To Till and to Tend

… luck blew my way.  After a run on the beach with my father, the two of us joined my mother for breakfast at the hotel, a hotel that was built on a slope rising from the shore.  A mere fifteen minutes later, that slope slowed the waves as they approached.

… 300,000 people weren’t that lucky.  Some were too close to the epicenter of the quake and nothing could have saved them.  Others lived and vacationed by the shore, at places where coral reefs were harvested and sand dunes flattened. 

After the tsunami, scientists began to ask why some waves reached 30 feet, while just a few miles away, the waves peaked at 10.  As nature can destroy, so can it protect.  Coral reefs, sand dunes and mangrove forests are all nature’s way of protecting its shores. Years before, coral harvesters and hotel developers unknowingly made the choice of who will live and who die; whose life possessions swept away and whose kept out of harm’s way.  At the time, their actions were innocent and maybe even noble; after all, they were feeding their families.  But now we know - their actions led to the destruction of their coastal communities. 

We so rarely see the repercussions of our actions. Whether we take the time to consider the chain of events that brought us our strawberries in December, discounted meat at the market, mahogany wood for our cabinets, or Southeast Asian coral for our bathroom decorations, lives and ecosystems change and sometimes even die.

Although there is always more to learn, we already know so much. Let 2008 be a year that we stop ignoring that which we know and act constructively.