The Manuellas: Pioneers of a New Era in Climate Migration

In a groundbreaking move, the Manuella family has become one of the first to journey from Tuvalu to Australia under a newly established treaty aimed at addressing the dire impacts of climate change. This significant step highlights the urgent need for innovative solutions as rising sea levels threaten the very existence of their Pacific Island homeland.

Under the terms of the Falepili Union treaty, Australia has introduced an unprecedented visa program allowing 280 Tuvaluans to relocate each year. This initiative is designed to provide refuge to those on the front lines of climate change, offering a lifeline to communities facing the harsh realities of environmental shifts.

Despite the promise of safety and stability, the transition poses unique challenges. For families like the Manuellas, who recently arrived in Melbourne with their four children, the move entails not only adapting to a new environment but also striving to maintain their cultural identity in a foreign land. With a relatively small Tuvaluan community in Australia, sustaining connections to their heritage will be a vital, albeit difficult, aspect of their new life.

The journey of the Manuella family symbolizes both hope and the complex tapestry of emotions that come with leaving one’s homeland. As they settle into their new surroundings, they embody the resilience and spirit of a people determined to thrive despite the adversities posed by a changing planet.

“It’s a new home and it’s a new journey … Tuvalu will always be in our heart and our home, but Australia is another new chapter to our family journey,” Telieta said.

She worked for Tuvalu’s department of labour, while her husband Kaumaile was in the government’s public works department with a background in architecture.

The couple are among the more than 8,700 people to apply for the Falepili Mobility Pathway visa, which grants permanent residency to those chosen.

“We came to the conclusion that in case we were selected, it would be a good opportunity in terms of better life, better education for our children, better job opportunities,” Telieta said.

The prospect of being chosen was a one in more than 30 chance.

Kaumaile recalled the moment he heard the news that his family had been successful.

“It was funny, I was in the shower and then came out of the room, and my wife was on the phone. I saw her face was like changing, it was like surprised. So I said ‘oh, what happened?’ and I thought something happened to her family or relative. But actually she just told me that we got an email saying that we’d been selected.”

Permanent residency granted

Professor Jane McAdam, director of the University of New South Wales’ Evacuations Research Hub, explains the visa doesn’t require applicants to have work or study plans already arranged.

“It provides opportunities for what we call livelihood diversification, it enables kids to go to school in Australia, for people to acquire further skills and training which they might want to use here, but equally might want to take back to Tuvalu,” McAdam told SBS News.

“I think that’s why this is something that the Tuvaluan government actually requested from Australia, because it sees it as embedding that skills diversification, that broader opportunity for remittances to be sent back to Tuvalu to support the economy there, rather than this being a one-way street for people to leave Tuvalu.”

The Tuvaluan diaspora in Melbourne is small but tight-knit, and the Manuellas consider themselves lucky to be staying with their relative, Niuelesolo Boland, who is deeply involved with the community.

Boland believes the government could do more to help new arrivals settle in Australia.

“I think it’s falling back on the Tuvaluan diaspora in Australia to pick up the burden,” he said.

“Like a lot of them are looking at forms like ‘what is this?’ you know? Coming from Tuvalu, where we don’t even have tax file numbers, you know? Or a Medicare scheme. So to them it’s totally foreign.”

Is random selection a concern?

While the Falepili Mobility Pathway has proven hugely popular in Tuvalu, some experts have taken issue with the random nature of the visa ballot system.

Dr Yvonne Su, from Harvard University’s School of Public Health, points out that the visa was partially designed to assist those on the front-line of climate change and rising sea levels.

“Climate change is not random. Climate change doesn’t just happen to anybody, unfortunately,” she told SBS News.

“So, because climate change is not by chance, it frightens me that we’ve allowed the people on this visa, that I have to say has been branded with climate change resilience as a big part of it, and saying climate mobility and saying you’re protecting them from climate change as a big part of it, you’re saying that could be by chance.”

Federal Minister for Pacific Affairs, Pat Conroy, said the random selection of the ballot was critical to ensure Tuvalu avoided brain drain, the large-scale emigration of highly skilled and educated individuals.

“If you didn’t have a ballot system that introduced an element of random selection, in the end the people who would qualify first for this visa would be the people with the highest educational and professional qualifications within Tuvalu, and that would lead to a brain drain,” he said.

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