UN General Assembly
2019

When I was a young boy in the Marshall Islands, the unavoidable sound of ocean waves crashing upon our coral reefs was, to me, a natural symphony. But to my grandchildren, that same sound is rapidly becoming, to them, a threat of inundation. Do they not share my same right to live in their ancestral homes? In response, I can only quote our national Constitution, that “All we have and are today as a people, we have received as a sacred heritage which we pledge ourselves to safeguard and maintain, valuing nothing more than our rightful home on the[se] islands.”