Large-scale Land Restoration on Molokai is Possible

Molokai Bahá’í Community News Release

John Liu’s documentary film, “Hope in a Changing Climate,” will be shown at the Molokai Public Library at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday March 26 as part of the Global Citizenship Speaker Series.
Two hundred years ago, Molokai had a population of approximately 30,000 and exported food to other islands. Today with one quarter of that population, we import 90 percent of our food. Traditional food systems have largely disappeared, and large parts of Molokai have experienced soil erosion and loss of native vegetation, with climate change accelerating degradation of the land.
There is hope that this can be reversed. In different parts of the world people are uniting to restore degraded land on a very large scale. In 1995, filmmaker John D. Liu went to the Loess Plateau in China to tell the story of its devastated land and the beginnings of massive restoration efforts. He returned several years later to find the land had become fertile again. Amazing before and after footage shows how the desert region is now covered with forests and farms. Farm incomes tripled and the area is now food secure.
Footage of similar projects in other areas of the world demonstrate how restoration has happened on a large scale. The public is invited to watch the film and consider whether island-wide land restoration is possible here.
The film presentation, sponsored by the Molokai Bahá’í Community in collaboration with the public library, will conclude with time for comments and questions. Light refreshments will be served.