Saipan uses Vetiver to protect its reefs!

According to our friends at the Saipan Tribune, "fifteen volunteers from three groups, along with staff from the Division of Environmental Quality and Coastal Resources Management Office, spent Saturday morning planting 90 plants within the Laolao Revegetation Project site.

The Volunteer Planting Day was part of a continuing restoration effort, started in 2005, to help reduce soil erosion, which causes sediment to wash into Laolao Bay and damage its coral reefs.

The Laolao Revegetation Project intends to plant over 1,000 saplings and 2,500 linear feet of Vetiver throughout the upland planting area. This volunteer tree planting was a way to show the community how important these projects are for Saipan.

DEQ Field Coordinator Nick Swaim demonstrated proper planting techniques and fertilizer placement. Six native plant species were used, propagated by DLNR Forestry at its nursery in Kagman.

Volunteers from the community included members from Teen Talk, NMC's Phi Theta Kappa, and NMC's Environmental Natural Resources Organization. The volunteers carried plants and tools as they hiked up to the planting site. Along the way they passed rows of Vetiver propagated at CREES Agriculture that had been planted by Tropical Gardens Landscapers. The planting was spread across two of the 16 sites in the project area. Fortunately, the volunteers were able to plant in the sites that boast the best views of the bay.

Volunteer Lorremel Hocog said, 'It was a fun exercise, and I'm doing it for a good cause. So it's worth every effort, and the view is amazing.'"

The Vetiver System shields coral reefs from sediment

Dick Grimshaw writes:

I have frequently written about the need to use the Vetiver System to rehabilitate eroding land and thus stop eroded sediment from moving downstream to coastal waters where it destroys coral reefs and coastal fisheries. VS is particular useful for small island erosion rehabilitation.

Since erosion on small tropical islands tends to be massive and close to the beach and sea, stabilizing a particular area will generate immediate benefit to the adjacent water and coral. Don Miller, a New Zealander who works on Vanuatu in the south Pacific, has, over many years, inspired local people to reforest a particularly badly-eroded area near Port Patrick. [By the way, Vanuatu is 1,090 miles east of northern Australia, 310 miles northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and south of the Solomon Islands. Thank you, Wikipedia!] The results have been spectacular. View a modified Power Point presentation at http://www.vetiver.org/VAN_REEF/VAN-reef2.htm).
In my travels around the world I've seen many instances of coastal waters turned brown by sediment flows. If you don't travel, take a look at Google Earth images of Hawaii, Fiji, Jamaica, Honduras, the Indonesian islands, and many more. The Vetiver System is the best, cheapest, and greenest way to address the problem. In addition to halting sediment flows to the sea, it prevents sewage and other pollutants from reaching pristine beaches, improves groundwater (reduced ground water on many islands is becoming a major problem), increases crop yields and generates biomass for fuel, forage, and, as value-added products, handicrafts. The Vetiver System is available to everyone who wishes to use it, and, if applied correctly, it will work.