The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Most people think of coral reefs as part of the tropical paradise they seek when they jet off to "the islands" to get away from the cold of winter. Reefs are associated with palm trees and blue water and sun tans and romance. Biologists and oceanographers know that reefs are the most diverse communities on the planet, built into enormous structures by some of the smallest and most interesting animals on the planet. In many ways, coral reefs are the basis of life in the ocean.

But in the South Pacific, reefs and the islands they surround and support are in deep trouble (no pun intended). Julia Whitty has been filming reefs for 15 years, so she knows them well, and she has seen their deterioration first hand. Now she has turned her considerable talents to writing a book, and if there's any justice, this book will do for coral what Rachel Carson's books did for the oceans and shores nearly half a century ago.

"The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific" is a three-part work that unflinchingly examines the world of coral reefs from three perspectives, each set on a different island in French Polynesia. In part one, she describes the atoll of Rangiroa from the perspective of a diver. Writing about the underwater world is no easy task.

Photographers and film-makers have always done a better job of describing the life aquatic. Perhaps that is because it is such a visual experience that most divers perceive it only from the right side of the brain, so it's easier to capture and present great images in lieu of thousands of words. Whitty has managed to capture the experience with words as powerful and colorful and well-composed as any photo or video clip she has ever made.

But her descriptions are not just artful. They are well grounded in science. She knows the biology of the reef and the intricate web of relationships in the coral ecosystem. The reader can learn with a sense of awe.

Part 2, Whitty moves to the dying atoll of Funafuti. This is no paradise. She takes a room in a guesthouse owned by a terminally alcoholic German expat and his wife Emily, a nurse who works for the atoll's local government. Funafuti is devoid of tourists and is rapidly losing its only source of economic support -- the reef around it -- to overfishing and pollution. Western influence has turned the formerly self-sufficient island into a throwaway society that is in deep denial about the threats surrounding it from all sides, especially the rising of the sea as far away glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland turn liquid. Even in that, Funafuti is a victim of Western influence as the locals choose to believe Australian denials that the sea level is rising, in spite of the evidence in front of them.

In the final part, Whitty visits Mo'orea, where she introduces the reader to the inhabitants of the island's lagoon and reef in lyrical but unsentimental prose. From her encounter with a pelagic octopus to the tense, inevitable demise of a pod of spinner dolphins when inconvenient winds trap them inside the reef, where they normally rest, but have no food, Whitty shares her sharp observations and insights, flavored with references to Hindu mythology (she hints at having a South Asian heritage) to try to explain states of mind that humans and some animals might actually have in common.

Whitty concludes this astonishing work with an epilogue set on Marlon Brando's private atoll Teti'aroa, where she contemplates the evidence of the planet's demise and consoles herself with the lesson from geology that reefs have come and gone throughout the history of the Earth.

"Whatever role we might play in the next great extinction will surely have less effect on the tenacious reemergence of reef-builders than it will on us. Reefs, we know, can survive without us. The opposite may not be true."

Julia Whitty has a lovely voice, but it's a voice bringing dire warnings that we had better heed soon.

"All day we have been observing the surgeonfish..." Julia Whitty begins, and from that first sentence onward, the reader of "The Fragile Edge" is one of the party. Whitty is there with you, chuckling good-naturedly at the antics of an undersea creature or (more likely) of those crazy humans topside. In one of my favorite moments, an account of how the funky old hotel with its peculiar charms has been taken over by new owners whose pampered guests pay $500/night to lounge by the infinity pool is interrupted just at the moment when you think she might succumb to sentimentality or some other curmudgeonly temptation by her confession that, "I like the pool, too." Similarly, Whitty clearly and firmly presents her environmental concerns without, so to speak, wallowing in them. Instead of putting the book aside because you're tired of hearing about how the end of the world is at hand, you're motivated to keep swimming along with a guide whose curiosity and expertise extend to the natural history of molecular plants and animals, as well as the more glamorous sharks and dolphins, from Western science to Eastern metaphysics, and from dissolving atolls and bleached corals to the raw fish marinated in coconut milk served at a Tuvaluan wedding reception. Finally it's her love of the coral reefs she has come to know over many years of diving and study, rather than her fear that global warming will destroy them, that Whitty is most eager to share.

What a treat to enter the underwater worlds of the South Pacific with documentary filmaker Julia Whitty as your guide! The writing is absolutely gorgeous: "The humphead wrasse who the Tahitians call mara and the French call Napoleon is an imposing fish up to seven feet long and four hundred and twenty pounds, with an overhanging forehead, thick lips, and a blue body overlaid with squiggly patterns of green and yellow that look like the inside of a crcuit board." It is easy enough to get lost in the descriptions of life in the reef, up close and personal, but Whitty doesn't stop there. She brings in philosophy, Darwin, yoga, the history of the people on the islands she decribes, and Buddhism, as she observes life in the reefs, so that the reader feels she is not merely observing what's before her but contemplating it, trying to understand its mysteries. She makes the more humorous sides of this underwater world come alive, all the while getting her message across of the dire straights the worlds coral reefs are currently in. She has a vast knowledge of fish and reef life but makes it accessable, even providing a glossary at the back for the layperson so you come away with new knowledge about worlds you might otherwise never know. I loved this book!!!