Family leaves behind 'beautiful' life in Tuvalu amid rising sea levels

Climate change forces family to leave behind 'beautiful' life in Tuvalu Thu 6 Aug 2026 at 3:27pm Sisters Poeva and Akesa describe life in their home country of Tuvalu as "beautiful". "We have coconut trees," Akesa, 13, says. "When it's hot, they [Tuvaluans] like go swimming, fishing." "Cooking the traditional food, the language and the cultural dance, it's very important," Poeva, 18, adds. Tuvalu is a Pacific nation about 4,000 kilometres north-east of Australia. It's made up of a group of nine small islands, and is home to about 11,000 people. Tuvalu is also starting to disappear, and its people are grappling with what this means for their future. Many Tuvaluans, like Poeva and Akesa, are making the tough decision to leave. "My family moved here to Australia for better opportunities, like especially for education and work," Poeva says. "Climate change is also affecting Tuvalu, so moving here makes us feel more safer about our future." "Strong winds happened lately and it's destroying our houses and the sea-level rise is, like, flooding everywhere," Akesa says. "I don't want to see my country disappear." At its highest, Tuvalu is only about 4.5 metres above sea level, which means the low-land islands are experiencing the devastating impacts of rising sea levels. It's predicted that by 2050, half of the capital, Funafuti, will be flooded. On top of that, extreme weather events are eroding the Tuvaluan coasts, threatening homes and destroying crops. Saltwater in the soil has also made growing fresh produce close to impossible. Some experts say the country could be uninhabitable by the year 2100. For a long time Tuvaluan leaders were calling for support from other countries and in 2023 they made an agreement, the Falepili Union, with Australia. As part of this agreement, Australia promised millions of dollars to help Tuvalu adapt to climate change and pay for critical services and security. It also created a new visa system, which allows 280 Tuvaluans to migrate to Australia each year. Out of the 11,000 people who live in Tuvalu, last year, more than 8,000 applied for visas to Australia. Pastor Manu Puafolau was one of the first to be granted one. "Life there [in Tuvalu] is like, the ocean is our friend," he says. "Every day we wake up, if you look around, the ocean is just beside you, right or left. Look around, it's all there. "Climate change, really, the things are now happening at home, yeah. It's happening because the land has been [affected by] erosion, taken out by the sea." Pastor Puafolau is happy to be here in Australia, and lives in Naracoorte, a regional town in South Australia, but he says one of the things he and many other Tuvaluans worry about is how to maintain their culture in a new country. "Culture is life," he says. "Without culture, you cannot navigate in this life — that's in the perspective of a Tuvaluan person. "It's a different kind of world here [in Australia]." Loading...Faith and family For many, Tuvaluan culture is centred on faith and family. On each Tuvaluan island there are communal meeting places called falekaupule. Here, people gather to listen to elders and learn about culture and traditions, and Pastor Puafolau says things like this aren't easy to replicate in Australia. "So that house, it's a special house for learning," he says. "Not academic, but part of living as a Tuvaluan in the land, because we need to have knowledge how to live, like fishing, cultivating, things like that. "There will come a time, we cannot force growing kids to maintain our culture because they are starting to absorb some of the things from other people, of their friends." There are about 30 Tuvaluan migrants in Naracoorte and Pastor Puafolau says this makes it easier to maintain elements of culture. "We have kids. They really need this," he says. "You really need to maintain your way of living to, so that you can be identified as a Tuvaluan person, because our behaviour really helps us with our identification." Poeva and Akesa are a part of Pastor Puafolau's Naracoorte community and are both still adjusting to life in Australia. Akesa says she's still struggling with the weather, is scared to lose her Tuvaluan language, and misses her friends and family, as not everyone has the opportunity, or the desire, to leave. "Some of my friends are going to New Zealand and Fiji and some are staying because, like, they can't leave their grandparents," she says. What Poeva misses most is the close community and being surrounded by culture. She hopes to one day go back to Tuvalu. More than anything, she is determined for keep her culture alive. "We strongly maintain our language and other traditional culture in our house, so we don't have to forget or leave our culture, our Tuvaluan life," she says. "I just hope that people understand that we move here for safety and opportunities, not because we want to leave our culture behind."