A Pacific island nation on the frontline of the climate change threat is building land to try hold back rising sea levels.
But as the majority of Tuvalu’s population applies to relocate to Australia, a haunting question is being confronted: what happens to a country if the people have to leave?
From above, Tuvalu looks impossibly delicate.
Thin strips of land surrounded by endless ocean.
In some places only a few metres separate lagoon from sea.
In others you’re a stones throw from the Pacific ocean on both sides.
But at high tide, the ocean surges through the ground flooding critical infrastructure, including Tuvalu’s only international airport runway.
Water doesn’t flood over it, but through it.
Places that never flooded before increasingly disappear into the sea with increasing regularity.
Now an entire nation is confronting the reality that staying home may soon be impossible.
In 2023 Australia and Tuvalu signed the historic Falepili Union treaty — a world-first climate migration and economic security agreement allowing Tuvaluans to permanently relocate to Australia through a special visa pathway.
Between 65 and 80 per cent of Tuvaluans applied for the visa in its inaugural year in 2025 — roughly 8,700 people of its estimated 10,000–13,000 eligible global population — making it one of the highest migration application rates on earth.
The first wave of visas were granted — 280 in total — and successful applicants have started making their way to Australia.
Despite the threat, the prospect of leaving home has left many Tuvaluans conflicted.
“I don’t want to leave,” Tevaogali Elisala says, nursing her four-year-old son Alfred on her knee in her home in Tuvalu.
“I wanted to stay back.”
For Tevaogali, the decision to apply for the visa was never simple. She had lived in Australia as a child and knew what migration could cost. Language fades. Traditions weaken. Identity stretches across oceans.
She worried that Alfred would grow up disconnected from the world that shaped her.
But over time, the pressures surrounding life in Tuvalu became harder to ignore. Housing shortages. Limited opportunities. Rising costs. Flooding. Heat. The sense that the islands were becoming more fragile each year.
“As we’re trying to build seawalls on the coastlines, the water’s actually seeping in from the ground,” she says.
“What’s gonna happen in five, 10 years’ time? At this rate, it has to happen.”
The realities of the sea
Across Tuvalu, climate change is no longer a distant or abstract threat — it shapes daily life.
Tuvalu, a chain of nine coral islands halfway between Australia and Hawaii, is one of the lowest-lying countries on Earth.
Its highest point is just 4.5 metres above sea level.
Over the past three decades the sea level around Tuvalu has risen by about 15 centimetres and scientists warn that could accelerate dramatically by the end of the century.
When king tides and storm surges sweep across the islands, the impacts ripple through almost every aspect of life.
Salt water floods homes and roads. Groundwater becomes contaminated. Staple crops struggle to survive.
And space — already one of Tuvalu’s most precious resources — becomes even tighter.
Funafuti, the country’s capital, has become increasingly overcrowded as people move in from the outer islands seeking jobs, education and healthcare.
The Falepili treaty has secured one pathway to higher ground but at the same time Tuvalu is undertaking the biggest construction project in its history.
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Around Funafuti, giant dredging ships are vacuuming sand from the lagoon floor and pumping it back onto the shoreline, creating entirely new elevated land designed to withstand rising seas.
Australian coastal engineer James Lewis says the project has already expanded Tuvalu’s landmass by more than 10 per cent.
“We’ve been reclaiming land and raising it above forecasted sea levels to create more flood-free land,” James says.
Out in the pristine waters of Tuvalu’s lagoon a cutter suction dredge vacuums up the top layer of sand and pumps it into a ring of large geo-textile containers, which build up higher and higher “like a wedding cake”.
“We’re getting people dry and high … and hopefully safe,” James says.
Over three phases funded by international partners, including the Australian government and the Green Climate Fund, Tuvalu’s Coastal Adaptation Project is expanding the country’s size and raising it out of harm’s way.
The reclaimed land is expected to hold homes, infrastructure and future government buildings.
Tuvalu Climate Change Minister Maina Talia’s house was once on the foreshore, where stretches of new land now sit.
He says the project is about more than survival, but warns that engineering alone won’t solve the climate crisis.
“Land in Tuvalu means life,” he says.
“It gives us assurance that our children have a future here. If you dismantle your relationship with the land in Tuvalu, you are no-one.“
Mr Talia bristles at Tuvaluans being referred to as climate migrants, saying “the whole discussion around people fleeing is wrong” while arguing that the treaty and coastal adaptation projects are designed to ensure people always have a home to return to.
“We are giving them options on the table for them to go and work, to go and create a new life and always come back home,” he says.
He maintains that land reclamation projects and mobility pathways are important, but it’s also crucial to remember that “the climate, the heart, the sea will continue to rise if we continue to turn a blind eye to these issues”.
For Tuvalu, these contradictions — building new land while preparing to leave — are becoming impossible to ignore.
But for many Tuvaluans, the Falepili visa is not simply about escaping climate change — it’s also about prosperity and seeking a better life.
Stella Futiga, Tuvalu’s first female camera operator at the Tuvalu Broadcasting Corporation, is preparing to leave behind a journalism career she loves.
“I’m gonna miss my workmates, especially my news team,” she says.
“[But my husband] wants to have a better life for our daughter,.”
In Tuvalu the average annual income is just over $22,000 and only 43 per cent of the population are in the labour force.
Stella plans to settle in regional Victoria, leave journalism behind and move into aged care work.
“We’re gonna stay there for good. Like, long-term,” she says.
Security, ‘brain drain’ and Taiwan
The prospect of young workers like Stella leaving Tuvalu concerns former prime minister Enele Sopoaga, who fears the migration pathway could hollow out the country’s workforce.
“Many of the people moving are between 18 to 45,” he says. “The active workforce of Tuvalu.”
Mr Sopoaga, now in opposition, argues that Tuvaluans should be able to seek a better life, but Australia’s climate support comes with uncomfortable contradictions, including the fact that it is one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters.
“Everything was being whitewashed by [hypothetical] economic partnerships and job opportunities,” Mr Sopoaga says.
“But the position of Australia is to not commit any reduction of greenhouse gases that is burning Tuvalu.“
Under the treaty, Australia has committed more than $110 million to Tuvalu, including funding for major coastal adaptation projects and reclaimed land.
And while Australia continues to export coal and gas, the federal government has committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Australia has also promised to come to Tuvalu’s aid in the event of military aggression, a humanitarian disaster, or a pandemic.
The treaty is part of a broader push by Australia to deepen security ties across the Pacific, where strategic competition is intensifying.
Tuvalu is one of three Pacific nations that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan over Beijing.
The treaty says both countries must mutually agree to certain security arrangements Tuvalu may want to make with other nations, which Mr Sopoaga says puts Tuvalu’s sovereignty at risk.
But Australia and Tuvalu say that clause would only apply in narrow circumstances, and maintain that the visa is not about one-way migration to Australia, but a mobility pathway that allows Tuvaluans to return home.
Australia’s High Commissioner to Tuvalu, David Charlton, adds that the treaty was developed “working hand in glove with the government of Tuvalu” to understand the needs and priorities of both countries — from security and community to economic opportunities.
“We’ve gotta keep front of mind that it’s a mobility pathway, which is two way. It’s not only one way,” he says.
“We saw a very, very strong response to the ballot. There’s an uplift in development effort. And we look forward to seeing Tuvaluans return to Tuvalu to bring skills and knowledge back into community.”
What holds people together
For now, life in Tuvalu continues much as it always has.
And in the Fatele, the traditional dance song of Tuvalu, the culture really comes alive.
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It begins quietly as performers sit with their heads bowed. Then the rhythm quickens, the drumming grows louder, smiles and cheers break out as the dance builds into a powerful explosion of joy.
Taitaifono Lokisae has gathered with her youth group to perform the dance.
“When I dance I feel happy, emotional, mostly excited,” she says.
“It’s from our ancestors, passed down through generations.“
The dance is described as having a “spirit of oneness” and is a symbol of the deep communal ties that bind this country.
Life here is built on a bedrock of family, caring for the community, and a strong faith in God.
As the sun sets over Funafuti, children continue playing on the airport runway after the final flight leaves for the day.
Families gather for evening prayers. Church songs drift through the humid air.
And for many here, that is what is truly at stake: not just land and infrastructure, but an entire way of life.
Tevaogali Elisala says wherever her son Alfred grows up, she wants him to remember where he came from.
“I want him to know our culture. I want him to be proud to be Tuvaluan,” she says.
But as the threat starts to divide those that leave from those that stay behind, Tuvalu is trying to hold onto something far harder to rebuild than land: the ties between people, place and home.
Watch The Pacific’s special on Tuvalu’s climate dilemma tonight on ABC Australia or ABC iView.
Credits
- Reporting and photography: Jordan Fennell
- Producer, photography and filming: Alice Lolohea
- Graphic design and video editing: Cordelia Brown
- Digital production and editor: Steven Viney
- The Pacific executive producer: Sean Mantesso
- Additional media & drone footage: Hiroyuki Watanabe, Taufaiva Ionatana, Tuvalu Broadcasting Corporation (TVBC), Hall Contracting, DFAT, AFP
Editor’s Note: This reporting was supported by the Sean Dorney Grant for Pacific Journalism through the Walkley Foundation.
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