Managed Retreat? Please, Not Yet – Hakai Magazine

Screenshot from Reuter's video "Stay or Flee? Fijians forced to abandon disappearing homes" via Youtube.

Salt water is already seeping through gardens, under homes, and among the headstones on Serua Island, Fiji. As climate change rolls on, and as the sea level continues to rise, this low-lying island off the southern coast of Viti Levu, one of the country’s two largest islands, seems like an obvious candidate for relocation efforts—and its inhabitants the latest face of climate refugees. Fiji’s national government has offered its support to help the island’s 100 or so inhabitants move. Yet almost all are choosing to stay put…

How to move a country: Fiji’s radical plan to escape rising sea levels – the Guardian

The southern coast of Viti Levu, the largest island in Fiji (by Brian CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).

For the past four years, a special government taskforce in Fiji has been trying to work out how to move the country. The plan it has come up with runs to 130 pages of dense text, interspersed with intricate spider graphs and detailed timelines. The document has an uninspiring title – Standard Operating Procedures for Planned Relocations – but it is the most thorough plan ever devised to tackle one of the most urgent consequences of the climate crisis…