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The Carteret Islands (also known as Carteret Atoll, originally known as Tulun or Kilinailau Islands/Atoll) are Papua New Guinea islands located 86 km (53 mi) north-east of Bougainville in the Oceania. The atoll has a scattering of low-lying islands called Han, Jangain, Yesila, Yolasa and Piul, in a horseshoe shape stretching in north-south direction, with a total land area of and a maximum elevation of above sea level.
The group is made up of islands collectively named after the British navigator Philip Carteret, who was the first European to discover them, arriving in the sloop in 1767. , about one thousand people lived on the islands. Although the Carteret islanders’ ancestors have lived on the island for thousands of years. Han is the most significant island, with the others being small islets around the lagoon. The main settlement is at Weteili on Han. The island is near the edge of the large geologic formation called the Ontong Java Plateau. The island has experienced significant damage due to its low elevation and rising sea levels due to climate change.
Like the Halia, Hakö, Selau and Solos groups in Buka and Bougainville, the Tuluun reckon descent matrilineality. They are primarily organized into two moiety-like groups, the Nakaripa and Naboen. Unlike moieties in a true dual organization system, Nakaripa and Naboen are not exogamous in practice, though a strong preference for exogamy is usually reported. Exogamy is important in the organization of political power. Male and female chiefs attempt to organize cross-moiety marriages, the main reason for this being that the legitimation of chiefly power requires the participation of the opposite moiety.
Oral tradition states that the Carteret Islands were originally inhabited by a Polynesian group closely related to the Takuu, or Takuu. The islands were discovered by a fishing expedition from Hahalis. According to the Halia tradition, the first attempt to reach the islands had a peaceful intention, but ended in the massacre of the Halia expedition. The Munihil, or paramount chief of Hanahan Bay then organized a large flotilla of canoes to attack the Polynesian population, and conquered the islands. By contrast, the Mortlock Islanders state that the Halia mounted a blood and murder surprise attack to remove their relatives.
Genealogical information suggest that the Halia invasion took place in the early 18th century. Lieutenant Erasmus Gower (sailing with Commander Philip Carteret) reported the population as being dark-skinned in 1767.
When visited in 1830 by Benjamin Morrell in the schooner Antarctic, several islands had a native population who were growing a variety of crops. One small island was uninhabited and covered with heavy timber. With the approval of the area's ruler, Morrell's crew began construction on the southwest corner of the island in the northeast part of the atoll, with the intent to harvest Pulmonata meat and edible bird nests for the Chinese market.
Departing after a fatal attack on his crew, Morrell named the islands the Massacre Islands.
Food staples have been cultivated: taro and coconut and fishing supports the people. The area had been inhabited for about 1,000 years before European contact in about 1880, when the copra trade and other activities altered the economy and customs. Population grew rapidly in the early 1900s, and overcrowding in the 1930s caused a population decline. In recent years, climate change has had an immense impact on Carteret Islands. The sea level has risen and led to coastal erosion and flooding. This has contaminated the water supply for drinking and agriculture. The islanders’ crop yield has been significantly impacted and led to food shortages. These issues have forced residents to leave the land their ancestors have lived on for thousands of years. In the 1990s the islanders were identified for thousands of years. In the 1990s the islanders were identified as economic and environmental refugees. The Carteret Islands have recently received international attention for being the first climate refugees.
However, now the land is turning into a desert because of saltwater contamination. Climate change has destroyed islanders’ access to freshwater and food. There is fear amongst the community that there will soon be no place for them to live and build a future. The Islanders utilize shells as currency, and they explain how they use that with pigs to buy land and to build a bond between the Carteret Islanders and people in nearby Bougainville. The documentary highlights the group of young people selected to go to Bougainville in search of land. It was challenging for the community to make the decision to leave their homeland because of their deep connection with the environment, but climate change created such obstacles they were forced to search for a future. It was also difficult for them to imagine a life with different culture and values. On their search for new land the Carteret people were afraid because they had never experienced weapons and alcohol before. The civil war in Bougainville affected the people there and the Carteret people were not sure if they would be welcomed on the island. However, they eventually found a community that agrees to share a space for them to live. They are excited at the idea of providing their family a safe place to live and build a future, but the Carteret people worry that they will not be the Carteret people anymore, as since they will reside in the town of Tinputz, they will be “Tinputz people”. The community is distressed that most of their culture will have to live in memory, as their history on the Carteret Islands will be washed away.
Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of storms globally. The Carteret Islands have endured some of the most significant impacts between rising sea levels and extreme weather events. This has not only caused water contamination, but also erosion. Palms or trees that become exposed in storms usually die by losing their grip in the little sand left at the end of the storm season. Sometimes whole islets get washed away.
People live on the larger island or islands formed around the atoll and trek back and forth to the smaller ones by walking the reef at low tide or by small canoes. Much of the taro is grown away from the inhabited island. It is often very vulnerable to salt-water inundation, but by being away from the living area is protected from human-waste contamination.
Large greenhouse gas emitters like the Panguna mine have immense impacts on climate change. They take natural resources from land they are not native to for consumption and economic profit, but do not consider the impact it has on residents and surrounding environments. The careless consumption accelerates climate change, which has destroyed the ability to live on the Carteret islands and forced the islanders to make decision to relocate from their homes. The mines also imposed additional challenges on the Carterets by creating conflict in surrounding areas which makes it more complicated to find a safe place to move their community to.
It was widely reported in November 2005 that the islands have progressively become uninhabitable, with an incorrect estimate of their total submersion by 2015. The islanders have built a Seawall and are planting mangroves to mitigate rising sea levels. However, storm surges and high tides continue to wash away homes, destroy vegetable gardens and contaminate fresh water supplies. The natural tree cover on the island is also being impacted by the incursion of saltwater contamination of the freshwater table.
Paul Tobasi, the atoll’s district manager with Papua New Guinea's Bougainville province and many other environmental groups have suggested that the flooding is the result of sea level rise associated with global warming. He also stated that small were becoming more frequent. During the storm surges water has been flowing into the farm land on the island and destroying their crops for the season. Access to clean water and food is a basic human right that is currently being denied to the people on the Carteret Islands.
The government has put minimal effort into helping the community. They send a emergency shipments of rice, but it is not enough to sustain the islanders for very long, so their health is diminishing. The money the government has spent on rice could buy the islanders over 300 hectares, 740 acres of land in Bougainville that could be used to settle hundreds of families. However, the government does not have any strategic plan in dealing with climate change refugees like the Carteret Islanders.
Those convinced the islands are sinking, not the sea-level rising, also propose that "Some depletion of the fresh water aquifer may also contribute to the sinking," but do not explain how depletion of the fresh water aquifer could be significant on an island that is no more than 1.5 m higher than sea-level. According to some natural scientists, "The region is also Plate tectonics active and subsiding land is a real possibility." However, The Carteret Islands lie on the Pacific Plate, lying east of and above where the Solomon Sea plate is subducting underneath it.
On 25 November 2003, the Papua New Guinean government authorized the government-funded total evacuation of the islands, 10 families at a time; the evacuation was expected to be completed by 2007, but access to funding caused numerous delays.
In October 2007 it was announced that the Papua New Guinea government would provide two million kina (US$736,000) to begin the relocation, to be organized by Tulele Peisa of Buka, Bougainville. Five men from the island moved to Bougainville in early 2009 and built some houses and planted crops for their families to follow. 2. Juni 2011) Radio Australia There was a plan to bring another 1700 people over the next five years. However, there has been no large-scale evacuation seem set into effect as of November 2011. (10. November 2011) 40 atolls families to move to Buka Post Courier In 2016, Ursula Rakova's Tulele Peisa expressed its target to relocate half the population before 2020. Tulele Peisa has 85 hectares of land at the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, to the east of mainland Papua New Guinea, to resettle 35 families. (7. August 2016) Carteret climate refugees seek home As of 2021, 10 families have been relocated to Tinputz.
In 2007, CNN reported that the Carteret islanders will be the first island community in the world to undergo an organized relocation in response to rising sea levels. The people of the Carteret are being called the world's first environmental refugees.Sanjay Gupta Pacific swallowing remote island chain, CNN, Tuesday, 31 July 2007
In 2017 the Finnish Embassy in Canberra, which is involved in an aid project, reported that despite the relocation efforts, there are more people than ever living at the atoll, and the atoll has practically doubled its population.Antti Niemelä webarchive: Lapset eivät enää itke (Children cry no more, in Finnish), The Finnish Embassy, Canberra, 9 March 2017
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