CHILDREN OF THE RISING SEA
TUVALU
Squint your eyes at a map of the South Pacific.
Squint so hard they close.
Now imagine a place where the people came from the sea, are sustained by the sea, and return to the sea.
A place where the highest point above sea level is a five-meter tall pile of sand dredged from the lagoon, a place where the most curious and wide eyed children you have ever met run free, swim for fish, climb for coconuts, and ask questions like "what is the United States?”
A place where sunscreen does not exist, where ATMs are a thing of the future, where the community gathers for pig roasts on the international air strip that only sees occasional landings…
Are you still squinting?
Good.
You are in Tuvalu.
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Tuvalu's nine islands have a total land mass of 26 km². The mean height above sea level is less than two meters. In a report released in 2009, the United Nations identified Tuvalu as the most at risk country for loss of sovereignty due to sea level rise. A country with no land, and no people left to inhabit her, is no longer a country. This tiny island nation and her twelve thousand inhabitants are already experiencing the effects of climate change first hand.