Ghana – Kpogbor – The last man living on the island that has gradually been destroyed by the rising sea level and coastal erosion stands in front of the ocean where he has built a makeshift sea defence wall in order to protect what is left of his house.

Ocean Rage
Italy/France   www.matildegattoni.photoshelter.com

As a consequence of global warming and rising sea levels, more than 7,000kms of coastline from Mauritania to Cameroon are eroding at a pace of up to 36 metres per year, disrupting the lives of tens of millions of people in thirteen countries. Thousands of villages are being left out in the cold, putting thousands-year-old ways of life on the brink of extinction. Deprived of their means of survival, communities lose their most resourceful people to migration. Rampant unemployment drives drugs and alcohol consumption, the only profitable activities left are those controlled by criminal syndicates. The coastline of Ghana and Togo is now a sequence of crumbling buildings and ghost towns.