Girls and young women are among the hardest hit by climate change-induced loss and damage in the Solomon Islands, according to Kastom Keepers founder Millicent Barty.

Loss and damage refers to the unavoidable, irreversible economic and social impacts that occur when climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts are no longer enough.

Speaking on Tuesday at the ‘The Tide Remembers: Pacific Stories of Loss, Damage and Gender Justice’ panel at the Sofitel Hotel on Denarau Island, Barty shared the story of a family facing the brunt of sea level rise in Fanalei and Walande, Small Malaita.

She first encountered the family during the 2018 Disappearing Island Project, where her team documented climate impacts across Malaita Province.

“When a community experiences loss and damage, it is children – especially girls – who bear the heaviest burden,” Barty said.

 “They don’t only experience the loss; very often, they are expected to absorb it,” she added.

Recalling her visit to Fanalei in 2018, she noted that only about 15 families remained at the time.

“Today, I’m told only two families are left who refuse to move. Walande is now completely gone, and a new community has been established on the mainland,” she said.

“These communities have been living with the question of where to go when their island can no longer hold them – not just since I first visited eight years ago, but for decades.”

During her 2018 fieldwork, Barty met a father and his 15-year-old daughter.

“They weren’t part of our documentary; there were no cameras recording.

“It was simply a conversation,” she recalled.

“The father told me his family had secured a place on the mainland because his daughter had been arranged to marry the son of a local landowner.”

Through that arranged marriage, the family secured their future relocation.

“I remember him telling me this with a smile – not a happy smile, but one of profound relief that his family finally had somewhere to go.

“But there was something else in his eyes,” Barty said.

“Then I looked at his daughter standing beside him.

“She looked so sad, almost helpless, but she stayed silent and bowed her head.

“Her face has stayed with me for almost eight years.”

Barty reflected on witnessing two distinct realities of the same crisis: a father desperate to save his family, and a 15-year-old girl carrying the personal cost of that survival.

“Arranged marriage is not new to our culture,” Barty clarified.

“Traditionally, it strengthened ties between tribes, creating reciprocity, responsibility, and security. Customary exchange itself isn’t the problem.”

The issue, she explained, was the desperate force driving the decision.

“The driver was: ‘Our island is disappearing. We need land to survive.’ Sitting at the center of that survival strategy was a young girl – her choices, her marriage, and her future. To me, that is gendered loss and damage.”

Barty stressed that loss and damage begins long before land physically disappears beneath the waves.

“It begins years – sometimes generations – before, when families are forced into impossible decisions just to survive,” she said.

Nearly eight years later, through Kastom Keepers’ work in communities across Langa Langa Lagoon, Barty continues to witness the same cycle.

“Different girls, different families, but the same intense pressure over land, belonging, and survival.

“Only now, it’s even closer to home – one of my own nieces is now that same girl, compromised to secure a future home. I’ve tried to help her father see otherwise, but it’s challenging.”

Closing her remarks, Barty urged policymakers and international delegates to look beyond physical destruction when defining climate impacts.

“Don’t only look at what has physically vanished.

“Look at what our people are forced to do just to avoid disappearing with it.

“Look carefully at who carries the cost. Because sometimes, long before the sea takes the island, the first thing it takes is a girl and her choice.” – by Eddie Osifelo in Nadi, Fiji