Changing Oceans

Everyone knows the oceans are changing. Sea levels are rising, the water's getting hotter, coral is disappearing. But what does that actually mean? What impact are the changing oceans having on humans? Hannah Stitfall is joined by climate activist Shaama Sandooyea, who explains how climate change is impacting her home nation of Mauritius, and grammy-nominated DJ and environmental toxicologist Jayda G travels to the studio to tell Hannah about her new CNN film, 'Blue Carbon.'

Shaama Sandooyea (Intro):

One of my fondest memories is me standing on the beach in Flic en Flac in Mauritius, which is on the west coast. This is the beach where I used to go with my parents and my family during summer trips.

This is one of my most favourite beaches because of the memories, because of the laughter of the people there because of the scent, the smell of the food, the whole place is just amazing.

But unfortunately, that the change over the past decades because of the beach erosion, so we lost actually a huge amount of beach, small island developing states, we are being affected so much by the climate crisis to the point that the land is being reduced. And yet we are barely contributing to it. So the way that we see climate change in in other countries is very serious as well. But small islands came to a point where it's disrupting the society there. It's disrupting the way of life and the way that the people function.

Hannah Stitfall:

This is Oceans: Life Under Water, a podcast series that brings the oceans and the incredible life within them right into your headphones.

I'm Hannah Stitfall. And in this episode: Changing Oceans. We all know that climate change is having a huge impact on our seas. Trawling alone emits as much CO2 as the whole aviation industry. But away from the scary stats, what do the changing oceans actually look like?

Shaama Sandooyea (Intro):

It's a huge part of us to be from Mauritius. Because wherever you are around the world, and you see Mauritan, the joy that you have. But having that be stripped away is is ripping off our identity of ourselves.

Hannah Stitfall:

Is there any hope?

Jayda (Intro):

Blue carbon essentially is where various plants within an ecosystem they're really good at pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it into the ground where it stays. We're basically giving them like a new press release. We're like, come on guys. This is like the big new, like environmental ecosystem that we should be really paying attention to.

Hannah Stitfall:

This is Oceans: Life Under Water, Episode 11.

I'm really pleased to be joined today by Shaama Sandooyea. Shaama is a marine biologist from Mauritius. She staged the first ever underwater climate protest to highlight the impacts that climate change is having on Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome into the studio Shaama. Hello!

Shaama Sandooyea:

Hello! How are you?

Hannah Stitfall:

I'm very well! Where are you?

Shaama Sandooyea:

I'm currently in Serbia. I'm not in Mauritius at the moment.

Hannah Stitfall:

Oh, I see. Is that where you're living then?

Shaama Sandooyea:

Yes, at the moment. Yes.

Hannah Stitfall:

A bit different from Mauritius.

Shaama Sandooyea:

Well, it's not surrounded by the ocean. So yeah, it's quite different.

Hannah Stitfall:

Tell me where you're from. I mean, for some of our listeners that might not have ever had the opportunity to go to Mauritius. I mean, I never have, I would love to. Tell us what it's like. What does it look like? What does it sound like? Tell us a bit about Mauritius.

Shaama Sandooyea:

Okay, so I might be sounding a bit nostalgic, when I'm talking about it because I love my country so much. But basically Mauritius, as all of you probably know is it's an island. It's a small island. And it's found right in the middle of the ocean in the Indian Ocean. And it's like on the south eastern coast of East Africa, East of Madagascar, and it's really a dot on the map. But I also like to say that Mauritius is not just a small island, but it's actually a large ocean state because it has 2.3 million kilometres square of exclusive economic zone which is like maritime zone and everything. Mauritius itself is the main island but we do have smaller islands around like Rodrigues, Agaléga, St Brandon, Chagos and Tromelin. And probably Mauritius is also famous for the dodo.

Mauritius for me, it's a country that has many facets. So, the first thing that I say when I think about Mauritius is the beauty, the multicultural, the diversity of the people, of the languages, of the way of living. So, there is this part of Mauritius that is abundant with life. You have the endemic plants, you have insects, you have the birds that are flying by the mountains, you have the wetlands. They are sheltering, migrating birds from Europe basically. They are very important for us. We also have mangroves that are protecting the coastline so they are like these trees that are guarding the coast of the island. And of course we have sea grasses, sometimes you can catch a seahorse there. We have the coral reefs. And these coral reefs, they are home to the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, different types of fish of eels, sea turtles, that's one side of the country that, that I really like to put forward like this, this quality of life, this diversity of life that exists there, the colours, the green forests, the green mountains, and also the blue ocean. And this is just fabulous.

But unfortunately, there is also another side of Mauritius, which is a bit damaged. We have, of course, social issues, a lot of inequalities on the island, but when we focus a bit more about the environment, there is a part of Mauritius that is, that has been pretty much destroyed. I would say since since the colonisation of the island, by the Dutch, British and French, of course, at the time, they were not fully aware of the environment and the importance of protecting it. So a lot of our natural endemic forest has been cleared. And also, of course, the dodo were killed and a lot of animals started disappearing because of that. For example, we had dugongs in the Mauritian waters. But of course, sailors started killing them to feed.

So there is also the side of the island that I really want to have in mind. Because when I speak of about Mauritius, to anyone, everyone is actually very excited about it, Oh Mauritius, it's perfect! Yeah, yeah, it is beautiful. And I cannot I'm always amazed by the diversity of life, every time I'm seeing a new fish, I'm super excited about it. But also there is this part that is destroyed. And I want to raise awareness on it so that people can understand, Okay, this is beautiful, this is natural, this is paradise, but also we have other issues behind and these issues, they are growing faster than the country can recover faster than the animals can recover. So this is how I would like to describe Mauritius. It has plenty of faces, multifaceted, but beautiful.

Hannah Stitfall:

I mean, it sounds wonderful. Sign me up! Sign me up. I want to go there right now. So for some of our listeners that may not know what a small nation island is, can we can we just expand on what that actually means?

Shaama Sandooyea:

Well, of course! The most common term that is used for that is 'small island developing state'. So basically, there are many small islands that are developing countries around the world, whether it's in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean. You do have like small land territories, if I can say that. But the ocean is, they have a bigger ocean territory, but they're just like, very small lands.

And they share challenges that are quite similar, whether it's social, environmental, or economical. Like, for example, on the islands, on the small island developing states, there are limited resources, we don't have as enough resources as any other bigger country. And that's a problem because we need to import. Import products, we depend on in our international trade, whether it's for food, whether it's for transportation, or for development and everything. So there is that.

There is also the fact that the small islands, they are quite a way far away from from the mainland. So in terms of travelling, transportation, it's very complicated. For example, when you're living in Europe, you're living in the US or Australia or Asia, whichever, like a big continent, you can travel, you can travel and it's fairly easy. But to get out of Mauritius, for example, you need to have the aeroplane. So it's always that remoteness that is very challenging. I know for example, a lot of Mauritians that never left the country, and probably never will because it does cost a lot of money. So we have that as well.

And we have the fact that most of these islands they are they are located on subtropical latitude, but the problem is that these places they are more susceptible to natural disasters, like heavy rainfall, cyclones, typhoons, etc. So having these conditions which make them more prone to disasters, and knowing that there are limited resources on the island, it's complicated for recoveries, complicated for even to be prepared for these things and then to recover.

Also, these islands they they are not just limited in terrestrial resources, but they have a vast maritime resources like like really big maritime zone and a lot of these islands depend on the ocean. Depend on the ocean for food, depend on the ocean for travelling, depend on the ocean for, for just being, as part of their culture as part of who they are. So that's mostly how I would describe the small island nation.

Hannah Stitfall:

And tell us a bit about what's happening with the small island nations and climate change.

Shaama Sandooyea:

Okay, so even if all small island developing states, they are facing the same challenges, not all of them are being affected by the same way, by climate change. If we take the example of Vanuatu, if we take the example of some other islands in the Pacific, of course, sea level rise is, is gonna be a huge problem for them, a huge crisis for them because it's a flat island, so it's easier for them to be swallowed. But for example, in Mauritius and Reunion Island, we are mostly volcanic islands, and we have mountains we have higher lands. So of course, the sea level rise is going to affect us as well, as it is already – it's eating a lot of our beaches, but there is still land for us to move to there is still this, there will still be Mauritius, Mauritius will still exist on the map. But it's just that, of course, when the sea is rising, when the sea level is rising, people are going to be displaced, they're gonna lose their homes, they're gonna lose everything. And this displacement is not something that we have enough space for or enough capacity, resources, especially in terms of money. So the challenges are quite complicated.

Also, it depends a lot on… well, we know that every year we have climate phenomenon like El Nino or La Nina. So that also really influences the climate on the islands. In one way you can have, for example, the El Nino we had the El Nino for the summer of 2023 to 2024. And the masquerade islands, Madagascar, we, we witnessed, like an obscene amount of rainfall of water coming from the sky. And it was so serious that the rainy season started way earlier. It started since November. And usually it starts around January, February. It started since November, and almost every week, the government had to close schools because it's too much water. It's risky. There were many, many accidents, and you cannot just let people go out when it's raining that much. And we had some severe cases, not just in Mauritius, but in Reunion Island as well, in Madagascar, where houses are flooded completely people don't they are pushed out by the water. And they don't know what to do it was it was very traumatising for the people. Also, at the same time, if we have, for example, La Nina, well, it's going to be drier condition, which means that we don't have water.

So even if we do our best to prepare and adapt for it, it's something that we are limited to adapt to it, we for example, the piece of land that we have is not going to sustain 200 millimetres of water in 24 hours. It's never going to do that. But also another thing is, of course, when we talk about rain, we talk about drought, we talking about food security. So a lot of a lot of these islands, they have some small plantations, even if they cannot plant like everything. But the extreme climatic conditions make it really hard to grow anything. And even if we managed to do it, where the prices are just going to skyrocket because it's too… it's not growing well or it's bad. So this is these are the main points that I will say about how climate change is affecting small island nations.

Of course, I'm not even mentioning about the social issues that come behind it, but it's a lot.

Hannah Stitfall:

And just for our listeners at home, El Nino and La Nina are just extreme climatic events.

Shaama Sandooyea:

They are actually natural currents that occur. They are just the different length. El Nino is a different direction and La Nina is a different direction. So these currents they occur in the Pacific Ocean, and they influence the weather a lot in South America, in Australia, east of Asia, and of course Africa as well. For us in the Indian Ocean. If we have El Nino, it means that we're going to have warm currents and with a lot of humidity and rain, but La Nina for example, in Mauritius, in Africa, of course, it's small, drier conditions. But if it's drier for us, then it's also more typhoons for Southeast Asia. These are like natural currents that exist already. But they influence the climate a lot on the neighbouring countries and with climate change is becoming extreme.

Hannah Stitfall:

And how often is it an El Nino or La Nina year? Is that Is it just every every other year?

Shaama Sandooyea:

No. For example, for the past three years, we've actually had La Nina consecutively because yeah, it was a bit problematic for African countries because they had long droughts, but it's not necessarily one year El Nino and another year La Nina, it can be for example three years La Nina and one year El Nino.

Hannah Stitfall:

Yeah, cuz I was gonna say you know if it, if it is one year one and one year the other then, you know if it was raining raining a lot, then you could sort of, you know, store that water to see us through the next year but you know if La Nina lasting three years. That's serious drought, isn't it?

Shaama Sandooyea:

And yeah, it is it is serious drought. And that's why for the past few years, we've seen like horrible drought conditions in African nations like unbelievable, but also now we can see that they are being flooded because of the of the rain and everything.

Hannah Stitfall:

Ok, back to Shaama…

If Mauritius, as a small island nation, if it were to become unlivable at one point, because of the effects of, of climate change, how would that affect your identity?

Shaama Sandooyea:

I mean, how would you feel about that, and I guess other people from Mauritius, the thing is that we are already feeling it. Because like I mentioned earlier, we had some pretty serious rainfall for the summer 2023/2024. And you don't recognise your home anymore, you don't recognise the island anymore. Like it's destroyed, your house is destroyed. The island where you see is destroyed, the ecosystems are destroyed. And you feel a sense of, of danger, of insecurity, because you're not sure if you can still be here in the next 10 years. And for sure, if you want to have kids, you're not even sure they will be able to live here or to sustain themselves here. Like what is the future of the people there? What is the future of the next generations? And, and that's something very hard because we are I mean, we are Mauritians, we are from an island, we see life differently, but also at the same time, it's a huge part of us to be from Mauritius. Because wherever you are around the world and you see Mauritians, the joy that you have that someone is from an island is here next to you. It's amazing! But having that be stripped away is, is ripping off our identity of ourselves. It's a big thing for us.

Hannah Stitfall:

And are you hopeful for the future of Mauritius?

Shaama Sandooyea:

Ah, well, not so much.

Hannah Stitfall:

Oh!

Shaama Sandooyea:

Um, yeah, I'm very sorry about it. I am not hopeful at all because when we look at the picture of how Mauritius is, it's an island that has been destroyed for the past 400 years probably. And we don't have enough political will or enough strength to actually make a change. I'm very, I'm criticising always, I'm criticising the government and also the private sector because they are profit driven, they are not driven by the future of the island. Because if they were, they would actually work together with, with the communities there, with the people there, with the workers on the island. But it's not happening that way is always a system of profit driven. And also at the same time, Mauritius is, I mean, all the states, they are not even contributing to 1% of the climate crisis. It's not proportionate at all! I mean, whatever we do, even if we start planting a lot of trees on the island, okay, it can help us when we want to, I mean, for example, we want to adapt to the situation of higher heavy rainfall, planting trees and mangroves, it's actually going to help us to adapt to it and to be stronger to be more resilient. But at the same time, for example, like I mentioned, when we have 200 millimetres of water falling down from the sky, how do we do it? How many trees do we need for it? So there is this part where we are not in control of the climate crisis at all, we are not, we cannot do anything about it for now. I mean, we can advocate for it, we can push, we can pressure the world leaders, we can pressure them, we can push our government, we can pressure the private sector to stop depleting the ocean like that. But I am not hopeful at all about the future of the island. And now we've come to a point where they've built so many houses on the beach, that they are going on mountains, to build hotels and villas there for wealthy people. I mean, if Mauritians cannot afford housing in the country, why? Why are we doing these things? But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be hopeless about it. I feel hopeless about it. But that doesn't mean I should, I should just let it go. Because that's what that's what they want us to be hopeless and not do anything and just let them get away with it.

Hannah Stitfall:

Right, so Shaama? We know, things are pretty bad. Yeah. How can we stop it?

Shaama Sandooyea:

Oh, there are so many things that can be done. Okay. So there are things that we all can do by ourselves. Although I believe that it's not big enough to make a change. I'm very sorry for saying that. I'm trying not to break the morale here. But for example…

Hannah Stitfall:

Give me some hope!

Shaama Sandooyea:

Like switching the way that we consume things, increasing our awareness about it, this is very important. But also, we need to know that every action does not have the same impact at every level. For example, when I'm refusing to eat meat, when I'm refusing to use plastic, okay, it's going to reduce the amount of CO2 of emitting all the plastic and putting in back in nature and everything. But also at the same time, there is a huge cooperate there still producing plastic and giving to others. So the most consequent actions I can suggest is to take it up to politics, to take it up to the corporates, to the companies that are destroying constantly destroying areas because of the resources because of the oil, the oil industry, keep the pressure on the oil industry keep the pressure on where the government's on, on world leaders that are refusing to acknowledge the need for climate urgency, because they keep on admitting and they don't know, but it's affecting us here in Mauritius, for example. So these are my line of actions that I would highly recommend to people. And I believe that if we keep doing that we they will need to change but yeah, that's my take on it.

Hannah Stitfall: