Journey of a Lifetime

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Following the travels of the winners of the annual BBC/RGS's dream journey competition

Following the travels of the winners of the annual BBC/Royal Geographical Society's dream journey competition

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Journey of a Lifetime: 2009: Dan Box. The Sinking Islands

2009: The Sinking Islands

2009: Dan Box. The Sinking Islands

BBC Radio 4 - Journey of a Lifetime, 2009: Dan Box. The Sinking IslandsSearch BBC

Dan Box visits the Carteret Islands, where evacuation is taking place as sea levels rises.

Dan Box attempts to reach the Carteret Islands where a mass evacuation is taking place as the sea level rises. From 2009.

In 2009 Dan Box was awarded the Royal Geographical Society (in association with the BBC) prize for the most enterprising dream travel idea.

The Anglo-Australian journalist's Journey of a Lifetime is a visit to the remote South Pacific coral atoll group known as the Carteret Islands, part of Papua New Guinea. But these low-lying islands rise barely a metre above the level of the surrounding ocean.

Rising sea levels are threatening Carteret Islanders due to the threat of King Tides and global warming. The previous winter's great storm resulted in the islands being badly flooded, with their productive soil rendered useless by the salt in the water. 

This left the locals with no way of growing crops in their plots, or 'gardens' so local authorities started a process of mass evacuation. Eventually thousands of men, women and children will be resettled in the neighbouring island community of Bougainville.

Dan Box was determined to watch the world's first organised exodus as a result of climate change as it got underway. But first he had to negotiate the tricky journey - diplomatic as well as physical - that would take him to these tiny spikes of coral amid the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

Producer: Simon Elmes

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2009.

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