“We are now swimming against the tide and trying our best to survive,” Lavenia Naivalu told Cop28 this month.
Speaking on an Indigenous panel representing the Pacific, the iTaukei woman from the island of Yasawa in Fiji told the annual climate conference that rising sea levels and flash flooding are “a real threat” to daily life in her country. Last month alone two flash floods in Fiji’s central and eastern divisions caused landslides and blocked roads.
