Laudato Si MSC St Joseph’s Parish Bikenibeu Mangrove Planting Project

Last month Fr. Martin Everi was invited by Fr Ariel, MSC to give a workshop to laypeople on the Synod of Synodality. On his way back from the Marshall Islands, he had to pass through Kiribati for 3 days. He asked Fr Beniata, MSC, the current parish priest of St Joseph parish to let the youth prepare some mangrove seedlings for planting. When he arrived in Tarawa, he joined the youth coordinators to plant 4 thousand seedlings. They did the planting around 8 a.m. in the morning of July 29th, and later 20 youths finished planting all the seedlings.   

This is the mangrove-planting project which began during the Season of Creation in 2020 and the youth are trying to plant more mangroves year after year, with a goal to plant around 18,000 to symbolize the number of parishioners of St Joseph parish. So far the total number of mangroves that have been planted on this site given to the youth by the ministry of environment, is around 10,000 now.

We thank Fr Beniata and the Bikenibeu parish youth for this important project in response to the call of Pope Francis (Laudato Si) to take care of our common home. This is one concrete activity to protect our low-lying Islands from the destructive impacts of sea-level rise due to climate change.