRA: We are looking for giant clam. Have you ever seen a giant clam in Fiji?

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: How big?

TAITUSI DRADRA: You'll see.

25:38

Taitusi dons mask and snorkel

I'm going to go in first.  Don't worry, the sharks in here, they are vegetarians. So you don't have to worry about…

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Friendly sharks, great!

TAITUSI DRADRA: They are very friendly, just like the Fijian people.

25:49

Taitusi into water, dives for giant clam

Music

26:04

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Giant clams in Fiji have been brought back from near extinction. If they're protected from predators and humans, they can live a hundred years. But warming water temperatures may finally spell their end. And there's not much the local custodians can do about that.

26:12

Island GVs

Just as with Vunidogoloa, moving is made all the harder because they're bound to the spirits of their ancestors which still guide them.

26:49

Craig with Taitusi and others at cemetery

Tusi, are you considering moving? Are you looking at the options?

26:58

Taitusi interview

TAITUSI DRADRA: If we move, our spirit leaves on the island. Only our body will be moved.

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: So you'll always be coming back to this island.

TAITUSI DRADRA: Always be coming back.  But I don't want to leave this island.  Because it's paradise. It's my homeland. And most of my ancestors have died and are buried on this island as well. 

27:05

The blessings of the vanua is in this island. It's not over there, it's on this island. These chiefs here, they are our blessings, so we have to respect them.

27:28

Chief calls meeting

CHIEF:  "The meeting! It's about to start!"

27:44

Men drink kava at meeting

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: Moving a village has a cost in dollars and you can count them, but shattering such strong cultural bonds is impossible to measure. Village leaders know moving is inevitable, and it's breaking their hearts.

ESIROMI ROBANAKADAVU: It's very hard for us

27:53

Esiromi interview. Super:
Esiromi Robanakadavu

to leave this island home, and went to mainland. But we have no choice. The tide is rising, and the climate is changed, the weather pattern is changing, everything is changing. Nevertheless, we love this island. From the bottom of our hearts. But I think we are the victims. From the biggest countries, they started what is happening now in this world.

28:14

Girl wades in water

Music

28:47

CRAIG REUCASSEL, Reporter: There's no fairy-tale ending for Fiji and the people of the South Pacific. They face painful and costly changes,

28:50

Taitusi sits on rocks

and still the big question remains: who will pay for it, those that created the problem or those who are left to face its consequences.

28:58

Music

29:08

Villagers sing farewell to Craig

29:15

Credits [see below]

28:28

Out point

29:47