Unable to outrun rising tides, Tuvalu preserves history online

years after he delivered a speech to the United Nations climate conference standing kneedeep in seawater to highlight the threat to the nation of Tuvalu, Minister Simon Kofe said they were on their way to becoming a digital nation.

The Pacific island nation, halfway between Australia and Hawaii, had completed a detailed 3D scan of its 124 islands and islets, which will be the basis for creating a digital clone of itself, he said in a message in December.

Authorities are also archiving Tuvalu’s cultural heritage, as well as exploring a digital identity system to connect the diaspora, and a digital passport so citizens can register births, deaths and marriages, and participate in polls and other events.

“We are taking these practical steps because we must ... ensuring our continuing sovereignty in the face of a worst-case scenario,” said Kofe, the justice, communication and foreign minister.

“We cannot outrun the rising tides, but we will do what we can to protect our statehood, our spirit, our values.”

About 40 per cent of the main atoll and capital district Funafuti is underwater at high tide, and the tiny nation is forecast to be submerged by the end of the century.

Tuvalu may become the first nation in the metaverse, an online realm that uses augmented and virtual reality (VR) to help users interact, but it isn’t the only one seeking digital solutions to operate in emergencies and to preserve heritage.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, when physical movement was restricted, Barbados said it would enter the metaverse to provide consular services, while in Metaverse Seoul, launched last year, visitors can pay taxes, play games and visit the city’s tourist spots.

And the Ukraine government’s digital platforms have evolved since the Russian invasion to provide details on bomb shelters, let citizens vote on petitions, and list damaged property.

Volunteers have uploaded digital copies of art and music to a cloud database.

But moving a nation-state to the virtual world has enormous technical, social and political challenges, besides raising concerns about access, security and who controls the data, said Nick Kelly of the Queensland University of Technology.

“Much of the investment in building the metaverse is coming from private companies.

“If our relationships, friendships, shopping, entertainment, learning and business take place in the metaverse, then we give up much of our autonomy.

“Who shapes the rules of those spaces?”

Communities are best placed to decide whether, and how, their lives and homes must be memorialised, so there must be processes for them to act on what’s “most important and urgent”, said Kasia Paprocki, an associate professor of environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In Tuvalu last month, an election result was delayed by weeks as dangerous weather stopped boats from bringing new lawmakers to the capital to vote for a prime minister.

That has made the question officials are posing to the population of about 12,000 more urgent: “what is the one thing you want to save if you lose everything?”

These could be artefacts of sentimental value, sounds of children talking, stories told by their grandfathers, or dances at festivals. These will be digitised and become part of a digital ark, carrying the “very soul of Tuvalu” and preserving its essence, Kofe said.

While the digital nation can preserve elements of Tuvaluan culture and tradition, there is a risk of “losing the intangible and dynamic aspects of culture that are rooted in physical space and social interaction”, said James Ellsmoor, chief executive of Island Innovation, a consultancy.

Australia last year signed an agreement to allow 280 people to migrate from Tuvalu every year because of climate threats.

As more Tuvaluans leave, the bond with the land and the ocean was irretrievably lost, said Lin, a Tuvaluan who moved to New Zealand with her family when she was 8.

“I can still remember the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, the church bell ringing. You cannot digitally replicate the soil that grounds us as a people ... you cannot replicate physical connections.”