Today’s good news story is from the Good News Network; here is the story in its entirety. (some typos have been corrected)

Once Devastated Pacific Reefs See Amazing Rebirth, Recovering With ‘Shocking Speed’

As remote as they were beautiful, the coral reefs around the 5 volcano tips making up the Southern Line Islands dazzled National Geographic explorers in 2009 during a visit.

Remarking that they re-painted the image of what a pristine coral reef looks like—bursting with color and life—the team of the Pristine Seas Expedition had been crushed when a record-warming El Niño event in 2015 caused mass coral die-offs.

Then a return in 2021 revealed a remarkable scene—bright, healthy corals teeming with life as far down as 100 feet off the island slopes. After record numbers of coral deaths, a team member estimated their populations averaged around 43 million to 53 million coral colonies per square mile.

The Southern Line Islands belong to the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. Enric Sala, a marine biologist and member of Pristine Seas, detailed that it took longer to reach them by plane and boat than it took the astronauts of the Apollo missions to land on the Moon.

During the 2017 trip to Vostock, Flint, and Millennium islands, the vast swaths of cauliflower corals, pocillopora were all gone, while the species Acropora was also hard hit. Some other species were less damaged, however, giving the Sala, who was preoccupied at the time and didn’t get to join the 2017 trip, hope they could recover.

In fact, the expedition found promising signs the reef could do just that since rather than being covered with seaweed, the dead corals were covered in “crustose coralline algae,” a marine plant that coral larvae can latch onto to build new reefs in the same way that a brick latches onto mortar.

Sure enough, this foundation led to near-total regeneration of the reefs around the Southern Line Islands.

“The reef was covered by light-blue corals that looked like giant roses—a garden of Montipora aequituberculata stretching as far as I could see,” says Sala.

Since the Southern Line Islands are so remote, no one was keeping an eye on how the corals were able to regrow so significantly, but Sala has an idea. Since most of the montipora were the same size, it’s possible that one or two massive coral spawning events, where they reproduce and launch their eggs out into the sea before the larvae rain back down on the reef, are enough to repopulate large areas of dead corals.

Its resilience earned it the moniker of a “super reef” among the crew.

“The corals that were resistant to the phenomenal 2015-16 El Niño provided the reefs’ resilience,” wrote Sala. “The Southern Line Islands lie in one of the hottest hot spots of warming in the Pacific Ocean, so the corals apparently have adapted to heat.”

As for the flush of the mortar-like crustose coralline algae over the dead corals as opposed to seaweed, Sala chalks it up to the great numbers of grazing fish like zebrafish, parrotfish, surgeonfish, and others that would simply devour any seaweed before it could overgrow the coral.

Kiribati’s government has ensured that these seas, which have never seen large-scale commercial fishing, will never see it, and now make up the Southern Line Islands Marine Protected Area (SLIMPA)

The good news here is that natural healing of the coral has taken place. Today’s JohnKu talks about the power of nature. I hope you have a great weekend.

Nature by John W. Howell ©2022

Still under attack,

Yet finding a way to thrive . . .

Mother is her name.

100 Farmers, Neighbors Help Harvest Iowa Farmer’s Crops After He Died Suddenly From Cancer

BY LOUISE CHAMBERS TIME NOVEMBER 26, 2022

Paul Baker, courtesy of Melissa Baker

Today’s good news story was brought to my attention by blogger and author Noelle Granger. It comes from the Epoch Times Newsletter, and here it is in its entirety. Thanks so much, Noelle, for submitting this one.

When an Iowa farmer died suddenly and unexpectedly from lung cancer, his neighbors rallied together within days to reap the corn crops he left behind. His family, deeply humbled, are grateful for the tight-knit community that showed their love and saved their harvest.

Born and raised in Creston, Iowa, Paul Baker farmed around 500 acres of land, raising beef cattle, soybeans, and corn. Nobody, including Paul and his wife of 46 years, Lynn Baker, had any idea Paul was battling cancer.

After he became seriously ill in March, his health never improved. “He didn’t ever get his breath back and [had] no energy,” his wife, Lynn, 68, told The Epoch Times. “We finally went to the doctor about a month ago.”

With fluid already on his lungs, a biopsy brought more foreboding news: lung cancer. “He passed away about four days later,” Lynn said. “We didn’t expect it to be anything like that … I think we were all very sad and shocked.”

A devout Catholic, Paul placed his faith in God but was “just aggravated that he didn’t feel better,” his wife said. He kept farming up until the day he was admitted to the hospital and died on October 20 at the age of 66.

Their daughter Melissa Baker said, “The community knew something was wrong … farmers and friends had already worked with my uncle John to harvest the soybeans while he was in the hospital. They just volunteered, nobody asked them to do it … that’s what happened with the corn, too.”

When the Bakers’ community learned Paul had passed, they called Don, the husband of John and Melissa’s sister Meredith, who plans to take over the farm, offering to help in any way they could.

“By the time we went to the visitation and the service, I think we had a huge spreadsheet of all these different teams of farmers,” Melissa said, who lives three hours away in Cedar Rapids. “They just wanted to help my dad because he would do it for anybody else.”

On October 27, two days after Paul’s funeral, some 30 combine harvesters, 38 semis, and countless tractors and buggies arrived on the Bakers’ land before sunrise. Melissa guessed some 100 people lent their time, equipment, love, and labor for a full day’s work harvesting crops.

Local businesses donated breakfast and lunches to the farmers, and children from nearby St. Malachy Catholic School, where Paul’s granddaughters attend, decorated lunch bags and crafted thank you letters. Melissa tried to visit every field to thank them personally and was quickly overwhelmed.

Lynn said, “It was really emotional. Of course, we cried a lot, but we were just overwhelmed and felt very loved … at the end of the day, everybody gathered together, and that was really fun just to see everybody celebrate [Paul] and talk about him. I think he would be nothing but pleased to see all of us together.

“People are really good.”

Melissa said, “It’s nice to see that people really do care and are willing to help and show up. I know that happens in other communities, but there’s something really special about a small-town rural community.”

Lynn describes her late husband, a Knight of Columbus who was very active in the church, as “very kind and loving.” He worked over 40 hours a week for his whole life but still made enough time for his family, including his two grandchildren, and loved telling jokes to strangers.

“He was just a very personable, outgoing, loving human,” Lynn said. “If anybody needed help, he was the first to help them.”

Paul’s faith kept him strong until the end; Meredith told the Diocese of Des Moines that when her father’s time came, he was ready.

“On the last day that he was with us, he said he was waiting for the Lord,” Meredith said. “We’re a very faith-based family. It was very comforting for us to know that he was good, and he was ready, and that he would continue to be with us always but in a different capacity.”

The Good news here is people pitch in unselfishly to help a family in trouble. Today’s JohnKu talks about helping. I hope you have a great weekend.

Do You? by John W. Howell

When you see trouble,

Do you go out of your way . . .

To help or avoid.

I am over at Story Empire today. Come see me I’m talking about humor.