Australian Police arrested 66 activists in a climate change protest that shut down a coal port in Newcastle city last Sunday May 8 according to local reports. The climate change protest is estimated to have attracted over 1,000 protesters, including members of the Pacific Islander activist group “Pacific Climate Warriors”. It hasn’t been confirmed if any members of the group were among those arrested.

The climate change protest featured hundreds of paddlers in canoes who filled Newcastle’s coal port harbour, blocking coal shipments. Railway tracks leading to the harbour were also blockaded by protestors. Among the canoes were Polynesian canoes manned by Pacific Islanders in traditional outfit,s including Tongans. The protest also featured dozens of other activist climate change most notably Green Peace and Indigenous Australian groups.

According to the activists, the protest is vital to raising the awareness of climate change in Pacific Islands. The protestors accuse Australia’s fossil fuel industry of exacerbating sea level rising, a phenomenon which is currently destroying Pacific Islands such as Kiribati and Tokelau.

Tongan protestor, Zane Sikulu from Ha'apai, told the New Matilda “Once the land goes away, then the culture and the history are not too far from it”.

“When my granddad passed away – we planted a mango tree on the property – It would’ve been about 10 or 15 metres out from the water, but in the time between then and now, the water has just slowly eroded the land away to the point where the tree has been poisoned by salt water and now it’s gone."

Tokelauan protestor Teddy Pelasio told the Sydney Morning Herald, "What else can we do? We've got no power, so we've got to ask the big boys like Australia – Are they going to let us drown? We're just asking."