The Atoll of Funafuti (Tuvalu islands): A Symbolic Example of Environmental Risks between Global Threat and Daily Constraints

Résumé 0

Scientific doxa and media rumor have together affirmed the assumption that Tuvalu is bound to disappear because of the sea level rise. This disappearance is regarded as irreversible and the clear evidence for the complete responsibility of global warming. It raises questions therefore about the legal reality of a deterritorialized State, and about the identity of a community forced into exile. There is a striking gap between the dreamlike image associated with a tropical coral archipelago and the hard daily life of its inhabitants in a poor environment. More than the inescapable sea level rise, they are mostly concerned with rainfall deficits, the profusion of household waste, water-supply salinization and pollution of their fresh water lens. This is particularly true on the main island, Fongafale, where more than 5 000 inhabitants are living on less than 150 hectares. Although confronted with these alarmist forecasts, the Tuvaluans refuse to anticipate the end of the 21st Century presumed to be the moment when they would be forced to become the first “climate refugees”. They are attached to their territory despite their hard life, but are still far from being mobilized to overcome the difficulties they have to face, in obvious contrast with the idyllic image associated with coral islands.