(Children of Pukapuka Atoll  singing in their native language) Florence Ngatokorua "Johnny" Tiane Frisbie: Long ago, the ancient god Tamayei flew  over the vast Pacific Ocean.

He sighted a rock slowly rising from the ocean floor.

He lay his weary head upon the rock to rest.

Suddenly the rock rumbled beneath him, it  quaked and shattered.

In a cloud of dust, a man emerged.

Mataaliki,  the father of all Pukapukans.

Not wanting to live alone, Mataaliki then flew  to Tongaleleva to find himself a wife.

Together, they returned and bore a son and a daughter.

Their children made the land flourish with coconut trees, coconut crabs, and vibrant fish.

They named  the atoll Te Ulu o Te Watu, head of the rock.

Our Atoll speaks.

(Pukapuka native language).

We are the children of Te  Ulu o Te Watu, of Pukapuka.

As its caretakers, we listen to the moon  and to the tides.

(inaudible) thank you for looking after us, rustled the coconut frawns.

Fish for you murmurs the see.

A father will teach his son the ways of the ocean.

A mother  would teach her daughter the ways of the land.

We have three ecological food reserves.

Motu Ko,  Motu Kotawa and Motu Uta.

Motu Ko has the fattest blue coconut crabs.

Motu Kotawa has the juiciest  flying seabirds.

Motu Uta has the freshest coconuts.

The Council of important people decides  what and when to harvest.

This is the laui, the rules that decide when the villagers can gather  and when to leave the land to replenish itself.

If a child runs into the bush and  grabs a small coconut crab by its back, a parent will say, don't kill the  babies.

Let it go until it's big enough to fill your stomach.

Next  year, it will be ready for meal.

People connected to the land understand  life’s rhythms.

Conserve now, eat later.

Pukapuka is a communal society.

The village will consult about when  to harvest the coconut crabs and evenly distribute one for each man, one for  each woman and a small one for each child.

Following these conservation rules maintains our  food security.

We cannot abuse the many blessings, the three Motus provide.

The coconut tree is  the tree of life.

The placenta of a newborn is buried with a young sprout of coconut.

They  grow together.

The fronds that make roofs, mats, and baskets, rattle a lullaby  in the wind at night.

The flesh of the young coconut feeds the young and  the toothless old.

The nutritional sweet water of the green coconut quenches thirst  and beats a glass of Chardonnay any day.

No other tropical plant has sustained life  in the Pacific more than the bountiful and humble coconut tree.

The taro patches  sustain us too.

The mud and sea of green.

Each plot passes down from mother  to daughter to granddaughter.

Women walk around the perimeter of the plot  admiring and admonishing each other's crop.

Saturday gossip in a taro patch is a real treat.

Women get deep in the mud to nurture the new buds, wait patiently for the plants to grow tall  and fully mature.

The heart-shaped leaves are cooked with coconut cream.

We don't  take more than the family or village needs.

We enjoy boat food like flour, rice, sugar, canned corned beef and chocolate biscuits  too.

But we do not depend on this.

Coconut, taro and fish are our three life-giving  gifts of plenty.

We protect the stables that have sustained life in the Pacific for thousands  of years.

Weather patterns and ocean currents change.

The sea rises lapping at the sea shore.

The salt water causes the leaves of the coconut tree to wither.

The nuts get smaller.

The salinity  chomps away at the lushness of the taro plant.

If we are going to combat climate change, then  people must connect to their environment.

We must use the knowledge of the past  to carry us into this new future.

Many of our own Cook Islands people  look down on us because we're different.

Our language is different,  our customs are different, and we haven't lost that  tia ke kai, that knowledge.

Even as we migrate to New Zealand and Australia,  our language, our communal way of living, our food sharing go with us.

Today, more  Pukapukans live in a diaspora than in Pukapuka.

They too must listen to the moon and the tides.

Our atoll speaks.

(Pukapuka native language) How long can we call Pukapuka the island home?

Climate change is the biggest  threat to our existence.

We need to look at the risk  of rising seas in terms of our cultural practices so that we don't lose them.

We cannot allow Pukapuka to disappear  into a legend of Tamayei and Mataaliki, like the way Kiribati and Tuvalu and other  islands in the Pacific disappear into the sea.

If Pukapuka goes under the sea, we’re all under  the sea.

My umbilical cord is buried here.

If that goes underneath, that is  literally me going under the sea.

We pray the international community can do  something so that I don't go underwater.

If Pukapuka goes under the sea, an  important part of the world is lost.

We pray that youth all over the world learn to  respect their environment for many generations.

Our atoll speaks.

(Children of Pukapuka Atoll singing in native language.)