By Austin Bowden-Kerby | Project Manager
Good news! We have now raised over $2,600. for the project on Global Giving.
In addition to our original contacts on Christmas Island in Kiribati, we now have active contacts with organizations in Hawaii; on Kauai, Oahu, and the Big island, with great interest in working together to get some proactive work going to save the surviving hot water tolerant corals which have just survived the severe bleaching event there.
A NOAA funding opportunity has recently been announced for both international coral reefs and US coral reefs, and we plan to submit two proposals along the lines of this project, using the funds raised through Global Giving as matching funds. In June, the project manager will attend the International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu, to give a presentation on coral restoration. If additional funds for a full-on Hawaii project are obtained, a side trip to Kauai and Hawaii islands will take place at that time, to present workshops with the local NGOs and to get sites established.
A separate trip to Christmas Island would use up most of the funds thus far raised, so until we raise additional funds, we pan to coordinte a trip with the trip to Hawaii in June, stopping over for one week, as this island is a regular stop-over point on the journey between Fiji and Hawaii.
For Vanuatu, a trip was paid for by the Happy Chicken Project in November. As part of the trip, we were able to visit the Nakayelo community no-fishing areas and to observe the condition of the corals. The lagoon is in need of coral restoration due to past bleaching and COTS infestation, and so a coral restoration workshop is planned for late February.
Here in Fiji we are entering the hot summer months, and the present El Nino is predicted to hold, so we are watching and waiting to see what develops, preparing to involve communities and NGOs as the need arises.
Thanks again for your support for this novel approach to climate change adaptation- actively helping coral reefs survive into the future.
Vinaka Vaka Levu!
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
