0:00 – The Vanishing Island: A Postcard Under Threat
1:12 – Walking Through a Disappearing Childhood
2:45 – The 364-Page Crisis: Decoding the climate report
4:02 – Living on a Countdown: “Will My Kids Have a Home?”
5:18 – A Wedding Date with an Expiration Date
6:35 – From Indentured Labor to Australian Integration
7:50 – The Last Stand for a Unique Muslim Identity
9:15 – 44cm by 2070: The Science of the Surge
10:20 – “A Box-Ticking Exercise”: The Community’s Frustration
11:35 – The Double-Bind: Why Are We Being Left Behind?
12:10 – The Final Stewards of the Cocos Islands What happens when your homeland begins to disappear?
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands sit just 1.5m above sea level. For the 460 Cocos Malays living on Home Island, climate change isn’t a future threat, it’s a daily reality. With the ocean rising 6.5mm every year, the Australian Government warns that permanent habitation may soon be “unviable.”
A draft Federal Government report – the Coastal Hazard Risk Management and Adaptation Plan – reveals a stark warning for the future.
Projections show the remote Australian territory of the Cocos Islands could be uninhabitable by 2070. Yet, the Federal Government says “no decisions” have been finalised to protect the people living there.
With the final report due in months, WA Correspondent Christopher Tan travelled 3,000km from Perth to the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, where the Cocos Malay may soon become the first Australian community, culturally forced to relocate due to a changing climate.
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