The South Pacific Ocean that surrounds Vanuatu permeates the landscape and culture alike, carving channels of thousands of years of ancient knowledge still passed down to this day. According to a common Vanuatuan folk tale, the deity Qat sculpted humans from a tree and lifted the land scooped up from the seafloor to form every island and mold every hill, before covering the earth with lush and magnificent trees, tame animals, and fruit-bearing plants. But generations later, Qat’s bountiful resources are in jeopardy. A new tale is being told in rapid and dramatic fashion. As sea levels rise and storms intensify, the climate crisis is leaving Vanuatu’s communities struggling to stay afloat. Tropical cyclones. Floods. Ocean acidification. Sea level rise. Together, the effects of climate change are threatening Vanuatu’s barrier reefs and hundreds of native species on both land and sea. The damage from climate change is coupled with the frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity that result from its precarious placement along the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, depleting natural resources that provide a secure standard of living through fisheries and coastal industries.

Willy Missack, technical advisor to the Vanuatu Climate Action Network, diagnoses the problem: “Vanuatu is ranked one of the riskiest countries on the Earth because of two things: One is that Vanuatu is located in the belt of cyclones, so with global warming […] the cyclone seasons have shifted and become longer. Now, our cyclone season starts from November to April, which is not usual. Also, we are on the Ring of Fire, which [according to the] most recent World Risk Report, recorded 40,000 yearly earthquakes in Vanuatu.”

Today, Vanuatu is still recovering from Cyclone Pam, which struck in 2015, one of the two most disastrous cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere since records have been kept. This catastrophic storm ripped through approximately 17,000 buildings, razed 96% of food crops, and displaced approximately 65,000 people. The destruction caused by Cyclone Pam amounted to $450 million USD, nearly 64% of the country’s GDP. And the crisis hasn’t let up: Since then, Vanuatu has experienced the impact of 15 medium-to-high-intensity storms. In March, 2023, Vanuatu was hit by two severely destructive Category 4 cyclones, with wind speeds of up to 251 km/hr and an extreme likelihood of catastrophic damage, less than five days apart. The twin tropical storms were followed by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, together affecting over 80% of the population. The price tag of this dual disaster was approximately $50 million, a costly toll on a nation with a GDP of $1.06 billion USD. Experiencing two severe cyclones within a week is highly unusual for any small island state. Normally, Vanuatu encounters an average of just two to three storms annually.