Island Communities, Coral Reefs,
and Climate Change:
Reinventing the World to Turn the Tide
Austin Bowden-Kerby, Corals for Conservation, Fiji�abowdenkerby@gmail.com
“Every man of discernment, while walking upon the earth, feeleth indeed abashed, inasmuch as he is fully aware that the thing which is the source of his prosperity, his wealth, his might, his exaltation, his advancement and power is… the very earth which is trodden beneath the feet of all men. There can be no doubt that, whoever is cognizant of this truth is cleansed and sanctified from all pride, arrogance, and vainglory.” Baha’u’llah
NASA: since records began in 1880, heat records are exceeded. year after year/… new records for the hottest year ever.
MOTHER EARTH HAS A FEVER
Colonialism, industrialism, deforestation- overuse of resources
The evidence has become irrefutable
The planet is rapidly warming!
2015-16: Hot water caused the biggest coral die-off in history.
Coral Reefs are the most vulnerable ecosystem to climate change.
Will coral reefs be the first system to collapse due to climate change?
Coral Bleaching and Death
Melting Ice Caps, Rising Seas
Sea Level Rise and Coral Reefs �Pacific Island Communities- Greatest Impact �Entire nations are threatened with extinction
Kiribati and other nations: record high tides have begun killing land plants.
Global marine heat waves are increasing,
causing mass coral bleaching and coral death.
Fiji: Major Floods Every 3-5 years instead of every 15-20 years
Stronger, More Frequent Cyclones
Families are gravely impacted
“The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appears to be lamentably defective.”
Bahá’u’lláh
“It is this same cancerous materialism, born originally in Europe, carried to excess in the North American continent, contaminating the Asiatic peoples and nations, spreading its ominous tentacles to the borders of Africa, and now invading its very heart, which Baha'u'llah in unequivocal and emphatic language denounced in His Writings, comparing it to a devouring flame and regarding it as the chief factor in precipitating the dire ordeals and world-shaking crises that must necessarily involve the burning of cities and the spread of terror and consternation in the hearts of men.” Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, p. 125
By 2015, 1% of the people owned 50% of global wealth. By 2030,1% will own 65-70% of global wealth.
“Unconscionable quantities of wealth are being amassed, and the instability this creates is made worse by how income and opportunity are spread so unevenly both between nations and within nations. But it need not be so. However much such conditions are the outcome of history, they do not have to define the future, and even if current approaches to economic life satisfied humanity's stage of adolescence, they are certainly inadequate for its dawning age of maturity.”
Baha’í World Center, Universal House of Justice, 1st March 2017
1.6 Trillion Spent EVERY Year on Weapons and Armies
Military Expenditures Waste Enormous Resources. World Peace and Disarmament are Required to Free up Resources to Save the Planet
Humanity in crisis.
O YE THAT ARE LYING AS DEAD ON THE COUCH OF HEEDLESSNESS!
….ye walk on My earth complacent and self-satisfied, heedless that My earth is weary of you and everything within it shunneth you. Were ye but to open your eyes, ye would, in truth, prefer a myriad griefs unto this joy, and would count death itself better than this life.”
Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words
Root Causes of Poverty and
Environmental Decline
“The welfare of any segment of humanity is inextricably bound up with the welfare of the whole. Humanity's collective life suffers when any one group thinks of its own well-being in isolation from that of its neighbours' or pursues economic gain without regard for how the natural environment, which provides sustenance for all, is affected.” UHJ 1st March, 2017
Establishing a New Economic Order
“The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.” Bahá’u’lláh
THE PROMISE OF WORLD PEACE
Baha’i World Center, October 1985
World peace is not only possible but inevitable. It is the next stage in the evolution of this planet, in the words of one great thinker, “the planetization of mankind”.
Whether peace is to be reached only after unimaginable horrors precipitated by humanity’s stubborn clinging to old patterns of behaviour, or is to be embraced now by an act of consultative will, is the choice before all who inhabit the earth.
Baha’i Contributions to Society
We are the very first faith group to promote:
MY STORY:
Transform the Planet One Heart and Mind at a Time 1972- Immersion in the Baha’i Community of the Carolinas
1975 and 1978 FIJI
How can one mere person be of greatest service
to humanity and to the planet?
No one had recorded coral bleaching until 1985!
But in 1978, while in Fiji, I had a strange dream... among bleached and white coral skeletons were scattered human skeletons…. if the coral reefs die, will humanity also die?
Building a life in the Pacific Islands
1979-to the present
Living in Micronesia early 1980s….
Dead reefs and widespread hunger from blast fishing.
Dynamite Fishing: Produces Dead Broken Corals
Without corals reef fish have no homes!
Instant Reefs!
Puerto Rico, 1993
The beginning of Caribbean Acropora restoration work
Caribbean reefs have lost 60-80% of their corals, resulting in the elimination of reef fish habitat and an estimated >70% reduction in reef calcification and sand production!
Learning lessons from the Caribbean
INVENTING NEW METHODS TO GET THE CORALS BACK!
Ropes and cookie trays secured to metal rebar tables
Coral farming table and ropes at 10 months, Belize.
Ropes: Three months after planting over seagrass bottom
One year+ of growth; overdue for a trimming to produce corals for outplanting back to the reef.
Trimmed “mother corals” ready to re-grow
A new crop of “seed fragments” every 9-12 months
Cementing micro-fragments of a single genotype to the reef for accelerated growth using less biomass .
Pegged Rope Outplanting:
Ropes planted with corals are nailed to the reef.
At one Year
Utilla Honduras, 2004
Guanaja Honduras, 2004
Involving Tour Guides, Managers, and Teachers
INVOLVING AND EDUCATING COMMUNITIES ABOUT CORALS
Fiji 1999 to the present
Heat adapted survivors of coral bleaching
“Super Coral”
Coral-killing snails, Caribbean
Crown of Thorns Starfish, IndoPacific
Coral-killing Predators Kill the Super Corals that Survive Bleaching
Securing corals from Predators
Coral Gardener Training in Fiji, Samoa, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu and Tahiti/ Moorea 2017- 2022
Kiribati: The most severely bleach reef yet: 14 months above 32°C
Many of the reef corals were left 100% dead
Parrotfish grazing prevents algal overgrowth
Ciguatera fish poisoning outbreak Oct 2018 to present
Coral Nursery Established June 2016
At 22 months
Expansion 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
Extinct staghorn Acropora species flown in from Fanning Atoll
Reinventing Local and Global Economies
Beloved Friends: The extremes of wealth and poverty in the world are becoming ever more untenable. As inequity persists, so the established order is seen to be unsure of itself, and its values are being questioned.
Whatever the tribulations that a conflicted world must confront in the future, we pray that the Almighty will help His loved ones to overcome every obstacle in their path and assist them to serve humanity. The larger the presence of a Baha'i community in a population, the greater its responsibility to find ways of addressing the root causes of the poverty in its surroundings.
The Universal House of Justice
Teitei Liveihoods Centre, Fiji
Supporting Community-Based Conservation and Prosperity
2007-present
Happy Chicken Project
Reinventing Governance
The Baha’i Administrative Order:
“The model and pattern for a future society”
“the sole refuge for a tottering civilization”
Local, National, and Global levels.
- No nominations- all adults serve as candidates
The model is up and running, governing a global community of over five million people!
Kiribati ~20% Baha’i
Applying Solutions for Human Well-being
Virgin Coconut Oil Demonstration
Using seaweed on coconuts trees on extremely poor soils
Reinventing Society
As the process of the disintegration of a lamentably defective world order gathers momentum in all parts of the planet, engendering hopelessness, confusion, hostility, and insecurity, the hearts of the friends everywhere must be assured, their eyes clear-sighted, their feet firm, as they work patiently and sacrificially to raise a new order in its stead. UHJ 9 Nov 2018
Iran: 40 years of unabated arrest, execution, and persecution
New Wave of Persecution Against
Baha’i Citizens In Iran
Fiji
Samoa
Vanuatu
Tuvalu
Tonga
Recent Happenings:
TONGA VOLCANIC EXPLOSION
15 JANUARY, 2022 4:20 pm Local Time
The largest volcanic eruption since Krakatoa in 1883!