By Josh Laurente | Co-Executive Director
Just months after weathering the devastation of super typhoon Sinlaku, Guåhan and the Mariana Islands were hit by yet another category 5 storm. Bavi struck our islands in July as the second major typhoon this year. Barely recovered from Sinlaku, Bavi truly put our resiliency to the test as it compounded much of the destruction we’d just experienced. And while we pray that the worst of the storms have passed, there’s still months left in this typhoon season.
Back to back super typhoons severely damaged our fruit forest here at the Food Resiliency Hub. Typhoon Sinlaku felled many of the bigger, windbreaking trees that protected other trees in the forest. Without their protection, Bavi’s storm force winds uprooted and felled many more of our native and fruiting trees. Decades of growth and abundance, gone in mere months. This loss harms our mission to promote local food security, reduces our harvests, and without strong tree roots to hold soil in place, negatively impacts the overall health of the forest as sustained rains and storm weather contribute to increased erosion. It is a shame that despite contributing very little to the global greenhouse gas emissions that worsen these climate disasters, we in the Pacific are left to deal with a disproportionate share of the devastating impacts.
While recovering from back to back storms has been a challenge, it has also presented opportunities for new growth and for bringing our people closer together. The spaces newly opened by fallen trees allows and empowers us to intentionally regrow the forest with more native, medicinal, and fruiting trees. And in the weeks following the storm, dozens of volunteers answered the call to steward the forest with us, helping clean up typhoon debris, removing invasive regrowth, and planting back stronger than before. We even partnered with Guma’ Ulitao, a group reviving the practice of traditional seafaring, donating a fallen monkey pod tree to them for the construction of new canoes. It is comforting to know that even after enduring two super typhoons, there remains an eager willingness amongst our people to show up for each other, and recognize hardships as opportunities to support one another.
There’s still a lot of work ahead of us, but these past few months have taught us that when our resiliency is put to the test, we can and will bounce back stronger and more abundant than before.
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By Josh Laurente | Co-Executive Director
By Josh Laurente | Executive Assistant
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