Kiribati is a nation comprised of 33 atolls spread across a vast Pacific Ocean territory. The people are reliant on a limited land base and coastal zone fisheries for both nutrition and livelihood.

As the population and climate change advances, the security of island resources is challenged. The ecosystem integrity upon which islanders depend for climate change resilience is already being eroded. This shows a deteriorating quality of near-shore fisheries, degraded lagoon health, and reduced freshwater quality because the current management regimes for atoll and lagoon resources allows for an open resource access.

The Enhancing National Food Security Project being implemented by the Kiribati Ministry of Environment with support from the United Nations Development Programme and funded by the Least Development Country Fund is tackling these issues in Kiribati.

Abemama, an atoll located 152 kilometers southeast of Kiribati’s capital, Tarawa, and home to more than 3,000 i-Kiribati, hosted a team from the Research and Monitoring Unit of the Government’s Coastal Fisheries Division that carried out an underwater marine survey to start the work of conserving and restoring the country’s marine ecosystem.

The survey assessed the adverse impacts of climate change on coral reef ecosystems. These impacts pose serious threats to low lying atolls in Kiribati and its neighbors particularly sea level rise, warming sea surface temperature that put coral reefs under stress making it vulnerable to natural competition and potential human induced impacts such as pollution from land-based activities and destructive fishing practices.

Proposed sites that will be declared a Marine Protected Area have been marked and work has begun to restore and conserve a healthy marine ecosystem.

This five year project that concludes in 2020, is assisting Kiribati to build adaptive capacity to reduce vulnerability to climate change induced food shortages, and implementation of community adaptation measures to increase food security. The project covers 4 island atolls i.e. Abemama, Nonouti, Maiana and Tarawa.