Tuvalu is an Oceanian country located in the Ellice Islands in Polynesia, halfway between Hawaii and Australia, in the Pacific Ocean – it consists of four islands and five real coral reefs. With an area of 26 square kilometers and a population of just over 12,000, Tuvalu is the third smallest country after the Vatican and Nauru.
The island first came under the attention of the United Kingdom at the end of the 19th century, and then became a colonial territory between 1916 and 1974. In 1974, the Ellice Islands finally held a referendum on secession from Great Britain and the creation of a new country called Tuvalu. As a result, they broke away completely from the Gilbert Islands, and by 1978 they were a fully independent nation – but now their very survival was at stake.
Hard times bring tough decisions
The Tuvalu government announced back in November that it is working to almost completely digitize the island nation and transplant it into the metaverse. Simon Coffey, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tuvalu, was the first to report on this at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27 Summit on Implementation of Climate Protection Measures. He said it was time to look for alternative solutions for his country’s survival, and this includes Tuvalu becoming the first digital country in the metaverse – an online empire that will expand Virtual Reality Use it to help users interact.
According to the foreign minister, this is the only way to preserve Tuvalu’s history and culture, which will soon be completely destroyed by rising sea levels.
Our land, our ocean, our culture, our people are the most valuable treasures, so to protect them from harm, we move them to the cloud, to the online world, so anything can happen in the physical world. The idea is to continue functioning as a country and, after that, to preserve our culture, our knowledge and our history in a digital space
Coffey said in the video, in which he stands on a digital replica of an island threatened by rising sea levels. The foreign minister first came to the world’s attention at COP26 last year, when he was at the conference Standing knee deep in the sea I talked about Tuvalu being on the front line of climate change. And from Tuvalu’s perspective, it has been forced to act because countries around the world have not done enough to prevent climate change.
But how do you live in metaverse?
In terms of lifestyle, of course not, because we are still living beings – however, the goal of the Oceanian nation is that in the event of a problem, the former residents can return to their former home at any time with the help of technology, as everyone else would need for this pair of reality glasses default. The digital world built in the metaverse will be an exact replica of the nine islands of Tuvalu and their surroundings, virtually from the tiniest stones to the trees to the most unique buildings.
Planning has already begun, but there is not much time to hesitate, because 40 percent of the state capital of 12,000 inhabitants, Funafuti, is already covered by water at high tide, and according to surveys, water will completely cover the islands of Tuvalu by the end of the century.
Kofe is confident that creating a digital state will allow Tuvalu to continue functioning as a state, even if it is completely submerged, but residents will certainly have to find a new home, he wrote. Reuters.
(Cover photo: An aerial view of Tuvalu on November 28, 2019. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
