 Aloha. Happy Friday. I'm Kaui Lucas back here at Fink Tech, Hawaii. This week has been quite the whirlwind with the IUCN conference in town. And while there, I found a very knowledgeable and charming and articulate marine spatial planner who is now working on her second master's, this one in environmental conservation. Fatma Ben Said, originally from Tunisia, but now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will tell us why she's working on another master's. Welcome Fatma. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I am pleased to be here in Hawaii, the most beautiful place in the world. Coming from you, that's a big compliment. You've lived in some pretty spectacular places like Venice, and you're from Tunisia, which has a gorgeous coastline. Yeah, that's true. But I have to acknowledge that Hawaii has this heart of environment, of nature, and not only that, this spirit of Aloha and this connection and native people, and I just love it. Well, music to our ears. Thank you. Thank you. We'll share that with the IUCN folks that really have, they've done a pretty good job. I mean, you've been to a lot of these conservation. Yeah. Well, I find the Congress really successful. It was very instructive, very touching, emotional, and I do believe people who attended the Congress came out with many inspiration, with many good decisions, hopefully, and wanting to do more for our environment and nature. Yeah, so tell us about why you're back in school after going through all of the work of becoming a maritime spatial planner and working in the North Sea, in the Mediterranean, in the Adriatic. Yeah, so I started with architecture, but I was not convinced because of those environmental impacts on land. So I found this master, and it was really interesting because I love water. I love the sea. So it was my wonderful subject, and it was also a wonderful experience traveling through many places around the world. And we had the University of Seville at the Department of Geography, the University of the Azores, Department of Biology, and the University of Venice, Department of Planning. So you can see it's an interdisciplinary master. It was the first edition promoted by European Commission, and I was from the first 15 students. I was lucky, I think, because I've been working on economic sectors, planning for, for example, oil and gas in the Adriatic. I worked also on the shipping industry with the Nautical Institute, and I had the chance to go on ships with pilots, and it was a wonderful experience. And I worked also on offshore renewable energy, wind farms in the North Sea. Yeah, we're going to ask, we're going to talk more about that later, but keep going. And I attended a conference, a high-level conference, about deep sea mining. I was scared. Scared? Yeah. Well, I think deep sea mining is going to happen. There is a need for raw materials, but the idea of going to the ocean on mining, this deep sea bed is really scaring, because all those environmental impacts. And let's see what will happen in the future. So the deep sea bed mining, I mean, we're pretty familiar with that here in the Pacific. Well, I don't know about everybody, but I have been to conferences on deep sea bed mining, too, and found them kind of scary. But around the Pacific, I'm not aware of, there are other places that are looking at it, too. But I think all those high seas, like the seas outside the exclusive economic zones, so where is, like, the United Nations is governing. I don't know too much about that, but they have a process, you know, going through environmental impact assessment, and they go do those exploration, and then if they give them the permission, they start. But you're not convinced that those environmental... I'm not convinced. Well, hopefully, there are still technical challenges, and also, costly. It's very, very expensive. So I think it's going to take time, but if it's going to happen. And I think they already started in some areas. Also... So you have this degree, and you realized that you would be doing what? Well, honestly, I realized that they will be helping, too, with more environmental impact. So that's why I decided to do a second master in environmental conservation, and knowing that marine planners they have to work for the government. And in some cases, the government have some targets, I don't know, like doubling the extraction of oil and gas, or having targets for offshore renewable electricity from renewable sources. Like the case in Europe, they have those targets, like 20% of electricity from renewable sources from wind or solar or wave or tidal energy. And all those sectors have environmental impacts. So that's why I decided to do this master, and hopefully I will be able to do something for the environment and for nature, and for us. So Hawaii is just beginning to look at offshore wind. As far as I know, and I'm not in the thick of things, the planning hasn't gotten too far, but what are the things that we should be aware of? What did you see around offshore wind that was concerning to you? Okay, so from the economic perspective, it's expensive. It's like the cost, especially if they go far away from the cost, it's going to be costly. And from an environmental perspective, there are many environmental issues, especially on marine life, on the seabed. What sort of impacts would it have on marine life? So for instance, we have the noise. The noise? Yeah, and the vibration, and that will affect the marine mammals, also the fish and the larvae. So we know that marine mammals use those waves to go, to find their ways to feed. So with those noises and vibration, they got disoriented and they can die. Also, during the construction phase, we have all those noises. So imagine those big hammers to put this foundation, and they are making a lot of noises. So that's it's going to affect the marine mammals. Also the cable lying on the seabed, so that's it's going to affect corals or kind of life on the seabed. I heard one sort of positive thing about this kind of arrangement of the offshore oil, and that was, I mean, offshore wind. There's talk about, at least in the European community, establishing a no-take zone around the wind farms. But is that blue washing? I mean, if the fish are already compromised, and maybe that's just like the least you can do, is not fish there. And how easy is it to fish in these wind farms? I mean, in the middle of these. Do you have any sense of that? I think it's mostly about safety issues, because accident could happen in those wind farms. So they need to keep buffer zones. And in most of the cases, they just leave spaces around wind farms, and no one can go inside only people working on maintenance. Sometimes it happens with the cruise to collide on some wind turbines, especially with bad weather. Also there are some disturbance on the radar from those wind turbines. So, yeah, so from the safety side, they will just keep it no take. But in some cases, there is like a combination between protected area and offshore wind turbines, wind farms, like the case of the UK. They decided to combine the wind farms with the conservation and the wind farms at the same area. And hopefully it's going to be not hard for them. Well, hopefully. So back to the, let's stay with Europe since we've got you here. And you were talking about some of the work you've done in Italy. You were studying in Italy. So you were working and doing mapping. And I think here we have a picture of some special maps. What are those X's? Well, okay, this map shows those ships already sunk in the Mediterranean with nuclear waste. So we know very well how expensive it is to dispose the nuclear waste. And some people, they just make a new business and it's more beneficial than drug business. And that's what some of people do with the nuclear waste just to get rid of it and knowing that no one can go deeply. So let me repeat. There's nuclear waste on these ships. Yeah. And why are they marked as an X on that map? So they found out that there are tons of nuclear waste missing and reported. And reported? Yeah. So they did not go in this disposal area for nuclear waste. And there was some investigation about that by some journalist that they are risking their lives. And they found out these people working with the mafia and agreeing to put those nuclear waste on ships. Just take it to the sea, put a bomb on the engines and the ship sink. Well, that's really a charming story, a little nightmare of what we can do with our oceans. Yeah. There's not a proper oversight. Yeah. Well, we're going to take a little break here and then come back and see if there's something more uplifting to discuss. Okay. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, meeting people we may not otherwise have met, helping us understand and appreciate the good things about Hawaii. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Aloha. My name is John Waihei, and I actually had a small part to do with what's happening today, served actually in public office. But if you don't already know that, here's a chance to learn more about what's happening in our state by joining me for a talk story with John Waihei every other Monday. Thank you. And I look forward to your seeing us in the future. Looking to energize your Friday afternoon? Tune in to Stand the Energy Man at 12 noon. Aloha Friday here on Think Tech Hawaii. Welcome back to Hawaii is my name. I'm coming because here on Think Tech Hawaii. And with me today is Fatima Ben Said, originally at Tunisia and now at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who is on her second master's degree, one in environmental conservation. And that's why she's here in Honolulu attending the IUCN conference this week. So Fatima and I had a chance to talk about some of the more difficult marine projects that she's been involved with in the course of her studies. And one of them is a group of islands, the Maldives. And you got to go there and what was the context of it? Well, after my first master's degree, and I was not convinced to start looking for a job as a marine planner, and I thought about conservation. So I decided to start with volunteering. And the first time when I went to the Maldives, you know, dreaming of those beautiful islands, I was shocked. It was at the Whaleshark Festival. Ah, the Whaleshark Festival? Yeah. So the islands and the ocean was extremely beautiful. It was amazing. But I noticed the waste and the garbage, you know, along the beaches and people eating and throwing some of the stuff on those, you know, on water or... Where is this picture taken? So this picture is in Tilafushi called the Trash Island. And I think it was a lagoon. And then they decide to dispose the waste on that lagoon. And it was growing and now it's a big island and it's still growing every day. It's growing because they're putting municipal waste in a lagoon? Yeah, that's the disposal waste. Wow. Yeah. And they don't have any system to manage the waste. They're just burning. Some of the company, they are just taking the plastic and they are taking them to India to recycle the only plastic. And all the other stuff, they are just burning them. So this was a lagoon, as in with water inside. We're having that ship that's there. Did that used to be in the water? What are we looking at? Well, this is on a local island called Mamigili. And it's one of the most developed island. They have the airport, they have a big port. And unfortunately they don't have a system to manage the waste. They are just burning. And knowing that this is expanded on the Indian Ocean, they have almost 1200 islands. So it's very challenging to manage the waste and especially for the long distance. And unfortunately they have just this incinerator to burn the waste that they are not even available on all the islands. So this is a cautionary tale for Hawaii about trash and not being able to effectively reuse it. So they just let the trash accumulate on this island surrounded by water. That sounds like maybe some of the trash gets into the water. Yeah, exactly. So if you are traveling and going to Male, which is the capital, and Tilafushi, this trash island is not too far, so you can see the garbage floating. And you can see everything. And you can see the smoke from far away. And I do believe this is a big contributor to climate change. Trash burning. Trash burning, yeah. So when you were there and we saw that picture of you and there was kind of hazy and smoke there, was that from the incinerator? Is that what that is? So they don't have an incinerator there. They have those piles of trash. And if you can see the flat part is a lagoon, so it's like the trash floating on the water. You can see the water, but it looks like a field. Oh, you mean that? Isn't solid ground next to you? That's water? Where I am at? It's solid ground, but right next to your foot. Yeah, so that's water. It's trash. It's like a lagoon. Do you see those postcards and this thing? That's what you mean pile of lagoon? Wow. Oh, that's really horrifying. Oh, I know. I see there's a ship in the background that's, I guess, wow. Yeah, you can see water. Oh. So how are they burning it, if it's? Well, unfortunately there are unlucky people working there and most of them are from Bangladesh. They are not well paid. They accept any condition and they are working there. And it is this island, it's an industrial island. So I believe those people working on that island are affected and they have diseases. Well, that's why it feels so good to be going to something like the IUCN, right? Yeah. To feel like we can actually be doing something proactively about it. Have you felt that? I mean, I took some pictures just going around at the exhibits and stuff and maybe we can have a look at them because, to me, I felt really energized that there was a concerted effort to bring in all kinds of interesting things for people of all ages to do, like here. Remember this one with the kids were making little creatures, sea creatures out of clay? Oh, that was so adorable. That was in the Noah booth. And just to see the kids how excited they got, did you play with that? Well, I did not. That is the augmented reality sandbox. Actually, there's a great think takoyi show on the augmented reality sandbox. And these kids were learning how to do spatial planning in a sandbox. Well, honestly, I would love to see kids, you know, planning their ocean because they need to talk. They are concerned because it's their future and we need to consider them and to involve them. For instance, I'm so happy with the Papahanao Maokuakea and my feeling is it's going for them. And I am happy even knowing there are a lot of opposition about that decision, but let's look at the positive side. We need entire area, no take. We just have to enjoy those places without harming and it's going to be for our kids, for future generation. And they need that. If you can see, we are keeping on expanding our activities. We want always more and we don't think about them. And what we love to see is those kids talking about their rights, what they need in the future. They need to find nature. They need to find those birds. They need to enjoy the ocean, clean ocean without plastic, especially without plastic. Which is not that easy anymore. We were both at that movie that they showed Plastic Oceans, which I highly recommend to anybody who wants a Joseph reality. But there were some good things in that film. They talked about, was it called Pyrogenesis, that they're beginning to find a technology to convert the marine debris into fuel? Well, yeah, at least something good. Instead of having this plastic contaminating and polluting our ocean, at least we have something good that we can use. There are many other alternatives that we can have from plastic. And we people, we have this wonderful mind that when we find a challenge, we will find a solution. So I do believe, and I am hoping, to have like strong decision, powerful decision, at least to stop using the plastic with food. And do you remember what she said? Oh my God, I loved what she said. Sylvia Earle, this was the forum with Alani Wilhelm was moderating. And what did she say? Let's just protect everything, not 10%, not 20%, not 50%. And we need to protect everything. We need to take care of everything because nature is our capital. If you think without nature, we are nothing. We are nothing. We don't have any resources. Can you think if we stay without water for one day, or without air, or without green, or without seeing animals, birds? So what about the issue of taking care of the people now? Do you have a good positive model that we can aspire to? Here we were in Honolulu, and there was plenty of food, and plenty of clean water, and plenty of clean air. But you have been in places where that is not the truth. In our last minute, can you talk about maybe some hopeful way to move forward that's taking care of the people too? Well, over here everything is perfect, comparing to other places, especially in third world countries, where the environment is not a priority. And talking about Tunisia, they just removed the environment, the ministry environment. There's no more ministry of an environment? No more. Just sustainable development. And I was shocked when I heard that. I don't know. I don't know how could happen. So like in some countries, they are not considering the environment. So how about sustainable development? How is based on... So we've got our work cut out for us, don't we? Oh my God. Alright, well hurry up and finish that second degree. Okay. I will. And then train those kids to be our planetary warriors. I will. I will. Thank you. Thank you so much.