If the Land Disappears

Tom reads "If the Land Disappears," the first Pacific Dispatch audio essay from Fiji Political Review.What happens to a country when the land it was built on goes beneath the sea? Not metaphorically. Literally. It's a question international law has never had to answer, and for the Pacific it now comes with a deadline. Sea levels in the region are rising at roughly 3 to 4 millimetres a year, faster than the global average, and faster still in some locations due to local subsidence and ocean currents. This essay examines what that means for statehood, for maritime boundaries, and for peoples who have lived on their islands for three thousand years.Pacific Dispatch is an audio essay series from Fiji Political Review. The written essay is available at fijipoliticalreview.com.