The leader of the tiny South Pacific island of Tuvala appealed today for international help to prevent his people being washed away by rising sea levels caused by global warming.
Prime Minister Koloa Talake also announced that Tuvalu and two other island nations, Kiribati and Maldives, are planning legal action against major polluting countries and corporations.
"This is not a theoretical argument about what global warming will do to the 12,000 people of Tuvalu," he told reporters covering the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) here.
"In Tuvalu it is actually happening. It has already removed a number of small islets that used to be my playground when I was 10 or 11 years old.
"Flooding is already coming right into the middle of the islands, destroying food crops and trees which were there when I was born 60 years ago. These things are gone, somebody has taken them and global warming is the culprit.
But he said the preference of his people would be to remain in Tuvalu "rather than become environmental refugees", even though at the moment the island faces the serious risk of being submerged.
Tuvalu is just four metres above sea level at its highest point, and already it has begun to disappear beneath the waves.
Environmentalists fear the country may be lost for ever within decades, and farmers are already feeling the effects of coastal erosion, rising salinity and the rising ocean.
AFP