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Ocean Health

Bangladesh: A Floating Future

Global warming will hit Bangladesh hard. Climate-related natural disasters already have this nation's 180 million inhabitants seeking higher ground. By mid-century scientists predict that 20 million Bangladeshis could be displaced if sea levels rise. Here's a story about one Bangladeshi who isn't waiting for that to happen. He's adapting his community to survive floods today.

Produced by Stephen Sapienza for Foreign Exchange in association with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Began airing on Foreign Exchange January 30, 2009.

The Carteret Islanders

Located 50 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea, the Carteret Islands are disappearing into the ocean. Climate change is destroying the atoll, forcing the islanders to search for homes on Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea. Though this is the story of one remote community, scientists estimate climate change will displace up to 50 million people by 2050.

Produced by Jennifer Redfearn in association with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Camera: Tim Metzger
Sound: Tim Metzger
Editor: Jennifer Redfearn

Carteret Islands: Welcome Ceremonies

We've been on the climate change awareness tour for four days. The group usually wakes around 5:30AM – when the roosters warm their vocal chords – and bathes in the nearest river or in the sea. Breakfast or kai kai in pidgin, the common language spoken on tour, is usually a plate of rice, soupy noodles with tin fish, and kaukau or sweet potato.

Carteret Islands: A Good Omen from the Sea

Today the community held a church service to commemorate the youth from the Carteret Islands who will travel to the mainland to discuss climate change and the relocation (the islanders plan to relocate from the Carteret Islands to Tinputz on mainland Bougainville).

Carteret Islands: Every Drop Counts

The first person we met this morning on the Carteret Islands was Nicholas, a 32-year-old fisherman with an easy smile who will lead the youth tour (climate change awareness tour) to Tinputz in the northeast corner of Bougainville. Tall with short spiky hair, Nicholas speaks three languages occasionally spicing up conversation with archaisms like "drunkard fellow."

The Crisis: Civil War in Papua New Guinea

Last night I was on edge.

It wasn't just the "ambassador." Much of what I'd read about Bougainville before arriving painted a picture of a troubled and unstable country. Ten years of fighting for autonomy from Papua New Guinea and a brutal civil war ravaged the country in the 80s and 90s.

The "crisis" as the locals call it started in 1989 when villagers in the south protested against Rio Tinto, an international mining company that destroyed a mountainside of pristine rainforest to build one of the largest copper mines in the world.

Carteret Islands: Five Flights and Three Days Later

The Carteret Islands are some of the most remote islands in the South Pacific. Three days after leaving New York City and five flights later, we arrived in Buka at the tip of Bougainville, where we plan to catch a boat to the Carterets to document how climate change is impacting this low-lying atoll.