Climate stories

My name is Juaniya Kawiri and I’m from Saibai.

I have 5 children and 17 grandchildren and 2 great-grandsons. But they all live down south on the mainland now. I’m here on Saibai, alone, by myself, in my homeland.

I grew up here but back then, life was very different from how it is for kids now. This land is my childhood, my grandparents brought me up right here on the land where we stand now.

When I was growing up, there were no seawalls, just rocks. This island used to be bigger. When I was growing up, the land went out 3 to 4 metres past where it is now. All that land has been eroded. We knew about climate change from the TV and on the news, but we didn’t know it was going to happen to us so quickly.

I left Saibai in 2004 for work, and when I came back in 2019, it was very different.

The water is rising. The king tides are the scariest thing. I experienced the king tides as they came under my house. The water damaged all my beautiful plants. I used to have lots of beautiful plants and I ended up in tears when I saw that they had been destroyed by the floods.

My dad planted all these coconut trees and bananas. When I came back in 2019, I noticed a newly-built seawall to prevent our homes and gardens from getting flooded by the king tide.

Everybody in my community feels the same as me about this. The rising water levels – like water from the swamp coming into our backyards – means we can’t grow vegetables. Everybody is talking about it. Even the rain, and how rain patterns have changed a lot.

All these changes make me sad. Just two days ago, I asked another Aunty staying with me to have a look at our flooded paddocks. It just shows that there’s a lot of water underneath these lands, and it’s scary.

This is our motherland, our community loves this place. We want to preserve it for the future, and we hope the government will help us with the climate change issues we are facing now. We would be happy if they could help us.

I support Uncle Paul and Uncle Pabai very much. I am supporting them for the betterment of our homeland, and for our younger generations to come. There aren’t many Elders left, and we need our current leaders to preserve this our future generations. We don’t want to lose this place, and everybody wants to stay in their homes.

The Australian government should have a duty of care to stop climate change. I’m just hoping we will get something good out of this court case we have made. I urge you to help Uncle Paul and Uncle Pabai on their journey. I hope everybody will either come or watch the court case beginning in June. Our families will be gathering for those special days, where we will have the opportunity to be heard.

My name is Juaniya Kawiri, and I am a climate witness. I have experienced and seen climate change, and it’s happening right now.