Plea for climate change refugees
Julia Irwin
21Jul08
Tuvaluan Fikau Teponga wants climate change refugees. Picture: JOSIE HAYDEN
TUVALUAN elder Fikau Teponga's island homeland is sinking and he wants Darebin Council to help save his people.
Now living in Fairfield, the leader of Victoria's tiny Tuvaluan community is calling on Darebin Council to lobby the Federal Government to set up a new climate-change refugee category.
He is backed by Darebin Ethnic Communities Council, which will discuss an action plan with Darebin Council this week.
Mr Teponga fears for the safety of his mother, five brothers, two sisters, two sons and eight grandchildren, among the 11,000 living on Tuvalu already experiencing dire climate change consequences.
"Water from the wells is contaminated with salt and undrinkable. People see their taro root and vegetable crops dying before their eyes and the waves are creeping further and further on to the coastline," he said.
Tuvalu was a tropical paradise, but at just a few metres above sea level. The rising tides of global warming would wipe out this group of nine islands north of Fiji.
Councils have lobbied the Federal Government on behalf of asylum-seekers before.
In 2003 Victorian local government lobbied on behalf of 800 East Timorese asylum-seekers who wanted to stay in Australia.
Darebin Ethnic Communities Council chairman Gaetano Greco said New Zealand had a category for refugees displaced by the environment and Australia should do likewise.
Minister for Immigration Senator Chris Evans said Australia could help resettle people displaced by climate change.
