Massive Progress at Ventura Nursery by Matt John

Since our last update we have been very productive in the mangrove nursery at Ventura apartments. We have flown through all 1200 plastic bottles collected last week; cutting them in half and planting propagules. This brings the amount of mangroves in our nursery to around 10,000; this is incredibly promising and will greatly help reduce our carbon footprint. Work continues on the propagule tables with 18 set up and being used in the nursery allowing us to constantly increase capacity and make use of all available space.

We have separated an estimated 1,500 mangroves at Ventura and know of many more at our other nurseries which are ready to be planted in the rivers and coastal areas. These will be collected by our partners in WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) who will plant them in Suva. In doing so we are helping to create a vital safe haven for juvenile reef fish, sharks, birds and many other animals to live.

New structural supports grounded in concrete have been erected to replace the existing bamboo supports which are showing signs of wear and have needed to be repaired in the past. Hopefully, these will provide a stronger structure which will be more durable.  A useful box has been made to separate the bottle tops and bottoms allowing a smoother and more efficient work flow.   

Mangrove Monday is sometimes very hard, dirty work; especially if it is pouring down with rain. However, this week moral was high as the volunteers recognised the benefit of their hard work and enjoyed revelling in the mud.