The five hundred inhabitants of Punta Soldado, an island off the west coast of Colombia, have had to relocate their houses three times over the last thirty years because of rising sea levels. They have become accustomed to building their wooden houses on five-foot-high posts to protect them from flooding, and so that it’s easier to move them further inland. In the last decade they have lost about six hundred yards of shoreline and 198 acres of mangrove. Because of this, extreme weather poses a much greater risk. “For centuries, they have known how to survive. We are learning from them how to preserve the island from rising sea levels,” explains Ballantyne Puin, an environmental engineer at Cornell University.

Puin has been working with the local communities of Punta Soldado to protect the island from the consequences of the climate crisis.