Pacific Climate Change Documentary: The Hungry Tide

The Hungry Tide

9.30pm Sunday 9 October, SBS ONE

In a remote corner of the Pacific, the rising sea level is threatening the lives of 105,000 people. Scientists predict that Kiribati, the central Pacific nation spread across 33 atolls, will be one of the world's first nations to disappear as a result of climate change. The same ocean that has sustained the country for generations is now the source of its destruction.

The Hungry Tide, the latest documentary from internationally renowned filmmaker Tom Zubrycki, focuses on this vulnerable community on the front line of climate change. A poignant film, it tells the tale of one woman’s mission to save her sinking homeland.

Maria Tiimon is originally from Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas). Her native island of Beru is home to just 2,000 people. The only one of her thirteen siblings to leave the island, Maria now lives in Sydney, where she works for an NGO raising awareness of climate change issues in the Pacific.

The documentary follows Maria as she goes from talking to schools and community groups, to traveling with her NGO delegation to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (COP15). In a dramatic week, low-lying island states push for a new, legally binding treaty. The hope is for all nations to agree on carbon emission reductions, to prevent global temperature from rising above 1.5ºC. If the temperature increases by just two per cent, it will be catastrophic for Kiribati. Evidence emerges of pressure from Australia to silence the Pacific nations, and Maria’s delegation is left disappointed as Copenhagen ends in failure.

Back in Kiribati, where the population lives an average two metres above sea level, stormy weather has caused major damage. Part of a seawall protecting an entire community has been swept away. Every peak high tide, the village of Tebikenikoora (“The Golden Beach”) is flooded with seawater. Houses have been shifted, vegetable gardens and fruit trees ruined. Months go by and yet funds pledged at Copenhagen, to assist poorer and vulnerable countries, haven’t materialised.

Maria accompanies a delegation to Kiribati, led by Australian indigenous leader Pat Dodson. They meet with President Anote Tong, who admits he doesn’t know what to tell his people anymore. While acutely aware of the community’s problems, his government doesn’t have the resources to fix them. It seems that relocation is the only option. The question now is how they can best manage this difficult task, in a way that will allow his people to move with dignity.

Tom Zubrycki has earned an international reputation for his substantial and widely respected body of documentaries. As with most of his work, The Hungry Tide is an observational film, concentrating on the experience and struggles of one community. Zubrycki skillfully manages to put a face to the highly politicised, global issue of climate change, by zoning in on Kiribati to capture the desperate and personal story of a few determined individuals.

ENDS

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