We spoke with Australian journalist Paddy Manning about his new book Inside the greens.

Reefs worldwide are under threat from overfishing, industrial and agricultural runoff and of course climate change. Today the Great Barrier Reef is a boneyard in comparison to its former vivid glory. Yet Fiji are two decades into a reef conservation effort that draws on traditional indigenous knowledge and modern science. How are they doing? Very well it seems. Dr Austin Bowden-Kerby is The Coral Gardener who is an expert in both modern science and indigenous knowledge. The quality of the call was terrible there was such a lag so the traditional interview method didn't work but that was ok because Dr Austin was a great storyteller. I will explain each part - the first he talks about how the traditional Fijian idea of a tabu - a nofish area was rediscovered: here is the first part.