Welcome to Funafuti, the capital of Tuvalu. It is not a single town but a whole atoll, a narrow sweep of islets encircling a vast lagoon 18 kilometres long. Around 60 percent of the nation's people live here, more than in the rest of Tuvalu combined, and it is the world's easternmost capital of a sovereign state. During the Second World War American forces used the atoll as a staging ground and built its airfield. Much of the land lies less than one metre above sea level, which makes it highly vulnerable to flooding. Let's explore its islets and lagoon.
Funafuti Conservation Area
Gaze out over the western side of the atoll, where the Funafuti Conservation Area protects 33 square kilometres of reef, lagoon and islets. The decision to create it was made in 1999, to safeguard the plants, animals and ecosystems both on land and under water. Its waters shelter many species of fish, corals, algae and invertebrates, and the islets are nesting sites for the green sea turtle. On the islet of Fualopa, black noddies gather in a breeding colony. The area covers about a fifth of all the coral reef in the lagoon.
Tepuka
Photo: David Stanley · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsNow we cross the lagoon to Tepuka, an island in the north-west of the atoll, eighteen kilometres west of Fongafale. Its name comes from a tree, Hernandia peltata. Hidden here is a well-preserved underground bunker, an American communications outpost from the Pacific War, once connected to the airfield on Fongafale. Keep an eye out for a tiny resident too: a gecko species named after the island has been found here. Sadly, Tepuka has been badly eroded in recent years.
Funafala
Here is Funafala, a quiet islet home to just five families and a church. Its name means the pandanus of Funa, after a chief whose name also lives on in Funafuti itself. Funafala has a curious place in history. When a cyclone struck in 1883, almost everyone had come here to help build a church, leaving the trader George Westbrook alone on Fongafale. The buildings there were destroyed, but Funafala escaped with little damage, and the people returned to rebuild.
Funafuti International Airport
Photo: Oetti42 · CC0 · Wikimedia CommonsOur tour ends at Funafuti International Airport in Vaiaku, the only international airport in Tuvalu. It began as a military airfield, built in 1943 by a Seabee detachment of the United States Navy, with a radio station on Tepuka linked to it by cable. From this strip, on 20 April 1943, 22 B-24 Liberator bombers set off to bomb Nauru. The very next day, Japanese aircraft struck back in a predawn raid, destroying one bomber and damaging five more. Flights from Fiji link the atoll with the wider world.
Lomakuume
