The northeast winds pick up as the sun hides behind ink-dark clouds enveloping the sky. The roar of the 170-mph wind becomes deafening. Lightning flashes. This was Cyclone Gita: Over the course of two weeks, Gita wreaked havoc across the Southern Pacific, causing millions of dollars in damage in Samoa alone.

No impact of the climate crisis is more violent and visible than the severe weather events battering Pacific Island nations. In 2016, Cyclone Winston struck Fiji with unprecedented ferocity, earning the title of the most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere. The Category 5 storm unleashed wind gusts in excess of 180 mph and generated waves up to 12 metres high. Winston claimed more than 40 lives and destroyed homes, vital infrastructure, and valuable crops. The aftermath of this disaster affected more than 340,000 people, approximately 40% of the archipelago’s total population. Samoa, an island country just over 700 miles to Fiji’s northeast, is still reeling from the ruinous effects of Cyclone Evan, which struck in 2012. In its wake, 600 homes were destroyed and 7,500 people were displaced. The total price tag of the damage added up to approximately $313 million, or 30% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011.

Cyclones are just one consequence of the climate crisis facing communities in Fiji and Samoa. Rising sea levels are causing food shortages and mass displacement, ravaging villages whose culture centres on the interconnectedness of people and nature.

Communities on the island of Vanua Levu Island, Fiji, reflect on life before and after experiencing the effects of climate change in interviews with members of the Pacific Ocean and Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA). Sera Diiva, an elderly woman living in the village of Karoko, describes the impact of rising sea levels on her home and recalls happier days. “Today, you can see the difference. Whenever there’s a high tide, we are swimming here.” Due to rising sea levels, Sera and her family no longer have access to the fruit and vegetable garden that once occupied the neighbourhood. The influx of seawater has degraded gardens and farmland, depriving people of traditional foods such as breadfruit. Adi Sivo Yabakitolu from the village of Vunidogoloa laments: “After saltwater intrusion, most of what our forefathers planted to survive struggles to grow. Anything that [we] plant mostly dies because of salt water.”