A guide to Neverland

Now in crowdfunding, the project by Alice Piciocchi and Andrea Angeli tells of a small archipelago in Micronesia in danger of being submerged by the Pacific Ocean.

14,593 km: this is the distance separating Milan from Kiribati, a little state in Micronesia in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The 33 atolls this state consists of, a former British colony that gained independence in 1979, are just a little more than 3 metres above sea level. Climate change and global warming have raised the ocean’s level and within 20 years Kiribati, which is already partly submerged, will become inhabitable – above all owing to the risk of freshwater reserves contamination – within 50 it will disappear from the maps like a modern Atlantis.

The president of the archipelago, Mr Anote Tong, has recently acquired a large piece of land in Vanua Levu, the second-biggest island in Fiji, where he is planning to gradually relocate all the inhabitants of Kiribati. This is the first time in history that a whole nation is preparing for a mass exodus due to the greenhouse effect.

The history of a nation on the verge of disappearance and of a whole population forced to emigrate can be both charming and terrifying. That is why Alice Piciocchi and Andrea Angeli have decided to travel the 14,593 km separating Milan from Kiribati to gather elements, experiences, first-hand testimonies and collect them in the book “Kiribati. A guide to Neverland” to help safeguard the roots and the here and now of a community.

How would you feel if you were aware that never again you’ll lay your gaze on the landscape that has accompanied you all your life? If you suddenly ceased to see that stretch of land, that mountain, that sea or street from your window? If out of the blue all that is familiar to you was doomed to disappear, to become a memory?

The place where we were born and raised affects the way we work, talk, raise our children, interact with our neighbours, organise our nation, its laws, customs and traditions. It endows us with a common identity that helps us grow as individuals. Our territorial and cultural identity is an essential part of our identity

Alice Piciocchi e Andrea Angeli, "Kiribati. A guide to Neverland" — Alice Piciocchi and Andrea Angeli, "Kiribati. A guide to Neverland"

The book aims to be a symbolic support to the memory of this land, a precious trace of what will be left behind. A memory for its inhabitants and a perpetual warning to everyone, that the wellbeing of our planet is a common responsibility that we cannot afford to ignore or to consider a negligible aspect of our existence.