Pulitzer Center Untold Stories

Carteret Islands: Welcome Ceremonies

Jennifer Redfearn, for the Pulitzer Center
Written September 29th

Carteret Islands:

We’ve been on the climate change awareness tour for four days. The group usually wakes around 5:30AM – when the roosters warm their vocal chords – and bathes in the nearest river or in the sea. Breakfast or kai kai in pidgin, the common language spoken on tour, is usually a plate of rice, soupy noodles with tin fish, and kaukau or sweet potato.

(On tour the Carteret Islanders are eating three meals a day, which is rare on the islands these days. The government sends an emergency shipment of rice to the islands two to four times a year, but when the supply runs low most families survive on one meal a day.)

After breakfast the group piles into the back of a flatbed pickup truck. The ride is thrilling. The truck thunders down the road like a roller coaster cart on rickety tracks stirring a cloud of dust in its wake.

Carteret Islands: Sacred Stones and the Rough Sea

Jennifer Redfearn, for the Pulitzer Center
Written September 22nd

Carteret Islands:

This morning one of the elders, John Sailik, stood at the northern tip of Han Island, whispered sacred words into a handful of stones, and cast them out to sea.

Nicholas, the youth tour leader, told us later that John inherited an ancestral power to control the sea, though John wouldn’t admit. He definitely seemed concerned; repeating to us throughout the morning that he hoped we would have a safe trip. His fears are justified. The community called on its strongest youth to represent them on the climate change awareness tour. If anything happens to the boat, the community would lose its family and its future leaders.

The banana boats, small single-engine motorboats, left the atoll mid-morning carrying seventeen young Carteret Islanders. We traveled in a boat with 10 islanders and over 12 bags. The open ocean no longer resembled a smooth expanse of glass. Instead wind swept across the ocean creating ripples along the surface and swells that surged toward the front of the boat. The boat crashed through the sea.

Carteret Islands: A Good Omen from the Sea

Jennifer Redfearn, for the Pulitzer Center
Written September 21st

Carteret Islands:

Today the community held a church service to commemorate the youth from the Carteret Islands who will travel to the mainland to discuss climate change and the relocation (the islanders plan to relocate from the Carteret Islands to Tinputz on mainland Bougainville).

The Carteret Islanders share the same clans – the eagle, dog, chicken and hornbill – and a similar culture and language with the Tinputz community. The elders are concerned, however, because some of the communities on Bougainville still have guns from the crisis – the 10-year civil war between Papua New Guinea and Bougainville. Violence can be a problem on the mainland.

Yet today they received a good omen from the sea. The tour leader, Nicholas, caught up with us after the service and invited us down to the beach where a fisherman was divvying up his catch – a giant stingray.

Carteret Islands: Every Drop Counts

Jennifer Redfearn, for the Pulitzer Center
Written September 18th

Carteret Islands

The first person we met this morning on the Carteret Islands was Nicholas, a 32-year-old fisherman with an easy smile who will lead the youth tour (climate change awareness tour) to Tinputz in the northeast corner of Bougainville. Tall with short spiky hair, Nicholas speaks three languages occasionally spicing up conversation with archaisms like “drunkard fellow.”

He agreed to an interview and we spent the morning walking around the main island. Han is approximately .6 miles long and it takes less than 10 minutes to walk across the width of the island. Small huts crowned with palm leaves line the white sand beach from point to point. Handmade canoes drifted past the island and young boys climbed coconut trees, their legs bound with cloth for support. Often a soft melodic voice could be heard singing in the distance.

Carteret Islands: Banana Boats on the Open Sea

Jennifer Redfearn, for the Pulitzer Center
Written September 17th

Carteret Islands:

The sea was calm today.

Most islanders travel by banana boat, a 15-foot single engine motorboat, between the Carteret Islands and Bougainville. The trip takes three to four hours, depending on the size of the ocean swells and the weight of the cargo. Back in the states, I received conflicting feedback about the banana boats. A journo from Japan wrote that they occasionally disappear whereas another one from Australia told the story of a friend who watched with dismay as the skipper tossed provisions overboard to prevent the boat from sinking. Still, he said, “it’s the safest, unsafe way to get to the islands.”

There were no other alternatives; the government ship –the safest way to travel to the atoll – only makes the trip four times a year, if not less. We had to travel by banana boat or not at all.

We decided to go.

The Crisis: Civil War in Papua New Guinea

Jennifer Redfearn, for the Pulitzer Center
Written September 16th

Last night I was on edge.

It wasn’t just the “ambassador.” Much of what I’d read about Bougainville before arriving painted a picture of a troubled and unstable country. Ten years of fighting for autonomy from Papua New Guinea and a brutal civil war ravaged the country in the 80s and 90s.

The “crisis” as the locals call it started in 1989 when villagers in the south protested against Rio Tinto, an international mining company that destroyed a mountainside of pristine rainforest to build one of the largest copper mines in the world.

After witnessing large-scale land destruction, the landowners fought to close the mine. In retaliation the company conspired with the central government to squash the protests. The central government in Papua New Guinea sent troops into Bougainville and set up a military blockade that prevented food, medical supplies, and fuel from entering the island. 

Yet the Bougainvilleans turned out to be a tough match for the national forces. Women, who are the traditional landowners, lay down in front of company tractors and protested with their children. Men later formed the BRA (Bougainville Revolutionary Army), built guns from WWII remnants, and powered trucks with biofuels made from coconuts.

Carteret Islands: Five Flights and Three Days Later

Jennifer Redfearn, for the Pulitzer Center
Written September 15th

The Carteret Islands are some of the most remote islands in the South Pacific.  Three days after leaving New York City and five flights later, we arrived in Buka at the tip of Bougainville, where we plan to catch a boat to the Carterets to document how climate change is impacting this low-lying atoll.

The trip was marked by serendipitous encounters including a chance meeting with my main source on the island, Ursula Rakova, at the departure lounge in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Ursula founded Tulele Peisa, an organization with a mission to relocate the Carteret Islanders to mainland Bougainville over the next ten years.

Our plan was to film the first five families as they traveled from their homeland on the Carterets to higher ground on mainland Bougainville, but Ursula told us yesterday that the relocation is on hold. The houses they are building for the families in Tinputz, a district located in the northeast corner of Bougainville, are incomplete.