It's pitch black and we're walking along a beach.

Kids and their parents are casting torches across the sand,

scouting for tiny holes.

They're looking for a certain prostation, one with nasty claws.

Oh, there's a crab!

I'm Shevonne Heggity, reporting for the BBC World Service and ABC Australia for a series of

programs we're calling shifting cultures looking at the issues in Asia and the Pacific affecting communities as they adapt to change.

We're crab hunting on Porama, which is also known as Coconut Island.

It's one of 15 Torres Strait islands in the most northern part of Australia,

just to the south of Papua New Guinea.

Finding a crab, we have to walk along the beach and then you can find the tracks.

They're pretty small.

You can see the tracks of the same, we call it pukas.

And then you can see a little hole into the sun and that's when you're dug

like you know digging into it. With the focus on these tiny crab tracks bigger

issues aren't on people's minds, like the global conversation around climate change.

But Pormo is on the front lines.

This tiny island is just 2 kilometers long and 300 meters wide and it's becoming smaller.

But the islanders are fighting to maintain their land and revive their traditional culture and language before

it's too late. Porma feels like a village in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

There's one paved road, an airport, a primary school, and two grocery stores, which usually open in the afternoon.

It looks like a postcard paradise with towering coconut trees, aquamarine waters and rainbow-hued

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