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Tuvalu, in the South Pacific, is made up of nine small islands with a population of 11,000. It is estimated that the entire atoll will be uninhabitable in about 50 years due to climate change. Already the citizens are feeling the effects, as high tide floods the neighborhoods like never before. Sixty-four-year-old Ioane Malologa said,
“I have already advised my children. I got four daughters and one only son. … They’ve been well educated, and now they all got jobs in the government. Well that’d be okay for their life at the moment but … I have advised them — it is better to migrate.”
This sentiment is not held by all. Though encouraging his children to migrate, Malologa himself wants to stay in Tuvalu. While most Tuvaluans have family living abroad, largely in New Zealand and Fiji, many people I met there wanted to stay in Tuvalu as long as possible. But in a country where land is precious and scarce, coastal erosion, flooding, and increasingly severe weather patterns, eking out a living here is now difficult.
Read more and see a gallery of photos at The Atlantic. Link -via Look At This
(Image credit: Amelia Holowaty Krales)
Sergei Ganyushev, a 25-year-old from Arkhangelsk, Russia, was stranded on an island in the White Sea only 150 kilometers from the Arctic Circle for 16 days. He set out along on October first to gather seaweed, but his boat sprang a leak.
Sergei managed to swim to Malaya Sennukha, one of the small stony islets dotting the area. There he survived on seaweed and rainwater, taking shelter in a makeshift dwelling of stones and a few wooden planks.
He said he gave up looking for passing ships three days before rescue and was about to take his own life when the helicopter flew overhead. When he heard the rotor, he managed to get up and wave down the aircraft.
Curiously, no one had reported Sergei missing. The helicopter was looking for survivors from another seafaring incident, in which a motorboat with a monk and a worker from a nearby Orthodox Christian monastery sank in the vicinity of the archipelago last Thursday.
The monk was found dead, but the search continues for his companion. Ganyushev was treated for hypothermia and malnutrition. Link -via Arbroath
These frogs aren’t going to give up their legs lightly. Species of frog are rapidly evolving adaptations, such as the small fangs they’ve grown, on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, and scientists are amazed by how far they’ve come in such a short period of time. One reason is their lack of competition on the island, another reason being the frogs that live on the island all dwell within their own individual pocket, so as to avoid further rivalry over food. Nine species of frogs on Sulawesi have never been documented by scientist before, and thirteen species have developed the cute little choppers, making them look like something out of a Twilight-Muppets crossover. There’s lots more to read on the subject at PhysOrg.com.
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Bouvet Island is 1,700 miles from Antarctica, and further away from anywhere else. The island is a volcano covered with a glacier. The few expeditions to explore it were many years apart, and some of those explorers never set foot on Bouvet Island, since there is no safe place to land. But in 1964, a South African expedition spent less than an hour on the island and found …an abandoned boat.
It was a mystery worthy of a Sherlock Holmes adventure. The boat, which Crawford described as “a whaler or ship’s lifeboat,” must have come from some larger ship. But no trade route ran within a thousand miles of Bouvet. If it really was a lifeboat, then, what ship had it come from? What spectacular feat of navigation had brought it across many miles of sea? How could it have survived a crossing of the Southern Ocean? There was no sign it had ever borne a mast and sail, or engine, but the solitary pair of oars that Crawford found would barely have been adequate to steer a heavy, 20-foot boat. Most unnervingly of all, what had become of the crew?
It was another two years before anyone else went to the island, and the boat was never recorded to have been seen again. Mike Dash set out to research what the boat was doing on such an isolated island, and came up with some interesting theories. However, a definitive answer has yet to be found. Read the whole story at A Blast from the Past. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
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First, you take a boat from Ireland eight miles out into the ocean. At a tiny island with two steep hills, you climb up 600 ancient steps. At the summit, there is a cluster of stone huts around a small garden area. This is the monastery at Skellig Michael, where a few monks at a time lived completely isolated from the rest of the world from the 7th to the 12th century. Yes, you can go there if you like, or just read more about Skellig Michael, and see more pictures, at Atlas Obscura. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
The good news: Tired of overcrowded cities? A pristine and uninhabited tropical island is still available.
The bad news: It’s filled with snakes.
Atlas Obscura has more on the intriguing Snake Island of Brazil:
Off the shore of Brazil, almost due south of the heart of São Paulo, is a Ilha de Queimada Grande. The island is untouched by human developers, and for very good reason. Researchers estimate that on the island live between one and five snakes per square meter. The snakes live on the many migratory birds (enough to keep the snake density remarkably high) that use the island as a resting point.
That figure might not be so terrible if the snakes were, say, 2 inches long and nonvenomous. The snakes on Queimada Grande, however, are a unique species of pit viper, the golden lancehead. The lancehead genus of snakes is responsible for 90% of Brazilian snakebite-related fatalities. The golden lanceheads that occupy Snake Island grow to well over half a meter long, and they possess a powerful fast-acting poison that melts the flesh around their bites. Golden lanceheads are so dangerous that, with the exception of some scientific outfits, the Brazilian Navy has expressly forbidden anyone from landing on the island.
http://atlasobscura.com/place/snake-island-ilha-de-queimada-grande
For years, two nations have both claimed the territory of an uninhabited island the Bangladeshis called South Talpatti Island and the Indians called New Moore Island. The dispute is now moot, as the island has vanished underwater.
“What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming,” said Professor Sugata Hazra of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University in Calcutta.
Anyone wishing to visit now, he observed, would have to think of travelling by submarine.
The island never rose more than about six feet above sea level. Professor Hazra predicts more islands in the Indian Ocean will vanish as sea levels rise. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Who hasn’t wanted their very own private island? And what if you could build it with some friends and free recycled objects. Sound too good to be true? This guy has built not one but two!
The original Spiral Island was (as its successor will be) built upon a floating collection used plastic bottles, all netted together to support a bamboo and plywood structure above. Located in Mexico, the original was 66 by 54 feet and was able to support full-sized mangroves to provide shade and privacy, yet also able to be moved from place to place by its creator as need with a simple motorized system.
When Napoleon was sent to St. Helena by the British, they annexed the closest chain of islands to prevent the French from attempting to rescue him. After all, who wouldn’t travel a mere 2430 km over rough and hostile seas in order to rescue the Emperor himself? Yes, that’s right, the islands of Tristan Da Cunha closest neighboring land mass, the island of St. Helena, is 2430 km away.
Tristan Da Cunha has a radio station, a convenience store, beautiful wildlife, and an active volcano! Link
