Rising Seas And Warming Temperatures Force Alaskan Coastal Community To Move Inland

NEWTOK, AK - JUNE 30: Yupik women prepare freshly caught salmon for curing on June 30, 2015 in Newtok, Alaska. Newtok, which has a population of approximately of 375 ethnically Yupik people, was established along the shores of the Ninglick River, near where the river empties into the Bering Sea, by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1959. The Yupik people have lived on the coastal lands along the Bering Sea for thousands of years. However, as global temperatures rise the village is being threatened by the melting of permafrost; greater ice and snow melt - which is causing the Ninglick river to widen and erode the river bank; and larger storms that come in from the Bering Sea, which further erodes the land. According to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, the high point in Newtok - the school - could be underwater by 2017. A new village, approximately nine miles away titled Mertarvik, has been established, though so far families have been slow to relocate to the new village. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)