Category: Marshall Islands

Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part multimedia project that spotlights the daily lives of Marshall Islands residents. Kim Wall, Coleen Jose, and Jan Hendrik Hinzel reported from the Marshall Islands and Arkansas in 2014 and 2015.

Ages, figures, and situations related to each character are tied to the on-the-ground reporting. However, some general information has been updated with dates noted in the text where necessary. Wall worked on this series until her untimely death on August 11, 2017. 

It takes three days on the open sea to journey from the Marshall Islands capital to Enewetak Atoll. You can’t see the atoll until you’re just miles away as it’s only feet above sea level. As you get closer, the sun fades behind clouds and the islands are shrouded in mist. Beaches are fringed not by coconut palms but Australian pines, trees praised for soaking up salt-spray and airborne radionuclides Read more…

More about Environment, Climate Change, Marshall Islands, Nuclear Justice, and Science

View More The poison and the tomb: One family’s journey to their contaminated home

Editor’s note: This is the final chapter of a three-part multimedia project that spotlights the daily lives of Marshall Islands residents. Kim Wall, Coleen Jose, and Jan Hendrik Hinzel reported from the Marshall Islands and Arkansas in 2014 and 2015.

Ages, figures, and situations related to each character are tied to the on-the-ground reporting. However, some general information has been updated with dates noted in the text where necessary. Wall worked on this series until her untimely death on August 11, 2017. 

Even outside the factory gates, the smell of poultry is inescapable. In Springdale, Arkansas, never-ending truck convoys carry live chickens and turkeys by the thousands into factories to be plucked, butchered, and packaged for consumers nationwide. In one of those factories, Ferdinand Muller hangs the live birds by their feet onto a conveyor belt — one by one, 40 panicking pounds at a time, 400 times every 15 minutes, for 10 hours every day except Sunday. Read more…

More about Environment, Climate Change, Marshall Islands, Nuclear Justice, and Science

View More ‘What am I gonna go home to? Water?’: The climate refugees settling in America’s heartland

Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part multimedia project that spotlights the daily lives of Marshall Islands residents. Kim Wall, Coleen Jose, and Jan Hendrik Hinzel reported from the Marshall Islands and Arkansas in 2014 and 2015.

Ages, figures, and situations related to each character are tied to the on-the-ground reporting. However, some general information has been updated with dates noted in the text where necessary. Wall worked on this series until her untimely death on August 11, 2017. 

Leaving Majuro was no easy decision, but Mona Jetnil had been ready for months. Here, in the capital of the Marshall Islands, just about everyone seems to be planning to leave. Read more…

More about Environment, Climate Change, Marshall Islands, Nuclear Justice, and Science

View More When you leave the Marshall Islands, you buy a one-way ticket, on standby