The Next Eco-Warriors (12 page)

PHOTO BY SUBHASHNI RAJ

SUNLIGHT REFLECTING OFF THE CRYSTAL-CLEAR BLUE WATER glistened in my eyes. I perched myself on an old fisherman's boat, dancing my feet across the sand. The palm trees above me swayed in a calming rhythm. Scanning across the horizon, I was in search of something. This place was new to me. This Fijian island was my homeland, but I had never been to this coastal community before. I was scouting the area of Sigatoka for my research and a community by the name of Vuni Niu welcomed me in, sending their community grandmother, a
bubu
, to show me around. We had just ended our trek and took a rest on the shoreline. Standing tall and proud above me, the old bubu had a warm smile but an air of authority that one could only respect. Up until now, I had been so preoccupied with my scientific work on the Fijian reef that I had yet to think more about the people that inhabited this beautiful place. Bubu and I had been chatting politely when I suddenly turned to her and asked: “Has life changed much for you over the years?” I did not know what I was expecting, really. The words had left my lips before I had a chance to reconsider them.

But I will never forget what Bubu said to me. She shook her head and her face darkened slightly. She breathed in deeply and waved her hand over the landscape as she described another world. She told me of a time not so long ago when the oceans were streaming with fish, the white sandy beach stretched out far and wide, and the ocean surrendered, fleeting away from
humans from time to time. She then told me of the world she sees now, where the fish are seldom and the ocean is alone. The beach is narrow and small, collapsing land as it erodes away. And the ocean is attacking, suffocating the community as it comes closer and closer. I didn't know what to say to her; I had no words to express. It was as if she was telling me the island of Fiji was disappearing before her very eyes. But I just stayed quiet, politely listening to her narrative and immediately filed her words in my memory, not realizing how important her brief speech would be to me later.

On the four-hour ride back to Suva, the capital and largest city of Fiji, I followed the sea with my eyes wide open. When I was younger, the sea was my friend, my childhood muse, where I could ponder my very existence. But as I grew older, I could see that the rising tides were becoming an evil, unrelenting menace. I realized that I had been very successful in life and was beaming with potential to do something but somehow still struggled under the expectations of my parents. I became a biologist and never considered any sort of activism, because I had become distracted with making ends meet in my day-to-day life. Now I could see that nature was fighting back by eating the coastline and livelihood of millions of people around the world, and I still felt helpless to react and do something about it. As the car tousled us around, I bombarded myself with excuses as to why I could not act or make a difference. These were probably the same reasons that many people have to justify inaction. I asked myself: I'm only one person, what difference can I really make? What about the political implications? Can't I just pass the buck to someone more capable? I still didn't feel that I had it in me to do what I thought needed to be done. What I didn't realize at the time was that everyone has it in them to do
something
, and I was no exception. But at that time, I was only beginning to put the dots together and I would have to overcome my fear first before I would evolve into more than just a bystander and a dreamer.

Several months later, on September 29, 2009, an 8.1-magnitude underwater earthquake rumbled off the coast of American Samoa. It was the largest earthquake of 2009 and generated a tsunami wave that New Zealand scientists determined would measure as high as forty-five feet (13.7 meters)
off the Samoan coast. The tsunami warning in Fiji was taken as a joke. Instead of running for shelter, people lined up at the beach to see the wave come in, never expecting it to be large enough to cause any damage by the time it hit our coast.

If you have not experienced the ferociousness that is at the heart of a tsunami, it is a bit hard to comprehend how large the face of the wave is until it consumes the ground beneath your feet. More than 189 people died off the Samoan coast, while down the street from where I was, people gathered just far enough away from the destruction, watching as if it were a mere fireworks display, not really aware of the devastation being wreaked as they looked on. Later, news came in of the deaths, and we watched for days the videos of the waves and the magnitude of the destruction over and over again. Reality began to sink its teeth into my consciousness as the islands around me were also slightly sinking into the depths of the ocean. We could watch in awe, grateful it was not happening in our backyard.
At least not yet
, I thought.

A week later, another earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 struck near Fiji, off the coast of Vanuatu. I was at work when the earthquake hit, and I ran into a colleague in my office who urgently told me, “There is a tsunami coming!” He pleaded with me to make sure that my family was safe. I thought he was kidding or maybe just paranoid. Where I live, tsunamis seem to be a constant threat but never materialize and warnings are canceled. This was quite out of the blue; I was not sure how to react. Should I take him seriously or go about my day as normal? He told me that this was the real thing and it could hit in the next sixty minutes. After all those deaths I saw, I was suddenly petrified of the possibilities. Sometimes you never realize how capable you really are until you are forced to act. In that moment, I leapt into action.

I ran back to my desk and snatched my cell phone. I clumsily dialed my brother's number. As I waited, holding my breath, I could see that outside the window the area around me was turning into chaos, with people hearing the news and becoming frantic. My feelings went from anger with my brother for not picking up the phone to immediate guilt and just wanting him to be safe until I saw him again. Just then, he picked up and said had not left for the university yet and was safe at home. Thank God, I thought.

In my heightened state of anxiety, I hadn't realized that almost everyone in the room either had a phone to their ear or was in the process of picking one up. Everyone was either calling whomever they could or receiving calls from whoever could get through the line. The sound in the room escalated as cries of frustration also rang. Just then, the networks became jammed. It was probably the worst thing that could have happened at that point. My coworkers and I did not leave, because we were at a high perch and needed to stay where we were. We heard news come in of major evacuation happening all over Fiji. No one was willing to take a risk this time.

Minutes passed. This seemed to be the quiet before the storm. Not being able to do anything but wait, I sat on my desk and looked around me. The phones were still not working and we were not able to leave, so the only connection we had was with other people around us. I found it hard to concentrate on chatting, because the chatter in my own head was too loud. I was thinking about when I was in Sigatoka and what Bubu had said about the rising waters. I had not really taken the time to think about the consequences then, but now that was all I could do.

The entire infrastructure of most islands is on the coast. I could not conceive the costs that would be involved in moving whole cities away from the coast. In some cases, moving would not even be an option because there is no higher land to move to. Even if the option were presented, I was sure that many locals would refuse to leave their ways of life and would rather die on the land they know then move to territories that were unknown. I knew that there are places like Tuvalu that were already being hit hard by rising sea levels and face-high gushes of seawater flowing through the streets at king (high) tide. Or places like the Carteret Islands, Papua New Guinea, where nothing will grow because the water sources have been polluted by the ocean's salt.

So as the hour wore on, I began to pray. I put my palms together and prayed to God. I prayed that the tsunami would return to the depths from which it was summoned and keep my family and friends safe. Then, with only minutes remaining, I had a moment of clarity. All of a sudden, I knew that even if we survived this tsunami today, we had an even larger wave looming
over us—the climate change wave. Rising sea levels from the melting polar ice caps will consume our island forevermore. The ocean will continue to hammer us till there is nothing left. I didn't believe these earthquakes and tsunamis were linked to climate change, but they did have something in common with it: they could bring the death of us on these islands. While the threat I faced today was of a natural origin, the one I faced tomorrow was a juggernaut of our own making, and one that we could stop if we so wanted.

I felt fueled by my fear of the possibility of everyone I knew being consumed by water, and I turned to my laptop, grateful to find that the Internet was working. I fired off an email to my friend James. I told him what was happening and that if we survived this, I was going to speak to world leaders, stand up for what I believed in, and work with others to do the same. Despite my fears of stepping up, I needed to do this for my people. I turned away from my laptop and went to a window looking out to the ocean and shook my head as I saw people gathering below to wait for the wave to come in. With only a couple minutes left, we held our breaths, expecting the worst. We waited in anticipation, and just as the final moments drew upon us, we were given a red light, the tsunami warning was yet again canceled. People tried to get back to whatever they were doing in a fog and frenzied state. But for me, I now had a vision, and I was not even close to letting it go. Adrenaline can force you to make crazy decisions, and just as it was wearing off, in my head I yelled out, “
Copenhagen, here I come!”

My focus kept fighting off the anxiety of the new horizons that were becoming apparent. I knew I needed to find a way to the Copenhagen
Climate Conference, and I started to look around for inspiration. I learned from my friend David about the
350.org
campaign that he was working on, and he invited me to join. An international campaign,
350.org
works to unite the world around one solution, lowering our carbon in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, what many say is the sustainable number for our future. Across geopolitical borders, we would be working to raise awareness and be a much larger voice than just one person—there was something very powerful in that. I realized that this was exactly what I wanted to be doing with my life. I was where I belonged. I had purpose. And it was a beautiful feeling.

I spent close to three weeks missing sleep and food. I was balancing the pressure of helping organize the Fiji 350 campaign, securing sponsorship, and my already heavy workload at my office. I did it with much joy nonetheless, because finally I was trying to be part of the solution. As I changed all the house bulbs, explained to my mother and brother over and over again the need to switch off lights, I saw their behavior slowly change. I felt what I was trying to do was not in vain and that people could make changes with the hope that the effects would multiply.

And then before I knew it, it was the big day, October 24, 2009. That day, the Suva waters were calm while several hundred young voices carried the 350 chant. I walked with the sea never leaving my side, and the blue-sky breezy day reminded me there was a reason I worked so hard for this campaign. I needed to give back instead of continuing to take away from an already overtaxed planet. That was the first time in the city where I was born that I cried out for change, and man, did it ever feel good.

I tried to capture it all in photographs so that the world could see the Islands were also demanding 350 ppm in time for the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Media took notice of our rally; we got spots in the
Fiji Times
newspaper and on Fiji TV. Weeks later, I got word that
350.org
would like me to go with them to Copenhagen as their Pacific representative. I thought it was a joke at first. I refused to believe it and many emails later, I was jumping, yelling, and clapping all at once. It was very distracting for my mother, who could not understand how anything short of winning the lottery could justify such emotions.