With a bushy white beard and a glint of mischief in his ocean-blue eyes, Dr. Austin Bowden-Kerby could easily be mistaken for Santa Claus. Except for the fact he’s 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) off-course and six months too early. Indeed, if this marine scientist’s ambitions to save the South Pacific’s reefs are realized, this may be the greatest gift this region, and the warming ocean waters the world over, could ever receive.
Onboard a boat to visit BULA Reef, Bowden-Kerby is less Saint Nick and more pirate, clad in a blue bandana, a hint of a missing middle tooth, and armed with all the grit and passion for which he is renowned in the South Pacific region.
It is out here, off Malolo Lailai in the Mamanuca Islands—off the west coast of Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu—that Bowden-Kerby and a small team of Fijian marine biologists are waging mutiny on climate change, and the crown-of-thorns starfish, which preys on coral polyps and decimates reefs. BULA Reef is a nursery designed to rescue thousands of coral populations and plant heat-resistant colonies.