 Aloha, I'm Kirsten Baumgart-Turner and this is Sustainable Hawaii airing live every Tuesday from noon to 12.30 at Think Tech Hawaii Studio in downtown Honolulu. In the lead up to and following the World Conservation Congress held here just two weeks ago I've had several dedicated and knowledgeable guests who shared their work on protecting and conserving the water in and around Hawaii. Today's guests offer no exception, they both work for the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, administrated by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Tony Paras, communications manager for Papahanaumokuakea, grew up in New York and studied filmmaking at the University of Miami in Florida. She worked as a freelance writer, photographer and producer for magazines, movies, TV shows and educational and wildlife documentaries for Animal Planet, Discovery, National Geographic, ABCNBC, the BBC and many others before going back to graduate school for a very interesting master's degree in marine affairs and policy at the Rosensteel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Tony has also conducted field work throughout the Caribbean, South and Central America and the Indo-Pacific. Our other guest is Kainoa Kaulukukui Narakawa. She's an education specialist for the Marine National Monument. Before working for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, she was a public school eighth grade math and science teacher. In her current position, she plans, coordinates and facilitates educational programming and activities across Hawaii. This new mother, who I've witnessed in action at Camp Mokulea, is a catalyzing community building agent who teaches children and adults from diverse backgrounds how to shape a world where people are more caring, more conscious of the past, more connected to the land and more courageous in acting for the future. Welcome Kainoa and Tony. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you for having us. So much has happened since you were last on the show, Kainoa. Tell us a little bit in addition to your recent arrival, your new baby who's just adorable. A little bit about the educational work you're doing at NOAA. So I work primarily on the navigating change program at NOAA. And so the program has expanded from the curriculum that I originally started at to a camp program that we partner with Camp Mokulea. I also go into classrooms and I do various activities. It's grown into a program that can emphasize the relationship between land and people and trying to get students at an early age to start thinking about sustainability here in Hawaii. Terrific. And Tony, tell us about the work you're doing at the National Marine Monument or Marine National Monument. I notice it's actually not necessarily intuitive how it's labeled. Yeah, so Papahana Mokulea Marine National Monument is now once again the largest protected area in the world since President Obama announced the expansion on August 26th of this year. So my job is to, since it's such a remote, it's also one of the most remote protected areas in the world. So since it's very difficult to get to the area, our mandate is to bring the place to the people rather than the people to the place. So we do a lot of outreach and educational activities which Kanoa is involved in and we do a lot of media events and press releases just so we can share all of our discoveries and research and activities that we're doing in the monument with the public. It's such an exciting job that both of you have and you have both have such fascinating backgrounds. Tell me a little bit about the different elements at Papahana Mokulea that allow you to bring the Marine Monument to the public. You want to talk about the public? Yeah, I can definitely talk about that. And so one of the main ways that we do this is through education and outreach. And so Tony and I both attend multiple outreach, opportunities, events, conferences to try to bring the monument to the people and also education, formal education, informal education, having fun that gets people excited about learning about the monument. And so navigating change started as an idea that Nainoa Thompson had. He wanted to bring greater awareness of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. And so over a decade ago, they planned a voyage up to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. And it would be the first time that a traditional navigating canoe had gone up to the monument. And so here we have a picture of the Hokulea. And in the background, we have Nihua. And so it is the first island in the monument if you are traveling from the main Hawaiian Islands. And so this voyage was such a powerful experience for everyone that was there. And so from it sprang navigating change, a curriculum to again to bring the place to the children. And Papa Hanau Mokuakea just experienced or celebrated its 10th anniversary. What did that entail? And how excited was everyone about it? Oh my gosh, everyone was really excited, as you can imagine. We've been building up to this moment for a long time. So this year, we experienced a lot of milestones. So in 2006, then President Bush designated the monument. And that was the largest protected area at that time. And since then, we sort of spurred a large scale marine conservation genre. Because since then, a lot of other sites around the world have established their own very large scale marine protected areas. So now in celebrating our 10-year anniversary, now we have this other milestone being expanded to be once again the largest protected area in the world. But hopefully, we won't have that distinction for long because we do want others to follow suit. Because we want to protect as much of the world's oceans as we can. There's much more areas on land protected in the world than there are in the oceans. So we really need to step that up a little bit. Tell me, why is it unique as opposed to other protected areas, besides the fact that it's the largest? Sure. So it has many distinguishing features. Again, it's one of the, it is the remotest protected area, the remotest island chain in the world. And because of its isolation and its geology, it has a lot of 20, I think the estimate, early estimates were 25% of all the species found there are endemic, meaning they are only found in the Hawaiian Islands. But since we've been doing research there, we've been finding in some of the deeper reefs and some of the other areas that we're exploring, that number is a lot higher now. So there's a lot more endemic species being found in the monument and not just endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, but endemic to just the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. And these species are being discovered. How are there different expeditions and who's involved in those? Yes, so there's a lot of different expeditions. I will say that some of these species are also on land. Some of the beetles and snails and birds and things like that. But we, working for NOAA, we are focusing a little bit more on the marine aspects. So we do three different kinds of marine explorations. One is the shallow water monitoring, which occurs up to 100 feet in depth. And we, that's really to create a baseline of information about the state of the reefs and what's there. And then going a little bit deeper, we have our NOAA divers who are trained specifically in deep rebreather, mixed gas diving technologies. And they can dive up to 300 feet, a little bit over 300 feet. 330 feet I think is the maximum that we've gone. And there, at those depths, are much different kinds of ecosystems. And in fact, I don't know, well, this picture right here when you'll get to it, but there's, and Curia, I'll talk about the picture that's being shown right now. This is from deep sea explorations using ROVs, remotely operated vehicles, to depths up to 3,000 meters. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so really, really deep. And people think of the bottom of the ocean as just really barren, kind of nothing there, dark and abysmal. But as you can see from this picture, there's an amazing life down there. There's high density biological communities to be found, like that picture you just saw. This is a picture here of the largest known sponge in the world. And just to give you some scale, that's as big as a minivan. And it's not what we would usually picture as a sponge looking like. It's very different. It is. But when you get up close, it still has the same attributes as a sponge. But all of the different folds, and it just provides habitat for many other creatures. So if you really, I don't know if you can see into this picture, but when you go, when you zoom in, you can just see little crustaceans and all different kinds of animals living on this. So it really creates its own habitat within these other deep sea habitats that are on these seamounts very deep in the ocean. And I understand that there was also, along with Obama's visit, which was a gift to Hawai'i and to the world, expanding the monument, that Noah had a gift for President Obama. Yes. So that's actually, just so, OK, I've got to clarify. Because recently in the news, there's been the announcement of a discovery of a new butterfly fish species from the monument, which is what I suspect you're talking about. OK, so this fish right here is a brand new species of butterfly fish. And this was discovered on one of those deep reef dives around 300 feet, more or less. This is not the Obama fish. I just want to clarify. They have discovered a couple of new species of fish. So this is one of them. The other one is the Obama fish, but it hasn't been officially described yet. So that needs to be written up in an official paper and published. And that will probably happen around December. So it kind of got leaked because of all the excitement during the announcement during the World Conservation Congress and, of course, during the President's visit up to Midway. But in December, you will definitely hear about that officially. Well, that's thank you very much for clarifying that. Nonetheless, the discovery of the butterfly fish is phenomenal. What kind of fish is the Obama fish? The Obama fish is an anthias. And it's again, it's a very pretty fish. And again, you'll see it. I can't really talk too much about it because it hasn't been formally published yet. But I will say about the butterfly fish. First of all, it's very rare to find a new fish species. So, you know, finding three up in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands on these deep reefs is very significant. And just for if anyone is interested in seeing this butterfly fish live, there are live specimens at the Waikiki Aquarium, at the Bishop Museum currently, and at the Moku Papapa Discovery Center in Hilo. So if you want to see the fish live, you can go to one of those three places and see it. Well, that's a terrific opportunity. I'm definitely going to get out there. We're going to take a little break and we'll be right back with Sustainable Hawai'i and my guests from Papahanao Mokuakea National Marine Monument. Aloha, everyone. I'm Maria Mera, and I'm here to invite you to my bilingual show, Viva Hawaii on Sintek Hawaii, every other Monday at 3 p.m. We are here to talk about news, issues, and events local and around the world. Join me. Aloha. Good afternoon, Howard Wiig, CodeGreenSintekHawaii.com. I appear on Mondays at three o'clock and my gig is energy efficiency doing more with less. It's the most cost effective way that we in Hawaii are going to achieve 100% clean energy by the year 2045. I look forward to being with you. Aloha. Hi, I'm Stacey Hayashi and you can catch me on Mondays at 11 on Sintek Hawaii. Stacey to the rescue. See you then. Hi, we're back with Sustainable Hawai'i talking about the lessons that we can learn and all of the terrific activities going on with Papahanao Mokuakea National Marine Monument. And Tony, you were just about to tell me about the other protected areas of the world. I think you brought a slide to show us where they are. Yes. So there's an organization called Big Ocean, which is a network, a learning network of the world's large scale marine protected areas. And so Papahanao Mokuakea was one of the founding members. And like I said earlier, when once we were established as the largest back in 2006, we got together with some sites who were considering or already have gone big, so to speak. And so right now there are 19 large scale marine protected areas around the world. And I think probably there are more planned or more recently announced since the World Conservation Congress, but you can check Big Ocean's website and get more information about that. But you can get, you can see from the map that there is really all over the world. So I'm curious, are these areas as well organized as you folks at NOAA, are they learning from you? Or have you also learned from some of those areas, the kinds of things that they're implementing to be able to bring people into the work of the monuments? No, that's a great question. So Big Ocean, the network is a learning network. So it exists to share lessons learned, best practices, challenges, opportunities between all of these sites. And in fact, they have been developing the first ever guidebook of its kind for large scale protected marine areas to help managers of these places do their work better. And when might that come out? When can we look at it? You know what, I don't know the answer to that. But again, if you go to bigoceanmanagers.org, you can get more information about that. But I know that they had a big meeting in conjunction with the World Conservation Congress because a lot, most of the leaders from these different sites were at the Congress. So I know they had a business meeting while they were here and I know they were talking about the guidebook. So it should be coming soon. It's very exciting, particularly for educators in our state and around the world. Now what are some of the major issues, and I can imagine them, but for all the marine protected areas, I know that navigating change, you deal with this issue a lot. So let's talk about trash. Yes, marine debris is one of the most visually significant things that we can point to. Everyone can see trash when you go to the beach. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, right in the middle of the Pacific, acts as like a sieve. And so all of the trash that's swirling around the Pacific tends to aggregate here on our shores. And so this picture that we have of right now is from a few days worth of cleanup up on Midway Atoll. And so all of this trash came from a half a mile stretch of beach. And so that is not even all of the trash that we could possibly find on our very, very small atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but this is just a taste of what we see. And so here in the background to the left, we have an entire pile of nets. And so ghost nets are very, very horrible for the environment. They catch things along the way, our monk seals, our turtles get in the tank. And when you say ghost nets, what are those exactly? So those are nets that people aren't near. They're nets that have just fallen off boats or somehow been disconnected from the fishermen. And so they're just floating around and catching things. And there's no one to, what's the word I'm looking for? Remove, remove them. Remove them to observe what's happening to them to take responsibility for them. So no longer can someone be cast away in a shipwreck and expect to have no contact with our humanity. Now there's permanent contact anywhere in the world and we can see who's doing what through the rubbish that falls up. That's absolutely dismaying. Yes, it is. It's a dismal situation and I know that you have an infographic here that explains some of those elements. So in this infographic says it's since 1996, Noah has removed debris from Papahana Mokua Kea Marine National Monument in Hawaii, including 12 tons from this past year's mission and see on these little hexagons. We have 1,200 pounds from Pearl and Hermes Atoll. Okay, and some of the numbers that are just abysmal. We have 8,452 hard plastic fragments, 535 cigarette lighters, just cigarette lighters. Unbelievable and this one cleanup. And this one place. And that was just over a couple of days. That's really astounding. Now what is one of the things that brings all of this rubbish to the Atolls and where does it mostly collect? So the ocean currents and the winds combined to bring trash that starts off on land goes into the water and it's going to slowly make its way to Papana Mokua Kea because it's right in the middle of the ocean. And so we have currents coming from Asia, from North America, from South America. All of it converges right there and we happen to be right in the middle. And so right above the monument we have our North Pacific gyre and so that's right in the convergent zone there. And so all of that trash is going to float around and eventually some of it's going to land on our archipelago. So when the rubbish washes down in a heavy rain say like we had most recently here on Oahu and it flows out to the sea. It gets caught up in these currents. It ends up in one of these gyres circulating and converging right in the most remote islands in the world, the islands that are furthest from any other continental landmass. And you would think that they are absolutely pristine. As a matter of fact the pictures you show look like it's pristine. We don't really know what's going on below the surface of the water any time, do we? Yeah, the monument is beautiful and it's really, really sad to see these beaches strewn with litter. And I think it's really important for people to understand that no matter where you live in the world you can have a significant negative impact on this beautiful place. Because anything you do on land affects the ocean. Anything you see that's just laying on the ground if it happens to be litter. So we have cans and plastic bottles. All of that, if it does not get picked up online will eventually make its way to the ocean. And this picture is actually from one of your Navigating Change programs at Kent Makulia? Yes, it is. And so one of the really important activities that we like to do with Navigating Change is a beach cleanup. Because people don't really quantify, they don't analyze, analyze. They don't analyze what they see. And so it's important for the kids to get a little dirty, go out there and do a little part that they can. And so we have them do a beach cleanup just along the shoreline right close to camp. And then we have them categorize what they find. And so they can see here's plastic, here's metal, here's some nets, here's some cans. And overwhelmingly, we see plastic. And I see in this photo, there's also beach glass which has become quite a collectible. I'm right there with you with the analysis. With our tongue twister. Collectible item. And you see it in a lot of crafts, but it's really actually a sad statement that it's getting worn down so much. It's like a polished jewel. It is. That means it's been for a long time in the ocean. It has been in the ocean and the wave action works on it to kind of dull the edges. And so people find it beautiful, but if you really think about it like you were just saying, it's incredibly sad that we have something that should not be in the ocean there now. And so. I know that you also analyze albatross bullesses. Tell me about what that looks like. I believe some of that ends up in there, right? It does. And so an albatross bulless, what that is, is the albatross babies. They're getting fed by their parents and the parents go out to sea, sometimes hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles, and they bring back this really concentrated sludge. And then they feed it to their babies. And so it's supposed to be this very high calorie, wonderful nourishing substance, but as the parents are gathering their natural food prey items, they're also collecting plastics and a lot of times microplastics because plastic does not disappear. It will break down the sun, the wave action, all of that will work on it to make it to smaller, smaller pieces. And the albatross eat it, feed it to their babies. And before the albatross can fly to fledge, they have to get rid of all of that indigestible material that's weighing them down. And so they puke up this wonderful thing called a bulless. And we use that with children to see exactly how this marine debris, these microplastics are affecting wildlife. And it actually means that they're not getting the nutrition that they need, right? Because the mother mistakes it for food and it fills up their belly and they don't have the nutritional content that they need and it's affecting their growth and also I think their reproduction, is that correct? It's affecting them in a lot of ways and sometimes, well actually we don't understand all the ways that it's affecting our wildlife. We can guess that it's affecting in the ways that you have just mentioned. But the sad fact is none of the birds that we see now don't have plastic in there. Oh, how sad. Well I know you have a beach ecology activity where you take those samples that we were just looking at. What do you have the kids do with them? We have them go to the beach, find anything that looks interesting to them. Maybe it might be some sea glass, some marine debris, coral, sand, and we have them look at these substances under the microscope. And so this activity will help get them to look closely at their beach ecosystems to see it's beautiful and I should be paying more attention to what I see when I'm out in nature. And I know the last thing that you do in navigating change is out planting, helping to replace invasive species with natural species that help retain water and what else does it do? And so the natural ecosystem, dune ecosystem, is gonna have a lot of these shrubs that the wildlife need. It also protects the sand from disappearing. And so navigating change focuses on the invasive species, marine debris, climate change, all of the big issues that are affecting the monument. And so here in the main Hawaiian islands, we have the children explore those topics. And here we have a picture of an ohai plant getting planted by one of our fourth graders. Well, this is terrific stuff. I'm so glad you brought it to our attention. I challenge our educators and non-educators who are always learning to go to the Papa Hinaumokuakea website. And I invite you to come back again and teach us more. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having us. Aloha. Monk seal is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. The Hawaiian name means dog that runs in rough waters, which is appropriate since the seals are found spread all over the Hawaiian archipelago. Their numbers have been declining steadily. Oceanographic changes affect their food, which in turn affects their numbers. Only about 1,200 individuals are left in the wild. The monk seal is endangered on the red list.