 Welcome back. This is Carol Monly and we're doing part two of Sustainable Hawaii today I'm stepping in for Kirsten and we're so happy to have back our guest from the prior sec show and Tony Paris and Kainoa, Kalukukui, Norikawa, right? Thank you for coming back. Thank you. And the discussion We were talking about is the newest the largest not the newest I've heard but the biggest Marine National Monument outside here in Hawaii Papahanao Mokua Kea Correct. Yes. So it's not only the largest Marine National Monument or the largest Marine protected area for that matter It is now since the expansion was announced in August The largest protected area of any kind in the world in the world. Yeah, so just to get an idea. It's What if I think we have a graphic up, but it's one and a half million square kilometers 578,000 some square miles in area. So that is larger. That's Nearly the size of the Gulf of Mexico. Oh my goodness. It's larger than not all but 19 of the world's nations So just really trying to get that into perspective. So what you can see here on the graphic is the the very outside line is the United States EEZ exclusive economic zone boundaries and The smaller blue line above that surrounding of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is the original size of the monument and Then the sort of dotted line that goes around on the left side out to the EEZ is the expanded area of the monument My goodness. Okay, and have you all been there? I have not been there I hope to be there soon, but not yet. Yeah, I have been there But it is very difficult to get there. It's the remotest place It's the remotest protected area in the world So our I think I said this before but our mantra is we bring the place to the people rather than bringing the people to the place And we do that in a lot of ways with our outreach and education efforts at NOAA through NOAA Through NOAA and through our partners. So the monument is actually co-managed by seven different entities federal state and Non-government organizations like so there's two different agencies within NOAA. There's the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries There's NOAA fisheries there's two under the US Fish and Wildlife Service There's two under the State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources There is the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Does that seven two two two and one? Yes So we have representatives from all those seven different agencies and entities Doing work in the monument and supporting the management and restoration of the monument plus Numerous partners that aren't even one of those seven agencies. So we have a lot of Partners. It's a very unique management structure. So it's it is an experiment It's working out wonderfully and we're very happy to now co-manage our large expanded monument Wonderful. So tell us how you're managing you're co-managing and what has changed since the new Expansion of the monument in terms of your roles So the like I said, so we have three so we have seven co-managers We have three co-trustees, which are the broader agencies So we have the Department of Commerce the Department of Interior and then the State of Hawaii So as part of the expansion The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is going to have a stronger role in the management of the monument And that hasn't been worked out yet since the announcement is so new They're gonna work out the details of that, but we'll just rest assured that the native Hawaiian community has always had a big Part in the monument even before it became a monument. We have advisory groups We have the native Hawaiian cultural working group that works very closely with the monument managers and partners To do the work in the monument So there's a very strong native Hawaiian cultural tie to not just the northwestern Hawaiian islands But the management of it through the monument and and I know that you're gonna talk tell us a little bit about the Scientific discoveries within the monument Yes Yes, we are and so in the newly expanded area the deep sea We have these five up on the screen well for new discoveries that we really want to focus But we have this really cute new species of octopus that we found we nicknamed him Casper He's adorable. How big is he? I believe he's pretty small Yeah, pretty small little dude, and then we also found a couple really huge things And so we found the largest sponge in the entire world. It's about the size of a mini van No kidding. Yeah, do they have genders fit male or female? Sponge, that's that is a really good question. I do not I don't You know name them he or she but is that the sponge this is the sponge And so look at all those intricate folds and if you look to the right you can kind of see that sponginess There but yeah, it is absolutely huge and we weren't expecting to find something so large At the depth that we were exploring. We also found a very large Gorgonian which is this beautiful Spiral-looking organism and it is as big as an adult giraffe. My goodness Are each of these things brought up from the depth depths of the ocean to be studied and photographed or just photographed in See-through so we have these submersibles that can go that deep and take pictures and explore we have lots of video that we can use to categorize these new species Because of just the limitations of the actual submersibles we can't take very many Samples and so I believe it's too biological per dive and to geologic The details but the submersible does have the capability to take a sample but nothing that they did yeah They don't take the entire Organism they'll just take a teeny little snippet of in this case We know the black coral or the Gorgonian just so they can analyze the Components of it and they bring it back up and they bring just the teeny little science right right Right. Yeah, and now what's going to happen with those? particular new What do you call them organisms these new organisms they become like classified and Is there an attempt to try to bring them to the surface and? Propagate them Propagate them. I don't think we're quite there yet But they the samples do get brought up They get preserved and they get sent to institutions around the world that specialize in whatever species that is So the different corals or limu algae that we find will go to the different specialists around the world for Categorization and for safekeeping Um, oh quick. Okay. This right here is it undescribed or new new Species of limu that would describe that one of the deeper dives in the monument. Can we go to the slide before? I don't know if she can go back. Okay. Thank you beautiful Yes, so this is on one of the deep reefs Akure Ato which is the northernmost atoll in the entire Hawaiian archipelago This is approximately a little bit deeper than 300 feet And our NOAA divers and partners are using technical rebreathers to reach these depths But what's really important about this picture is every single fish you see is an endemic species Meaning it is only found in Hawaiian waters That is unheard of anywhere else in the world as of yet. This has been documented So and this is in the Boundaries of the monument before it was expanded So just finding these things out and this is relatively well, I don't want to say relatively shallow But at 300 feet we can still go deeper with the rovs, which is where the The organisms that kainoa showed you before are found So The in the expanded area there's a lot deeper areas most of the water in the monument is below 3000 meters And they harbor sea mounts which are undersea mountains that go from the ground from the seafloor up about a thousand meters so these are enormous structures And they harbor all kinds of the those different organisms high density sponge and coral communities That are just filled with beautiful feather stars and basket stars and corals and sponges and just creatures like the The casper octopus i'll say So there's 75 known sea mounts in the expansion area alone and most of sea mounts undersea mountains basically And they've yet to be explored. So we are really likely going to find some new Organisms there. So tell me more about the coral We Oh the coral So one interesting thing that we found this was within the original boundaries of a monument was The oldest living organism that we know of and so it's this beautiful black Coral and so yeah, yes, it's a beautiful huge black coral and it Can live Over 4500 years like this and so why is it called black if it looks? That is another color you want to take that? I was gonna say that's an excellent question actually black coral can be black coral is found in many different colors orange red yellow green But the base of it or the what do you call the inner structure? Yeah, is when you take it up and polish it is black and that's what they use for jewelry I see Yeah, yeah this specimen specifically was found between 300 and 500 meters So very very deep And so we're really excited about Like tony said all of these new sea mounts that we can explore because we're going to undoubtedly find Lots of very old creatures lots of new specimens that we can document And so this is all very exciting because it's all completely new to science Yes, and you mentioned the limo is the limo has been tested for edibility. Can it be eaten? I assume of course the fish can be eaten, but That's a good question too I don't know that much about that. I don't think it has been tested for that But I think you know what I don't know we can ask our we should get our science crew to come in and Sure, we'll do a part of this. Yeah, it'll be great. Yeah, but they're really pretty nevertheless beautiful That's the limo That's one of the many there's that you discovered yet. Yeah, there's been many I think I want to say 70, but I don't want to I want to yeah species new species Um, so lots of different kinds of organisms. So before the expansion was there risk of them being destroyed or affected by See a fishing or any other kind of exploration that might have harmed harmed them so I mean because it wasn't officially protected there's always the chance that It could be affected negatively somehow but But the yeah, but the expansion just means now that it has the same protections as the previous boundaries of the monument Which is no take So it offers a lot more for us to study what's there because it's really important to find out what's There before you start exploiting an area So, you know, just knowing that it's a very unique Place from what we already do know Imagine what we don't know Yeah, okay So now have you you mentioned that you've been there, but there's no landmass of course, right? So it's just been on a ship. What kind of a So there's actually 10 Islands and atolls that are kind of dotted through the monument and I think if we bring up the The map again you can see But they are very small and a lot of them. I mean you can't land at them in a big ship So most of the expeditions that take place in the monument go by ship There is a small runway on midway atoll, which is about Midway Second to the last right below carry Yeah So I've been There twice once on a plane to midway at all and once by ship through some of the other islands and atolls Um, but let me interrupt and sure it's really fascinating. Let's go to a short break Okay, and we'll follow up and thank you for the inability hawaii again And we have our guest tony paris and kainoa kalokui nori kawa. We'll be right back. Thank you Aloha My name is john wahi. 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 wahi Every other Monday Thank you. And I look forward to Your seeing us in the future Hello, my name is crystal. Let me tell you my talk show. I'm all about health It's healthy to talk about sex. It's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about It's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it So I welcome you to watch quok talk and engage in some provocative discussions on things that do relate to Healthy issues and have a well balanced attitude in life. Join me Welcome back. This is carolyn lee with my social guest tony paris and kainoa Noa and specifically they've been working on the biggest marine national monument here in north west twine island Otherwise known as papa hanao or kua kaya. So welcome back. Thank you So we've been having this interesting discussion both part one and part two. How can people get involved in educating and learning more and benefiting from Uh, this expansion That's a great question a really important question And so the first thing people can do if they're interested in learning more about the monument and the expansion And all the animals that we discussed today You can go on to our website So if you just google p m and m or if you can spell out papa hanao mokua kaya You can get to our website and we have links that you can go to to learn all about the monument monument excuse me and then also we have Quite a few educational opportunities if you're a teacher or a student or parents You can go on to our education link And they're listed there, but i'd like to shout out our moku papa discovery center in hilo And so that's our very own papa hanao mokua kaya Center that people can come and visit you can see A large salt water tank that has some of the really special species of fish presented there at the discovery center Is it in downtown hilo? It is right along front street. Is that the name of the street? It's right across from the ocean yeah it's right on waterfront street Also, we have a wonderful program called navigating change that I work on and so if you are a teacher You can find my contact information and I can come to your classroom and give Lessons on the monument. I can talk about any of our really special animals I can talk about marine debris invasive species and so anything to do with the environment and Learning about the monument. I can come in and help with any of that Are you specializing in particular age group or middle school high school? I would like to visit everyone So my background is as a middle school educator And so most of the presentations that I do currently are with the elementary age children middle school And so if any high school teachers would like Someone to come in Besides myself. I can offer up Our many scientists at NOAA I also have our partners with the monument come in and do presentations And so there are so many people that would love to come to the classroom that it's Too long of a list to as wonderful go through right either formal Programs within higher education right now as part of University of Hawaii or hpu do you have Partnerships there We do we work a lot with the University of Hawaii both here in manoa and in hilo Do you know did you want to say something? We have the marine options program and that's one of our Being programs mop. Yes mop to Help train divers And how is NOAA involved in that? So our staff our scientists and our field staff train the divers in the quest program at UH Hilo And they also mentor them so that they can and they choose like the best of the and the best in the brightest from those programs To be on to participate in some of the research cruises that go up to the monument Right so like on your cruise that you went up there. Exactly. We had some students scientists exactly exactly So we like to mentor the next generation of marine scientists and marine resource managers because you know at some point We're gonna have to leave the farm We also have in addition to mokopapapa Discovery Center So I don't know in the news recently maybe a week or two ago We announced um our formal publication of the discovery of a new butterfly fish species from a monument fish butterfly fish Species um and it's pretty rare to find a new species of fish. So and how great we have this beautiful picture Beautiful isn't it beautiful and you know interestingly for any divers or snorkelers who are familiar with butterfly fish Typically butterfly fish tend to hang out in pairs when you see them on the reef swimming around This particular butterfly fish hangs out in sets of three. Yeah triads. Ah, yeah, so If you want to see this species live, we actually have some at the mokopapapa Discovery Center in Hilo We have how big is it? They're pretty small You know the size about like that I want to say Yeah We also have specimen at the Waikiki Aquarium Which has been there for a while before the species was actually described So it was Formerly an undescribed species of butterfly fish, but now that we have announced it now. They know what it is So that's at Waikiki Aquarium in our northwestern Hawaiian Islands exhibit tank so you can go there to see it or The bishops museum is currently running an exhibit called journeys Which is all about excuse me. It's all about the northwestern Hawaiian islands So and that's there until january the end of january 2017 and as part of that exhibit they are Exhibiting the live species of three of those butterfly fish that were were taken all together because they were hanging out together So the they wanted to keep them together. So now they're at the bishops museum. So you can see them there as well Wonderful. So is the bishops museum Planned plan to of course have this um special exhibit Coordinating timing with the expansion of the you know, I think you're going to have to ask them It may have just been I don't know but I mean it was sort of so this year is also our 10-year anniversary of the monument So it may have had to do with that and then the timing was just perfect You know all the stars aligned and it worked out perfectly So it's a really nice exhibit if you you've been there. Yes So if you want to see more about the northwestern Hawaiian islands, you can go to those three places. Wonderful. Yeah And any other educational programs that you've been involved with that's There to yeah, we go to a lot of the um on island Outreach events. So what are some of the recent ones that are coming up? We had turtle bay We do turtle bay every year. I'm trying to think of what's coming up. So what do you do with turtle bay? Well, usually they have those Ocean fest ocean fest. Thank you And so ocean fest we go there. We go to any event At the aquarium we went to the zoo for Is it world's wildlife? They always have some so any sort of conservation-y or animal related Outreach event so Bishop Museum has science alive. Were you involved in the IUCN? Oh, yes Yes So we had a number of different staff and partners did various presentations and appeared on different panels We had our science on a sphere, which is the big sort of globe floating globe that you can make presentations on We had one NOAA booth Which had all of our different offices So we work for the office of national marine sanctuaries But we have many other different NOAA offices who we work together with fisheries the weather service like all And then we have different partners in the other agencies official wildlife service in the state of Hawaii and the office of White Affairs, so we all had a very large presence at this world conservation congress Right, and I know of course the announcement was made by our own president Obama and um were you involved in that and preparation or were you present for it or Did you I wish we could say that we got a chance to meet the president, you know, we were hoping we were crying We were all really hoping But he actually did get to visit midway at all right Um, I think he was there just for one day or less than a day But you know it was important for him to make a presence there to show how important it was to acknowledge His decision to expand the monument and really to show how He's got climate change as one of the priorities for moving forward, you know addressing climate change And he also had to talk the night before he went to the monument With the pacific leaders that have been that were here for the conference to discuss the challenges of Climate change and the need to work together all the nations together one nation can't do it alone It's a global concern. Um, so I think that was really important that he he did that right now there's been a lot of of course, um A concern by the fishing industry about the expansion and I was wondering do you have any Comments about that or thoughts about that or how you respond to those kinds of Concerns well how we respond to that is you have to talk the the fisheries Line office so we're like I said, we're office of national marine sanctuary. So we don't per Our office per se doesn't deal with that topic specifically So we don't really we can't answer that. Okay, and where do you see? What's going to be the situation in 10 years? So do we see a proliferation of all these wonderful new species that we found and what can we look forward to? Well, certainly we hope that more species will be discovered most likely there will be many more species discovered Not only in the expansion area, but also in the what was the existing monument boundaries because So much of so little of it has been Explored because it's so large. That's one of the big challenges. So we have we do have a lot of work ahead of us I think 10 years Probably would still just be a drop in the bucket. So yeah, it's very exciting time Right, it is very exciting. And I mean as we've mentioned all of our Special sea creatures They don't just live within the boundaries. And so now they have a much larger area to explore and to be researched And so again like Tony said very exciting and we are bound to find more and more species and and trying to just Get a better picture of our very very Unexplored oceans All right Well, we just have a couple of minutes left and I'm wondering do you have any Closing thoughts or comments that you'd like to leave with our viewers about what they can do to participate more or What we what we've learned Yeah, once again, if you would like to learn more about the monument Please visit our Papa Hanau Mokwakea website And then please come see us at any of the various outreach events around the island throughout be here Do you have one coming up soon? You know what? I know that we do Okay, and we haven't visited on our website We're a little braindead after this whole expansion and the World Conservation Congress But no really it's just um learning more about Conservation not just the monument, but what you can do here at home to To improve the conditions of the ocean so for example, you know joining in any beach cleanups because I think we talked about in the in the session before The amount of marine debris that accumulates in the monument, which is the remotest place on earth is staggering Okay, it's like about 50 tons per year accumulates there and we know and our partners Every year go up there to remove that marine debris and we usually leave with about 50 tons more or less But that's only because that's what can fit on the ship. There's still much more that's left there But since we've been removing marine debris in the monument over 900 tons Have been removed from this remotest place in on the planet and that's about equal to a thousand Volkswagen Beetles roughly So it's amazing So going back to your question of what can people do? Just be conscient conscientious about what you're using Throw it away in the proper place or better yet. Don't use something in the first place If you don't need to like you use a reusable water bottle reusable bag I mean you've heard it all before it's kind of like Yeah, I've heard all that before but it's true. Yep reduce reuse recycle and refuse if you don't absolutely need something Please don't use it because There's a chance that it may wash up on These beautiful pristine. Yeah straws in particular. Just get your own stainless steel straw Thank you. Well, that's perfect ending to this very important topic particularly those of us here in hawaii this island community that we want to preserve and For the next generation. Well, thank you so much to tony. Thank you to kai noa On behalf of kerstin and sustainable hawaii. We'll see you next week. We'll see you soon and Thank you