“There’s Just No More Land”: Community-led Planned Relocation as Last-resort Adaptation to Sea Level Rise in Solomon Islands

Photo courtesy of Cyril Eberle for Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from hrw.org

Walande is a community of 800 people in the Pacific Island nation of Solomon Islands. From the shore of their current village site, a few wooden posts poking out from the waves are visible at low tide–the only remnants of a tiny artificial island off the coast of South Malaita, in the Solomons, that was once their thriving small island home. Rising seas, stronger storms, and higher “king tides” repeatedly displaced community members from their former tiny island home.

For decades, most of the island community rebuilt homes and seawalls, and adapted in place. But the 2009 king tides ultimately convinced most residents that their island was no longer habitable. According to the former chairman of Walande, Robert T. (67): “We left because we did not know where else to go. We had to move to safety. The only alternative for us was the mainland.”

The community opted for a measure of last resort: relocating their entire village to a 46-acre site on the mainland where some community members were already living and to which community members had customary tenure claims. Requests made by the community to the Solomon Islands’ government and international actors for assistance were not fully met; over the course of several decades, members of the Walande community imagined, financed, and executed their planned relocation, largely without support from the national government or international donors. While moving an entire community inherently involves losses, the people of Walande have shown ingenuity, leadership, and dedication to building a future more protected from the climate crisis.