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Climate refugee threat looms over islanders as crisis worsens
The impacts of the climate crisis may force the residents of Pari Island in Thousand Islands regency, along with other small islands across Indonesia, out of their homes and become climate refugees, experts have said.
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A concrete embankment (center) is seen along part of the beachfront of Pari Island in the Thousand Islands regency, Jakarta on Feb. 22, 2023. Environmentalists have said most of the 41-hectare island could sink by 2050 because of rising sea levels. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
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eachable by a two-hour boat trip from the northern coast of Jakarta, Pari Island in the Thousand Islands regency offers Jakartans a refuge from the bustling, polluted urban life, thanks to its mangrove forests and white sandy beach.
One of 112 islands in Jakarta’s only regency, Pari Island hosts a fishing community where residents not only catch fish and other marine animals as a source of livelihood but also run tourist services such as snorkeling, turning the island into a short tropical getaway for people living in Jakarta.
But the villagers are on the brink of losing their homes to the impacts of the climate crisis, through worsening tidal flooding and extreme weather.
Scientists warn that if the global temperature keeps rising beyond the safe threshold and with no ambitious climate plan from authorities, thousands of people living on small islands like Pari Island might need to seek refuge as they lose their homes to the worsening climate impacts.
People on Pari Island did not have to wait to see if the climate crisis would impact them; they had experienced it in the past few years.
The latest example was in December 2021, when 53-year-old Arief Pujianto had floodwater creeping into his house; the first time such an incident had occurred after living on the island for five decades.
