Ontong Java Atoll under threat from climate change

International NGO Displacement Solutions recently completed a two-month research mission to one of the world’s most isolated atolls, the Solomon Islands’ Ontong Java Atoll. The company works with climate-displaced persons, communities, governments and the UN to find rights-based land solutions to climate displacement.

Located across 500 km of ocean to the north of Honiara, the isolated atoll receives visits from a supply ship only once a month (and occasionally two months without notice) and has received only a handful of long-term researchers. Now, some 3000 Ontong Javanese are facing extreme hardships generated by a combination of rising sea levels, ever-increasing coastal erosion, severe food insecurity, salt water inundation in taro crop swamps and social tensions exacerbated by the absence of a chief or committed government to govern the atoll.

The people long to retain their language, culture and traditional way of life, but are increasingly desperate in their attempts to continue a life on the atoll. Displacement Solutions photojournalist Ben Knight found that virtually everyone he talked to had thought seriously about moving somewhere else, with most expressing wishes to move to Santa Isabella island to the south-west. Previous plans to relocate the community to a piece of land in southern Malaita have largely come to naught, and would almost certainly have failed for a range of reasons.

Without significant commitment to climate change and carbon emission reductions from Australia and other countries in the region, the situation of the Ontong Javanese will only be repeated in other low-lying nations of the Pacific Islands, with migration to more secure countries looking inevitable. With this in mind, Displacement Solutions will work in the coming months on a variety of initiatives to support the atoll communities so their stories and pleas for support can be heard across the globe.