Seeking global warming's 'first refugees'
Pastor Dale Morgan
April 07, 2007
*Seeking global warming's 'first refugees'*
How are some of the world’s poorest people dealing with the effects of
global climate change? That was the question posed to us a few days ago.
In India there are a number of ways of looking at this story, but we
decided to head out to meet the people living on a group of islands in
the Ganges delta area known as the Sundarbans.
I’d read a lot about the Sundarbans - and knew it was home to the Bengal
Tiger and a host to a diverse ecosystem. But some scientists and
researchers are calling now the residents of the Sundarbans among the
first "global climate change refugees."
This morning we woke up before dawn to take a several hour ride by car
from our hotel in Kolkata to meet a small boat we had hired for the day
to take us to Ghoramara Island. The boat that took us seemed to be
barely rigged together. The "captain" leaned on a rusty old rudder and
held onto a frayed piece of string in his other hand to regulate the
speed of the boat.
Ghoramara Island was beautiful, though villagers told us (and satellite
photos show) that the size of the island is shrinking. Local officials
on the island estimate that more than half of the population of the
island have left after losing their farmland to the surging water.
An environmentalist with the Wildlife Protection Society of India,
traveling with us, says two (once inhabited) islands have already
disappeared under water and there are about a dozen more threatened. The
environmentalist also pointed to figures showing the sea level rising at
higher-than normal rates in this region and suggested that global
warming may be partly to blame.
For the villagers left on the island (just over 5,000 according to local
official numbers) worrying about rising water is constant. We met
families who told us they lost all of their land and were searching for
other ways to make ends meet. We met former farmers –- turned fishermen
... who were trying to eek out a living catching tiny fish.
Even though these villagers were struggling to make it by (often on
about $1 or $2 per day) everyone we spoke with said they felt lucky to
just be able to stay on their island.
-- From Seth Doane, CNN International Correspondent