TONGA – BELOW SEA LEVEL (Tonga, 2010)

The changing climate threatens not only the residents of various islands in the Pacific Ocean, it even threatens the physical existence of the islands themselves. Vanuatu, officially the happiest country on earth, already sees its exposed coral reefs submerged at spring tides, and ultimately fears that it will go under itself. The same is true for the Polynesian island group of Tonga. Although sci-entists disagree about the seriousness of the rise in sea level, hard data demonstrates that the sea level around Tonga has risen by ten centimetres over the last decade. Antonio Zambardino used two methods to make this hard-to-see process visible photographically. He has residents of Tonga pose in the water, as if the worst-case scenario had already taken place. In addition, he recorded the hur-ricane damage and erosion along Tonga’s coastline – because rising temperatures not only lead to a higher sea level, but also to more destructive hurricanes.