By Perseas Kamalani Vanebo
11th grade | Waiakea High School | Hawai’i
First place contest winner, Climate and Environment category
With lines from “How Is Bangladesh Preparing Farmers for Increasingly Salty Soil?” by Rachel Parsons, a Pulitzer Center reporting project
Once,
nothing at all would grow in the dry season.
Rita Bashar watched her land crack
under the weight of salt and silence.
Now, she grows bitter gourds
on raised beds wrapped in rice-straw mulch,
tends to a cow she bought
with $240 earned from vegetables
the earth once refused.
Salt still creeps.
Into her fish pond.
Into her roots.
Into her future.
But she’s learned.
She’s teaching others—
women like her,
fighting not just the weather,
but the forgetting.
They test soil with simple meters,
store rain in pitchers,
hope in dry seasons.
Across the world, in Spain, in Ghana,
they’re coaxing life
from wild halophytes—
plants that were always ready,
but rarely chosen.
We act like this is innovation.
But this is memory,
returning.
This is what happens
when the sea comes home
and the world finally listens.
Still, Bashar’s mango trees
didn’t survive this year.
Still, the shrimp farms leak into her land.
Still, climate change is making matters worse.
And still—
we cheer her resilience,
but we do not change.
Saline agriculture
is not a solution alone.
It is a signal.
If we don’t shift,
25 million may leave their homes,
not because they want to,
but because they must.
So let the salt speak.
Not just in fields and furrows,
but in boardrooms, in cities,
in every policy
that forgets where food begins.
This isn’t just Rita’s story.
It’s ours.
And the land is running out of ways
to forgive us.
Perseas Vanebo is a rising junior with a passion for writing, reading, entrepreneurship and volunteering. Based in Hilo, Hawai’i, she enjoys building her business (Big Island Body Butters), exploring new hobbies, and stepping outside her comfort zone. As a teen and second generation Mexican-American, she understands the challenges that can come with balancing responsibilities. Inspired by her personal experiences and the people around her, she creates change through both business and storytelling. While she dreams of achieving success in finance, business, or public service, she hopes writing will always remain a part of her journey.
Read more winning entries from the 2025 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.