Residents forced to flee from 'disappearing island' due to heartbreaking crisis: 'There were no more friends, no more kids playing'

Yahoo

2 days ago

Rising sea levels are splitting communities apart in Gardí Sugdub and leaving people behind, possibly in danger.
Gardí Sugdub, a small island off the coast of Panama, has been dubbed "the Americas' disappearing island" by the BBC as rising sea levels are swallowing up the land.
One year ago, around 1,200 Indigenous Guna people were transported to the mainland by the Panama government for their safety as ocean waters encroached upon their community. New early-June reporting from Agence France-Presse has illustrated the human impacts of this displacement through the voices of island residents who have decided so far to stay behind.
Delfino Davies, the owner of a small museum on Gardí Sugdub, told the AFP, "There were no more friends, no more kids playing — the place fell quiet like a dead island."
Mayka Tejada said, "No one's here. Sometimes I feel sad when I'm alone,"
Scientists and advocates say the group of islands known as the Guna Yala archipelago, of which Gardí Sugdub is a part, could vanish by the end of this century.
Some residents, though, are still choosing to stay. A local in her 60s, Luciana Pérez told the news agency, "I was born in Gardí and I will die here."
Since 1880, global average sea level has increased by 8-9 inches, with the rate accelerating over the last few decades, according to the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Our reliance on burning dirty energy sources — such as oil, coal, and gas — means the production of huge quantities of heat-trapping gases that dramatically warm the planet and melt ice caps. The melting of these ice stores, in turn, drives sea level rise.
Though freak weather events like floods and tsunamis have always existed, the scientific consensus is that human actions are heating the Earth in life-altering ways, contributing to more extreme and more frequent weather events.
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These events are bad for the planet as a whole, but, so far, they are having some of the most devastating effects on coastal communities. As sea levels continue to rise, driving destructive floods and powerful storm surges, more and more people who live near the ocean will be forced further inland.
Historically marginalized communities, including Indigenous groups and residents of low- and middle-income countries, are currently facing disproportionate impacts of displacement. As time goes on, even more will face those impacts if global coordination among world leaders and other stakeholders does not sufficiently mitigate climate disaster.
The AFP described the efforts to move residents of Gardí Sugdub to the mainland as "one of Latin America's first planned climate change-related migrations." The Panamanian government built 300 houses to accommodate the newcomers. This shows that governments can play a part in protecting people impacted by rising sea levels and other extreme weather events.
To prevent more ice caps and glaciers from melting, governments and stakeholders must come together to meaningfully address the planet's overheating, choosing sustainability over profit on a systemic level. From reducing the use of fossil fuels and conserving forests so trees can capture harmful carbon pollution to creating more eco-friendly agricultural systems, serious structural changes will be required to mitigate the sea level rise that is reshaping life on Earth.
Executive director of COP30, Ana Toni, told the AFP, "Moving people from an island to somewhere else shows the reality the planet must now face."
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