Kiwi to help islanders abandon sinking island

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ON THE WAY: Tauranga???s Kimberley Cleland, off to Bougainville.

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A New Zealand volunteer is to take on a major role in plans to evacuate around 2000 people who say they are about to become the world’s first environmental refugees and victims of global warming.

Volunteer Service Aboard (VSA) have posted Otago University student Kimberley Cleland, from Tauranga, to Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville to work on the relocation of Kilinailau or Carteret Island, sinking into the South Pacific.

As the islands sink, food gardens have disappeared and the people plan to relocate, probably to a plantation on Bougainville 90 kilometres away.

Another group of islands nearby, Takuu, home to 600 Polynesians, known for their collection of more than a thousand songs many can sing from memory, are also sinking.

This week Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) president Joseph Kabui told reporters sea water was "eating" away Carterets.

"The situation on Caterets Island is becoming very devastating to its inhabitants, leaving the islanders homeless with nothing to survive on," he said.

Kabui praised a local organisation Tulele Peisa Inc that is helping.

"The people of Caterets island must accept the fact that their island home is now sinking and there is nothing they can do but the only option left for them is to move out," Kabui said.

While global warming is blamed for the situation in the Carterets, its more by way of dress rehearsal because the islands are sinking as a result of a continental clash of the local Australian and Pacific tectonic plates. It has created the most rapidly extending active rift system on Earth, renown for its heavy magnitude earthquakes.

Kimberley Cleland has been sent by VSA to work with Tulele Peisa as a research and advocacy assistant.

She is one of six Otago University students selected by VSA for assignments overseas next year.

This is the second group to be chosen as part of a three year pilot between VSA and the Otago University Geography Department which sees the students gaining valuable work experience while sharing their own skills and building on the theory they have learnt in the lecture rooms.

Jenny Wadsworth is one of the original eight "UniVols" winding up their assignments.

She is in East London, South Africa working as an environmental awareness trainer with Amalinda Fish Farm.

"Regardless of your assignment or location, your head will constantly be full of questions, your strength of character will constantly be tested, and your capacity to learn will constantly be pushed to the maximum."

The students will work in Vanuatu, Bougainville, Tanzania and South Africa in roles such as youth advisers, research and advocacy, and monitoring and evaluation.

VSA’s CEO, Deborah Snelson says the benefit for students, who have all been involved in Development Studies at Otago is that they can now connect theory with practice.

"Many of these students will go on to jobs in aid and development. This programme offers them a supportive, structured opportunity to gain such experience," she says.

The UniVols also make a unique contribution to VSA’s overseas partners.

"We have had very little trouble finding placements for the group, despite their age. In fact, several of our overseas partners have designed the assignments for younger volunteers; for instance, using the UniVols sporting prowess as an opportunity to attract young people to, and develop, their youth programmes," says Ms Snelson.  

In addition to Cleland, the UniVols are Torrey McDonnell from Greenhithe in Auckland who will work in Tanzania, Kathy Impey from Dunedin working in South Africa, Simon Donald of Christchurch who will go to Vanuatu, Rachel Hogg from Dunedin in South Africa and Timaru’s Josie Gardner Orr in Vanuatu.

- © Fairfax NZ News