Dear Martin,

Thanks:

> > I don't know if there has been any international reaction to this
> > proposal, but it is certainly an intriguing concept.

This -conclusion- was arrived at in the:

South Pacific Regional Follow-up Workshop on the Implementation of the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982. Vava'u, Kingdom of
Tonga, 23-27 August 1999.

More important than the -conclusion- was the seventh -recommendation- of
the attendants to the Workshop:

"(vii) That, in the event of submergence of islands due to sea level
rise, CROP be requested to prepare a study on ways to ensure that
established FIC rights to maritime zones, airspace and statehood be
retained under international law."

The main focus of the Workshop was on Oceans Policy, the legal framework
on Scientific Research under UNCLOS, the determination of outer limits
of all maritime spaces under national jurisdiction, and UNCLOS in light
of other international conventions on environmental law. Prof. Alfred
Soons from NILOS made a valuable presentation on scientific research.

There have been follow-ups to several recommendations in several Pacific
countries at a national level. However, I do not know if any follow-up
to the seventh -recommendation- has been conducted to date. Quite
frankly, the list of -urgent- items in the agenda of small island States
is quite large.  Without any attempt to diminish the importance of this
topic at all, there are other topics, which require perhaps prompter
action than the time it will take for sea level rise to threaten the
existence of these islands.

Some islands of Kiribati and Vanuatu are among those of several
countries in the Pacific, which might be vulnerable to an -accelerated-
sea-level rise.  However, if pollution and destructive fishing practices
are not allowed to take place in their immediate vicinity, the growth of
the healthy reefs surrounding these islands should be able to keep-up
with a -moderate- increase in sea level. If, on the other hand, the
three effects combine in a negative manner, -some- of the islands of
these States would face serious survival problems within the next 50
years.

Several instances of population relocation from some very small islands
to larger island States have already taken place in the Pacific. I
remember people from the Gilbert Islands, one of the three very separate
island groups of Kiribati, being re-settled in the Solomon Islands over
a decade ago. There is a whole history of mobility and migration among
the peoples of the South Pacific, which goes back several centuries.

Let me add that the Pacific Ocean is not the only region of the World
where these phenomena deserve serious consideration from a small island
State perspective. Some of the islands in the Maldives and Seychelles in
the Indian Ocean, for example, could be also vulnerable. Fortunately,
these two States have paid considerable attention to the preservation of
the environment of some of their most vulnerable reefs and islands.

Those interested in following-up reef research in its own right or for
geodetic and baseline research purposes, might be interested to visit
(and potentially participate in the work of):

http://www.reefbase.org/  and
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgibrs/reefs.pl

Keeping in mind the list of most vulnerable islands among the most
vulnerable small island States, I do not feel that the most radical
potential scenario suggested in the list is imminent. I do not
contemplate as a true possibility a scenario under which a single State
would lose its entire land mass within the next 50 years.

It is quite possible that -some- individual islands may not do as well
though. Pollution and destructive fishing practices, which occur often
as a result of over-population, and not only sea level rise, will be
among the key factors in deciding the future of the islands and, perhaps
most importantly, their reefs.

Sincerely,

Galo Carrera