Don’t take our planet for granted

Each year, April 22 marks Earth Day, a day to celebrate the place we all call home. I never forget because the day also happens to be my birthday.

It’s fitting that it was just yesterday I finished the book, “Wild Dark Shore,” by Charlotte McConaghy. The novel is set on a fictional remote island located between Tasmania and Antarctica.

This island, Shearwater, is inspired by the real-life Macquarie Island.

The book features the Salt family, a man with his three children, who are the caretakers of this island -that houses the world’s largest seed bank.

 A seed bank is a storage facility designed to preserve plant genetic diversity by storing seeds in controlled conditions for long periods. These facilities are essentially “libraries” of plant genetic material, ensuring the availability of seeds for future research, crop improvement and conservation efforts.

There are roughly 1,700 seed banks around the world. This fictional bank was inspired by the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, one of the largest and most secure in the world.

But in this novel, the island is being swallowed by the ocean. This is a risk we see in our world as rising sea levels caused by melting glaciers and ice sheets are dangerous for low-lying islands near Antarctica.

Because of this, researchers have abandoned Shearwater Island, leaving the Salt family to finalize the process of packaging the seeds for transport to a new home.

The novel starts with a woman washing up on the shore of the desolate island, the beginning of the mystery. I won’t spoil any of that plot for you.

The Salt children each have their own fascination with the island. The oldest, Raff, loves the whales, specifically their songs. He uses his prized hydrophone to record their underwater songs.

He describes to the newcomer the differences between the types of whales, physically and socially. Several whale species are endangered, historically from overhunting.

There is a moving scene in the book where a mother and baby whale are beached during low tide. The family works tirelessly through the day to dig trenches in hopes the incoming tide will save the two.

The middle daughter, Fen, loves her seals and penguins. Though the island initially began as a place of terror where fur and elephant seals were slaughtered and penguins were boiled alive for their oils, it is now a refuge for these animals.

“‘Sealing’ was the earliest Antarctic industry,” Bjorn Basberg and Robert Headland wrote in a 2008 paper. “Seals were almost exterminated in particular locations—in an era completely lacking regulations.”

The initial target was the fur seal, whose dense fur was coveted for hats and other clothing. It wasn’t until 1970 that conservation measures stopped the heavy exploitation of these animals.

Until the late 20th century, humans hunted penguins for their fat which was used to produce oil. Remnants of the barrels used to kill penguins are still visible on Macquarie Island today.

The youngest, Orly, is obsessed with the seeds himself. While he also shares his sister’s fondness for the penguins and seals, he finds himself the master of the seeds. As the family is hurrying to remove seeds from the collapsing vault, they must make the difficult decision to leave some behind.

The original researcher devises a plan to keep the plants most beneficial for human survival — particularly those that can be used for food.

Orly has a different idea. He seeks to save those that are the most unique, exquisite and unusual. He wants to save the beauty and the natural, preserving biodiversity.

From carnivorous plants like the pitcher plant to one of the world’s oldest and rarest trees - the Wollemi pine, Orly longs to save them all.

Though the story has an apocalyptic feel, none of its content is out of the realm of possibility.

As the Salts finally leave the island for the last time, the reader can’t help wonder — where will Fen’s seals and penguins go now? Will they find replacements for the seeds lost to nature?

I loved the profound complexity of the story and the way it made me think about what we take for granted on this planet we call home.