Emergency Response to Mass Coral Bleaching

Greetings friends,

I write to you from remote Tanna Island Vanuatu, with an actively erupting volcano and with traditional tribes in the mountains that sill wear almost nothing.  I came here to assist a youth group in Nakayelo Village restore their coral reefs in a community-based no-fishing area that they helped establish seven years ago with no help from the outside. 

It is winter here and quite chilly, and I am off in an hour or so to visit the site, which I visited last year when I came toTanna for the Happy Chicken Project, also sponsored by GlobalGiving. The focus today and tomorrow will be on traing the youth to resetablish the staghorn corals with a small lagoon, as they have died out from bleaching and COTS predators.  The few corals that have survived within the enclosed lagoon are assumed to be ''super corals'' and so the replanted reef should be considerably more resistant to future bleaching. 

On Friday I will be back in the capital Port Vila and will present a public talk at the first screening of ''Chasing Coral'' in the nation, sponsored by the local NGO ''Island Reach''.  We then proceed to the small slands to the North for a coral restoration workshop at Nguna Pele.  After that work is completed, I fly wtih the local project leaders to Malekula Island to do another three-day coral restoration workshop before returning to Fiji. 

My airfares have been provided by the local Vanuatu counterpart organiation, and free accommodation has been provided as well, so your donations have gone a long way, funding only the Tanna leg of my trip, where I am at present.

Unfortunately I have no coral reef or community photos to share this time and as this report is now due- it must go in today, but I will post a follow up special report within a week of two with the results. 

Blessings to you all,

Austin