ABSTRACT
Ujae Island is both old and new. To the anthropologist and the indigenous inhabitant, it is an ancient and permanent place, cultivated and storied by scores of generations. To the scientist it is recent, tentative—no more than a flooded reef until well into historical times, and now vulnerable to human tampering and natural variability alike. With oceans rising, this 200-acre islet, barely breaching the sea, may sink again: here and gone in a geological eyeblink—or a cultural eon.
