 But I'm Ernie Bauer, I'm the Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies. And I also am the co-director of the Pacific Partners Initiative here at CSIS. And it's under that rubric, the Pacific Partners Initiative that we are gathered here today to hear from His Excellency Tommy Romengasau, the president of Palau. And we are deeply honored that the president selected CSIS for the opportunity to make a policy talk about the global maritime situation in the Pacific. Obviously the Pacific is, let me just invite Assistant Secretary McGinn to join us here. Sorry, sir, we're getting started here on time. I know the traffic out there was difficult. Welcome. Thank you very much. We are pleased to welcome you to the Banyan Tree Leadership Forum here at CSIS. Today's program will include a speech by the president and then an expert panel who I will introduce after the president speaks. And then we will open the floor to questions and answers after the president's remarks and the panel, each of the panel will make brief remarks after the president speaks. So I hope you'll participate with some good questions, some observations. We have a large online audience too on CSIS, hashtag CSIS live and at CSIS. So welcome to our online viewers. Let me introduce a man who has stood up for the rights not only of his country but of Pacific countries who are trying to protect their maritime rights and environment. Tommy Rominga-Sau is the eighth president of the Republic of Palau. He's the first Palauan to be elected three times, president three times. So he's obviously much beloved by his country. He's first elected the president in the year 2000, again in 2004, and their term limits in Palau. So he took a break and was a senator for a term and then was reelected again in 2012. Please join me in welcoming his excellency, Tommy Rominga-Sau. Ernie, thank you very much for your kind introduction. And ladies and gentlemen, thank you for that warm welcome and for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here today. Let me also thank the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Pew Charitable Trust for the opportunity to discuss the important role Palau has in conservation and security in the Pacific as well as the strong partnership we share with the United States. I of course would like to recognize a few individuals who are here with us today. Former senator from Virginia, John Warner, who as a distinguished Pew fellow and regular at CSIS functions helped bring this event together. Thank you sir for being with us and sharing those memorable highlights with us this morning. I know many of you were expecting senator McCain today and probably scratching your heads about the connection between Palau and the senator. I just met with senator McCain on Capitol Hill and he sends his regrets that he could not be here with us today. Senator McCain is a good friend of Palau in 2014 during his third visit to Palau. Our Congress at my request made senator McCain an honorary citizen of Palau. Senator McCain understands the geostrategic importance of a strong US-Palau relationship. And so I look forward to discussing this further with the panel and all of you today. Ladies and gentlemen, I have said time and time again that for Palau the economy is our environment and the environment is our economy. Today I would like to expand on this by stating that the environment is our security and security is our environment. Protecting Palau's marine environment is about much more than conservation of fish and corals. Ocean conservation is food security. It is cultural security. It is economic security. And yes, ocean conservation is national security. Palau truly is the crossroads of security and conservation in the Pacific and our efforts within our waters contributes to regional security. How exactly is it that conservation and security work together? Many called Palau and our neighbors in the Pacific small island states. I have always referred to us as big ocean states. Since Palau's sovereign marine territory is nearly the size of the great state of Texas. By proposing to transform our EEG, Exclusive Economic Zone, into the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, we are not just protecting our environment. We are enhancing our maritime domain awareness and our partnerships to monitor and enforce our EEG. And it's important to note that we're not just trying to stop illegal fishing. We are also defending against other transnational crimes like drug smuggling and human trafficking. I'm gonna take a pause here because I see that my good friend, Dr. Sylvia Earle has just walked into the room. She's a mermaid and I like to refer to her as her deepness, her deepness. Thank you, Sylvia, for joining us this morning. Anyway, I know these are priorities for the United States, too. Palau has always been and continues to be a strong partner with the United States. Our two countries share a spatial relationship. I believe Palau's interests in global security are well aligned with those of the United States, both in our region and globally. This steadfast support is not required by our compacts, but it is a fact. Our country is located, as you know, strategically in an area of the Pacific Ocean near Guam and the Philippines. Because of this and our strong partnership with the United States, Palau is an anger for the United States in a key security zone that safeguards U.S. interests in the Pacific. Palau does not maintain its own military forces. Under the terms of our compacts with your government, we rely on the United States entirely for our national defense. At the same time, our citizens are eligible to serve in the United States armed forces. In fact, Palawan citizens volunteer in the U.S. military is at a rate higher than any individual U.S. state. Palawan sons and daughters of many government officials and of ordinary Palawan citizens. And as I say this, I know that our own ambassador to Washington DC has two sons and a daughter serving in the U.S. military. I have a nephew also who served in the Iraq war. And I'm sure you ask any Palawan, they probably have a son, a daughter, a cousin. But it is a privilege and an honor that we take seriously. And we're proud to stand alongside with the sons and daughters of the United States of America. Under the terms, excuse me, Palawan sons and daughters of many government officials and of ordinary Palawan citizens have served honorably in U.S. military units over the past decades and most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq. So we also contribute in this very important way to the national security of the United States. Now under the terms of the U.S. Palau compact, Palau agrees to be off limits to the military forces of any nation except the United States. The United States enjoy exclusive defense access to Palawan waters, lands, airspace and its exclusive economic zone. This exclusive access gives the United States a key stronghold from which to card its long-term defense interest in the region. The importance of our strong relationship with the United States goes beyond having full and exclusive DOD access to Palau. Indeed, Palau works closely with the United States to detect and combat international crime and terror too. Many here in the United States are not aware that in 2009, at the request of the U.S. government Palau resettled six detainees from Quantanamo prison at a time when few other countries were willing to step up to this responsibility as a defense partner of the United States. More importantly for the topic I wish to raise today, Palau was the first island partner to sign the U.S. Coast Guard shipwriter and shipboarding agreements that bolster law enforcement in the vast Pacific region. Now I am here to sound an alarm. There is a growing law enforcement problem in the Pacific region, which is actually a national security issue for Palau and we need concerted U.S. government and specifically U.S. Defense Department and U.S. Coast Guard assistance. We believe this is something that the U.S. is obligated to provide because of our compact agreement and our spatial relationship. Our economy, our defense, and our livelihood in Palau are dependent upon our coastal and ocean natural resources. Our coral reefs, fisheries, and our clean natural environment mean everything, everything to our people. But we are facing a growing and dire threat from illegal fishing within our waters. Folks, just in recent months, many illegal fishing vessels from Vietnam and other nations have been apprehended in our waters. These pirate fishermen are stealing our precious natural resources, the engine of our economy, and the lifeblood of our culture. And there is little that we can do about it now because of the sheer size of our EEG. The truth is, we don't even know the extent of the problem but we believe it is large and growing. We are located in an important area for tuna fishing. There are many fleets, many fishing fleets from countless nations fishing in the waters, bordering on Palau's EEG. Pressure to feed growing populations throughout Asia and globally has led to vast overfishing in the Pacific and to a wave of illegal fishing and even human rights violations and fishing vessels that use slave labor to carry out their crimes. We have one of the largest exclusive economic zones of any small island nation in the Pacific, indeed of any country in the world. And we would like to protect these waters from this criminal activity. But the sheer size again of the area makes that very challenging for a nation like ours that has no military capabilities. Our local law enforcement simply cannot tackle a job this big alone. We need a credible threat of enforcement at least. And because illegal fishing threatens our livelihoods and our economy, not to mention our culture and way of life, it is more than just a law enforcement problem for us. It is a national security problem for Palau. And that is why we need US national security assistance. To the US public and even some government officials, this may seem trivial. It's just fishing. But it is not just fishing. It is criminal behavior that is having a destabilizing effect in our country and our region of the world. The US Navy has been to Palau in the last year to experiment with new technologies that can provide the type of more time domain awareness that would allow us to detect these illegal fishing operations. And the technologies worked. But after their experiments were over, the Navy left and we have no indication that they will be back to deploy this technology to assist us. We believe these scores of illegal fishing can be eradicated. And we want to begin to tackle this problem now before Palau's fish stocks have been completely depleted and before Palau's economy has been permanently damaged by the perpetrators of these crimes. And before our Pacific region is any more harmed by illegal fishing and human trafficking. We are mindful that the United States government and specifically the US military is putting greater emphasis on the Pacific, the so-called pivot to the Pacific. And we know you take your compact obligations seriously. I am here, ladies and gentlemen, to call on you, begin to work with our government to create a credible monitoring and enforcement capacity to rid Palau of this growing and serious threat to our security and to security throughout the Pacific. God bless the United States of America. God bless Palau and God bless all of us here today. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President, for a very strong statement. And I'm really looking forward to the responses and views of our panel, whom I would now like to introduce. And I'll introduce each of them now, and then if you could speak in turn. On my far left, Dennis McGinn is Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy Installations and the Environment. Mr. McGinn is a former Navy man. He's also the former President of the American Council on Renewable Energy, which is called ACOR. So he's got a great background to think about the environment and security. Absolutely perfect leader for that job. On my right is Eileen Sobeck. She is the Assistant Administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, as it's known. She oversees the management and conservation of recreational and commercial fisheries and protection of the maritime domain across the United States and through our exclusive economic zones. Thank you for joining us, Eileen. One just personal note that I loved from her reading it a little bit about her background. She's a Stanford graduate, Stanford undergrad and law, but she also has a species of Pacific, named after her, a Pacific nudibranch, nudibranch, it's named for her. And so I think that's pretty cool. And finally, on my far right at the end of the table here, Seth Horstmeier, who's been a great partner in putting this program together, is Director of the Global Ocean Legacy Program at the Pew Charitable Trust. Seth and his colleagues at Pew along with Senator Warner were the ones who came to CSIS and made the case that shouldn't we talk about security and the environment in the Pacific. And Seth is influential, but when Senator Warner comes to the table, CSIS is not gonna say no. And actually, I have to say that in my time, working with them to understand these issues and plan on the president's talk, the issue is compelling. And I really appreciate you for helping us understand it more deeply. So let me start with Mr. McGinn, and then we will move through the panel and I'll open it up for your questions and observations. Thank you, it's really great to be here, Mr. President. I wanna start by saying how much we value the partnership with your nation. My boss, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, as you know, is a frequent visitor. Perhaps if we can get him there one more time, he could become an honorary citizen. Well, just an idea, just saying. But one of the things I really wanna start by saying is how right the president has in his characterization of the inextricable links between environment, economy, and national security. Not just in Palau, it's certainly an unbelievably sharp focus in Palau, but literally across the global commons called the oceans. This idea of maintaining ocean health, maintaining economic wealth, and creating more wealth in a sustainable way, and the national security and international security all fit together. It doesn't have to be, nor should it be, a zero-sum game where you can have a good environment, a sustainable environment, and maybe you have to take a hit on the economy or it's gonna be an effect somehow negatively on national security. That is not the case. The way to get it right is, in fact, by recognizing there's a holistic solution and if you start prohibiting and preventing illegal activities, illegal fishing, unreported fishing, unregulated fishing, you also leverage that maritime domain awareness and the assets that you're going to be using to maintain that maritime domain awareness to prevent other illegal activities and that contributes directly to national security throughout the global oceans. We did, in fact, as the president pointed out, have a pilot program to increase maritime domain awareness. We had some assets. It was a collaboration from the Pacific Command, from the US Navy's Pacific Fleet, from the Coast Guard, and from our Office of Navy Research that brought together existing assets, off the shelf, if you will, assets. Some of them were land-based, sea-based, and then, of course, air assets as well. We proved the concept that you can, in fact, increase your level of maritime domain awareness to detect and eventually prevent all sorts of illegal activities by bringing together this type of architecture. Mr. President, I want to assure you, we will be back. The idea of a pilot program was to learn as much as you can about the technology, about the tactics, the procedures, and then to try to scale that up and get it in a way that is most effective, most reliable, and most economical, and that's the process we're going through now. One of the key players here is Admiral John White, our Navy oceanographer. Admiral Winter, our chief of naval research, and, of course, someone that I'm sure you know, Mr. President, Admiral Bette Bolivar, who is the Pacific Command's Defense Representative to Palau. I will be meeting with Admiral Bolivar, in fact, this afternoon at one o'clock, and we'll be continuing this conversation as she carries out her role. So let me conclude my opening remarks by simply saying the President has it right. We, in the United States Navy, and indeed, in the United States defense establishment, understand this inextricable connection, and we are taking great measures to increase maritime domain awareness to prevent illegal activities of all sorts, including illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Thank you. Eileen, could we turn to you now, please? Yes, thank you. Thank you so much to CSIS and Senator Warner for the invitation. It's always an honor to be in an event with the President, and I love, I love, because he is one of the wisest and most progressive of Pacific leaders, and I think everybody in this room recognizes that, and that his remarks show that quite clearly. And one thing I love about events or meetings with Pacific Island nations is that you don't have to spend a lot of time explaining the importance of conservation, the link between coastal and ocean resources and the economy or our defense. It goes without saying the island nations understand that better than anybody else in the world. And the United States is a nation of islands also, even though some people don't realize that, but some of our island states and our territories have many of the same challenges and opportunities that Palau does, and so I think it's an obvious, easy, and productive partnership that we have had over the long run. It's also music to my ears to be in a group that recognizes the importance of enforcement. And I spent 25 years at the US Department of Justice where for the most of that time I supervised environmental prosecutors who prosecuted violations of federal criminal environmental laws, including our fisheries and protected resources laws. And those are not always very popular actions, but I do think that if you mean it, that you mean that it's important, if it's important to conserve ocean resources, then you have to be willing to both have some carrots, some inducements to good behavior, but you also have to have a stick. The other thing we like to say at the Department of Justice is cheaters cheat. I think that that's the shorthand for things that both the president and Mr. McGinn mentioned, which is people who aren't respecting fisheries laws aren't reflecting human rights often or other environmental pollution laws or many of the other international norms that are very important. And so I think that making sure that the bad guys are not doing bad things in our large protected areas is extremely important, but it is also extremely challenging. We in the United States have some very large marine protected areas and this administration has been instrumental in increasing those. We have almost doubled the size of our marine sanctuaries and also some of the large marine national monuments in the Pacific. It is a big ocean. It is far away and we have very few assets that can really go out that far. We're working on a lot of the new technology to identify which ships are where and are they where they're supposed to be and what they're supposed to do and what they're supposed to do. We do wanna look out for the legitimate fishing interests in appropriate areas of our fishermen. I think that it is important to know that there are, I think that we in the United States have some of the most sustainable fisheries in the world. Our fishermen have paid a lot in terms of holding back on fishing to rebuild our fisheries stocks. So whether they're domestic stocks or highly migratory stocks that range into international waters, I think in appropriate areas, it is appropriate to allow appropriate fishing but that means we've got to enforce against inappropriate fishing. Again, it is a challenge. It is a challenge that we are, I think we are all working on together. I think it is a place where we are also looking to our friends at Coast Guard and the Navy to take our own enforcement officers on their vessels and platforms of opportunity and that is a work in progress and I think that at times in the past there has not been the kind of understanding and appreciation of our mission overlaps at the Department of Defense and some of the domestic conservation and management agencies but I don't think that partnership has ever been closer. We've taken a lot of the work that started under Senator Warner and we have really fabulous partnership in all the ways that were mentioned before. We really could not do our conservation job without our partners in DOD and the Coast Guard and many of our larger coastal or our larger ocean monuments, sanctuaries, other marine protected areas are in areas that are sensitive even off of our in our own waters for defense purposes, whether it's trading exercises or whatnot. So we are always mindful of their mission and we are really excited about the fact that they are respectful and helpful for ours. I also think that the cross cutting challenges of the big issues of the day like climate change and sea level rise are our issues that we are all, we are facing here at home in Palau you are facing it and DOD with all of its installations is also incredibly interested in an appropriate response to that challenge. I'd just like to stop by saying that I think again the value of these large conservation areas is something that we continue to learn about, we continue to document and understand the benefits of and there was a milestone yesterday here in the United States where one of our regional fishery management councils in the mid-Atlantic state voted to establish a large fishery closure area probably one of the largest ever established that closes 15 mid-Atlantic deep canyons that have a lot of very vulnerable deep water corals and the size that they close to fishing, the size of this area is about the size of the state of Kentucky and this is a body that is, that its main job is to come up with recommendations that we then at NOAA turn into regulations so this is fishermen imposing on themselves a closure of a sensitive area, a large sensitive area. We're talking about the size of the state of Kentucky voluntarily and understanding the value of that for them and their continued economic viability. So I think that was a fabulous milestone to kind of underscore the intersection of conservation, economics and national defense. Thanks, sir, thank you. Seth, can we turn to you now please? Yeah, thank you Ernie and thank you for co-hosting this event with us. CSIS has a lovely facility here, I appreciate it. I'll be brief because a number of the points I was gonna hit on have already been touched on. President Romanga-Sal tends to do that when he speaks about conservation, he hits all the high points. But I wouldn't be doing my job as an ocean advocate during Ocean Week if I didn't throw a few ocean statistics at you. As you likely know, there's tremendous pressure on global fisheries. In fact, 90% of global fisheries are, either overfished or are fully exploited. You combine that with pollution and the impacts of climate change and we have a real problem with the health of our oceans. Fortunately, there's a growing body of science that shows that very large, fully protected marine reserves are key to rebuilding species abundance and diversity and protecting the overall health of the marine environment. Last November, thanks in part to Dr. Earl, the World Parks Congress made a strong statement that at least 30% of the world's oceans should be protected in marine reserves and there is emerging science that that number should be even higher. President Romanga-Sell knows this well and what he has proposed with the Palau National Marine Sanctuary is I think one of the most innovative sanctuary proposals out there. It split Palau's EEZ into two zones. One would be 80% of its EEZ, 500,000 square kilometers would be a fully protected marine reserve, no commercial fishing, no extraction of any other resources. The other would be a domestic fishing zone and that would be exclusive for Palauans. It would ban foreign commercial fishing and ban exports to make sure that Palau had fish and the tourism market in Palau, which is the life of its economy would have fish also. Inevitably, the question is can this be protected, especially with a border with Indonesia, the Philippines and two high seas pockets and there was a lot of promising information that came out of demonstrations that Assistant Secretary McGinn noted and Pew committed to building upon those demonstrations by hosting a workshop in Palau. We did that this past April and the goal of that workshop was to come up with a comprehensive strategy and action plan to make sure that the Palau National Marine Sanctuary was protected from illegal fishing because if you don't stop fishing then the marine reserve is only worth the paper that it's written on. And so we brought together officials from the United States, Australia, the foreign fisheries agency, NGOs like Pew, Scripps and the Nippon Foundation and most importantly the relevant Palau agencies and ministries with the local expertise. Ultimately they are gonna have to carry out this plan. So we're in the process of helping Palau write a comprehensive strategy to protect the Palau National Marine Sanctuary. I think while Palau, as you've heard, needs additional resources, there's a lot of promise here. In January, Pew helped Palau identify an unauthorized long line vessel using AIS and cross referencing that with Palau's authorized vessel list. The Palau Marine Law Enforcement was able to deploy its patrol vessel, catch it within 10 miles before it escaped into the Indonesian across the border and brought it back to port and found that it was full of yellowfin tuna and over 300 sharks and hundreds of shark fins. Palau was able to successfully prosecute and find that vessel in the fishing company. Just one example of how it does work. Now there's a lot more of those resources that are needed to make sure it works more often and that we protect the Palau National Marine Sanctuary once it's fully effective. So this has been a real pleasure working with Palau to not only figure out how conservation but also how enforcement can work. And we look forward to finalizing the enforcement plan for the Palau National Marine Sanctuary and figuring out how Palau can leverage its partnerships to make sure that we do protect the Palau National Marine Sanctuary fully. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to kick off some questions and I'd like to start with one. And then that strikes me that, Mr. President, you mentioned that the environment is your economy and the economy is the environment and then security is the environment and the environment is your security. That's really interesting because I think in the United States in the broader geopolitical discussion about the pivot to Asia or the rebalance to Asia, I think it's dawning on American officials that the economy, economics, is the foundation of security in Asia. What I wondered is, if you or the panel, you think about enforcement and thinking about how to cover these big ocean states, as you mentioned, the huge swaths of territory, it's obviously can't be one country trying to enforce that. You gotta have agreement from all the countries involved and several countries probably to start. What regional architecture, what are the, what's the possibility of using regional architecture to build alignment and consensus over following the rules and the laws around this issue? Have you thought about that and would any of you have comments on that? Let me just start off by saying that the reality of the situation is that no one country including Palau can ever do it alone. This is a gigantic thing that as I said, can only be successful if there is a partnership concept to it. Even if you don't catch the IEU vessel in Palau's waters, maybe the next port of stop, like the FSM or the marshals or Guam or Saipan for that matter which are around our region, then you can pursue the ships across the jurisdiction. Even if Palau had 10 ships to man, but without the necessary technology involved, the air surveillance and the monitoring and finding out where the exact location of the ships, it's also futile in a way. You need to be efficient by getting to the spot where the illegal activity is happening with the use of marine surveillance and monitoring. And another point is we don't need to invent the wheel on this matter. I think there's examples in Europe, certainly in the United States around Hawaii, certainly in Japan, where if the right architecture, as you say, if the right framework is there, then small island nations like Palau can have an effective program. But again, it's all about partnership. You know, I think it's one of those wars that has to be fought on many fronts. And so I think that, again, as the president just said, the, in some ways, the hardest piece of the puzzle is getting the enforcement asset right to where the violator is. With technology, we're gonna be better at detection. But if you have a satellite looking down, looking down from the sky, that's not the same as being on the water and intercepting a vessel. So we need to work on all of those things. There was a recent, there is an administration task force on IUU fishing and seafood fraud that came out with a set of recommendations last December and an implementation plan last February that lays out a few other steps that can reinforce the architecture, which include implementation of the Port State Measures Treaty by the United States. There's pending legislation now. That would be a big step to, again, get the international architecture in place, another baby step to get there. There were also recommendations to take best management practices, including enforcement practices to all of the regional fishery management organizations. And I think that that will help the United States be a forceful advocate for those in all of the regional fishery organizations so that we understand what is legal fishing and what is illegal fishing. And we get the home, all of our international partners who participate in those fisheries to undertake to take enforcement actions and recognize that it's necessary. So those are just a few of the steps that we're working on. I think that in the geopolitical realm, certainly agreements, treaties that bring assets to bear on this problem are very, very important. But I also like to emphasize that across an individual government in the United States, working with NOAA, working with the Department of the Interior, Energy and others, and of course the other services, we are very, very keen to get much more leverage out of the assets we have today. We need more that's recognized, but we are underutilizing the databases, for example, the sensors that are out there today. There are, as we speak here in Washington, there are literally thousands of measurements going on throughout the oceans of the world. And in many cases, they're going up stovepipes to databases that aren't aware of other databases. So creating this synergy, this architecture through partnerships of what we know about what is going on in the ocean is really a key step that will bring a lot of leverage. We have partnered for decades, literally, and we're strengthening these partnerships all the time with NGOs, for example, where we may have data that is primarily from sensors used for traditional naval missions, but has value for tracking marine mammals, for example, or fish or other assets, and also ocean temperature, ocean salinity. So we wanna make sure that we, in the Department of the Navy and Department of Defense, are getting the kinds of partnerships that there's a two-way flow of information of sensor data, a correlation of that sensor data, and really to understand how we can, in fact, bring the most value out of every sensor that is out there so we can, in fact, attack these problems. One other comment keying off what Eileen said, if you consider the value chain of an illegal fishing enterprise, certainly some of that value is created where the fish are harvested, but as the President pointed out, even if you don't get somebody in Palawan waters, if they, in fact, escape over the border, if you know and you have evidence that they were there and that they illegally fished, you can go after them in port states, or you can go up the value chain, and I think one point here, we've gotta make sure that we are starting to attack the demand side of illegal fishing. There's terrible, terrible waste and unsustainable practices out there that are trying to meet the demand of exotic tastes that no longer have a place in a sustainable world. Okay, let's open it up, question here in the front, and just please introduce yourself. We have a microphone here, just so that people who are online can also hear your question. Thank you, I'm Matt Rand with the Pew Terrible Trust. Mr. President, you spoke about the compact agreement. Could you explain a little bit more about the agreement with the United States and how that would actually help Palau with conservation in the marine sanctuary? It's basically, as I said, Palau has internal control of its destination, but when it comes to its defense and security, we rely totally on the protection of the United States. We have identified the security as not only the threat of war or aggression, but the threat of our culture, the threat of our economic livelihood, and the threat of our survival as a people and as an island nation. And so we would like the issue of security to look at it and that role. And it's been said the world, our island now is the face of climate change, global warming, it's now the face of what's happening if there is no stoppage to these IUU activities out there. So we're really the window of what eventually will happen to the rest of the world if we don't solve the problem where the roots of the problem is occurring. And this is really where we hope the United States takes an active leadership role in the Pacific. We hope our friends from Japan takes an active role in the Pacific in this matter. Australia and New Zealand are there, but it's going to require a total regional cooperation to get to the matter, get to the root of this problem. Thank you. My name is Chuck Fox. I'm with a funder's collaborative called Oceans 5. And start by saying President Romingo South, thank you for your leadership. It's something that I think people are seeing throughout the Pacific and throughout the world and it is really quite remarkable. And the diplomacy with which you answered that last question, I'm assuming that the questioner was hoping that you'd talk about the US paying some of its bills under the Compact Agreement, but I will just say that for others' benefit. But my question is really directed to Secretary McGinn and thank you again for the leadership of the Navy. When we think about maritime domain awareness, one of the key objectives of this is ultimately deterrence, trying to prevent these actions from happening in the first place. And I think as we think this problem through, there's really no way, a scenario that I see, that we have the capacity to ultimately enforce our way out of this problem. The Palau has one naval vessel, no matter how much you've got other jobs to do in the US Navy. And in my sense is that trying to figure out a better way to provide deterrence to prevent this in the first instance is something that has to be a key objective of ours as we go forward with this. My postulation is that public awareness could help tremendously. To the extent that retailers, wholesalers, the public, advocates like we see here in this room today, the media, they have information about vessels who owns the vessel, what the vessel is doing. If the extent that this information becomes public, like it is in pollution control or other things in the world, it could be a tremendous value. The Navy's developed this program called SeaVision, which is doing a lot of this information, but right now that information is not public. And the question to you is, General McChrystal always talked about the value of having information go public. Would you be willing to consider having SeaVision and some of these assets that you are developing within the US Navy be made public so that everyone can really understand what vessels are out there doing what? Yes, we can. Obviously there's a balance between the traditional military missions, methods and capabilities and capacities that we wanna keep for national security purposes very close hold. But that does not prevent us from sharing a lot of other sources of data and the products of analysis that come from that data in the way that you just outlined it. So no, there isn't. And we will in fact be continuing to look at this. Right now we have Admiral Jonathan White, our Naval Oceanographer who is sharing an effort to develop what we are calling the MDA or Maritime Domain Awareness Plan. And part of that plan will in fact be what kinds of products can we use for what purposes, sharing with other nations, sharing with NGO partners and sharing with the public to have the most effect in a way that you outlined. Can I just add to that? I'd like to offer something maybe a public good that CSIS can help with here. We've created in the last year a facility called the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative or the AMTI. It's a website that basically has pulled in publicized and made public and transparent data on what's happening on the oceans and under the oceans and above the oceans in Asia. It's been particularly focused on the South China Sea where fishing is also a big issue. But we would, it's the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative so if there is data that you wanna share or that governments or individuals wanna share, I'm a co-director of the effort. I'd be happy to publicize this on the CSIS's AMTI which is a website open to everybody. I think it's, in the South China Sea it has been remarkably helpful in making people aware of what's actually happening. In fact it was our photos that were on the cover of the New York Times, the Chinese reclamation of the islands and dredging of the, they're actually dredging the South China Sea and throwing it up on top of sand to make new runways and build islands on top of what were previously rocks. So if we can be helpful, Mr. McGinn, we'd be happy to help. That's a great offer. We'll follow up on that Ernie. I also wanna point out, fairly recently, about two weeks or so ago related to the South China Sea and the buildup of these islands, the United States Navy flew some anti-submarine warfare maritime domain awareness aircraft, the P-8, with a crew from CNN embarked to be able to put out to the world's media what was actually going on and the imagery and all of the data that came from those flights is available. That's one recent example of how we really do get it, that we've gotta be able to tell a story to many, many audiences in order to have the effect of concern that we wanna achieve. President Ramingueso, and actually all of you, a question about, I'm sorry, Sylvia Earle, with the National Geographic Mission Blue and a great friend of Palau. The economy of Palau is largely dependent on tourism as compared to what is derived from the current and perhaps any future revenues. And the security issues that have been on the table here are focused largely on what we currently know about the waters around Palau. In Palau and globally, what is known about the deep water is relatively small compared to what we know about the surface and depths to a few hundred meters. I just wondered to what extent there might be enthusiasm and support for the technologies, not just to go high in the sky to observe activities in the waters of Palau and beyond, but actually to explore and define the areas that are in deep water, which really dominate Palau and its exclusive economic zone and much of the Pacific. The figures I hear about what we know about the seafloor itself, it's less than 10% mapped with the same accuracy that we have for the moon and Mars and such. And it isn't just the bottom and of course it isn't just the top, it's the ocean itself. The juicy part of the EEZ, the water and the life that's there and our capacity to really observe, to document, to monitor, to understand. China is investing vigorously in deep sea technology. Part of it has to do with basic exploration. Part of it has to do with an eye toward exploitation of fisheries, of course, but mining as well. Another issue that has not yet been articulated here, the interest that is growing about mining deep waters in the Pacific. And so far that hasn't been a major issue, at least as I have heard in Palau, but some of your neighboring island countries are really looking hard at the potential of revenues that might be derived from the deep water assets. And so I guess the question is how that might factor in the deliberations of security and the economy and the environment of how we might, looking forward, prepare to address the necessary technologies to understand, document, and deal with most of the area surrounding Palau. So I think the good thing about the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, sorry. The good thing about the Palau National Marine Sanctuary is that it is a fully protected, 80% of the EEZ will be fully protected. So for Palau's purposes, that's extraction of all resources and that's, I think that builds upon Palau's long history of leadership in conservation. One of the first nations to ban bottom trawling and showing the chosen understanding of the importance of the ecosystem from the very bottom to the very top of the water column. Last time I was in Palau, I spoke with a marine biologist who thinks that some of the new data coming out about the Palau trench, that it might be deeper than initially thought. And what just came to my mind when you were saying that, Dr. Earl, is we should get you back there with James Cameron's toys and see if it is, in fact, the second deepest place on the planet. Thank you, Dr. Earl, for that. I know there's a lot of focus on land and above the water, but you're right. There is very little known in the deep water. I might just add that the National Geography just did a study in Palau recently and they're gonna come out with a film, but in their limited research with their equipment that are able to get a picture of life under in the deepest part of the ocean, there were a lot of undocumented species that showed up in the camera. And so that's, again, that would be a great contribution through the Marine Sanctuary that we also have a chance to look what's underneath the protected area. If I may just add this point, because it seems like most people think of a marine protected area as only benefiting the closed area. But actually the great benefit from a marine protected area is the spillover effect that it has on other unprotected areas. And we have proven throughout generations of Palauan fishing traditions that whenever a particular fish is in loss of fish populations, the chiefs would come out and close that particular reef as a no-take zone. And voila, they go fishing on some other areas, but the regenerated closed area has a chance not only to repopulate itself, but the population then spreads onto nearby areas. So you're talking about inside and outside the marine protected area. So this 80% of our exclusive economic zone is not just going to protect Palau per se. It is going to have an effect on our neighboring Pacific Ocean and the fact that tuna population is dying out, the fact that our shark population is dying out in other areas. Many of the polygic fish or the migratory fish are in danger of a very low population. So it's this kind of spillover effect that we're asking the world, let's not just have a free-for-all ocean. Let's at least go for a 10%, whatever shoe fits your area, do it, but there is benefits to spillover benefits from everything we do. I did, I really just wanted to underscore your point, Dr. Earl, which is we know so little about these areas. We know that they are rich in many resources, but the details and every, it seems like every minute of research time that we invest, the amount of return in terms of knowledge, previously undocumented knowledge is just immense. And yet, and part of, for instance, the rationale for expanding the US Marine Pacific monuments recently was to develop a body of research to really document the kinds of effects that you were talking about, Mr. President. And it's, one thing that's really scary is, you know, we pride ourselves at NOAA in having a small fleet of research vessels to do all kinds of this ocean research. And our vessels, it's an aging, it's a small, aging fleet. And our ability to go out there and mine this knowledge, not necessarily the resources, but the knowledge, decreases every day. We have in the President's budget this year the budget for a NOAA research white ship, and there is not a lot of momentum behind that proposal. We've actually timed our requests very carefully to dovetail with the Navy's research vessel program to try to be what people say they want, which is, you know, an efficient, cost-effective, budget-conscious government. If we kind of get out of sync with the Navy production of vessels, our NOAA vessels will cost a lot more. We've had, we do, we have had some really cool Pacific voyages with NOAA research vessels recently, and we're just, we're really excited about what we're finding. We can't do it very often, given how few resources we have. When you, when you look at the number of assets that the United States has for this kind of research versus other countries, I think people would be surprised to see how far we down, how far down we are in the list. We are not the preeminent researchers that we used to be in this field. I think it's probably the right time for me to ask, CSIS tries to drive towards a policy agenda in our work. I want to just ask the panel, you know, what are the top two things the United States should do to support Palau and their efforts? Somebody mentioned before the money that's owed, but I wanted to ask, you know, Mr. President, you are very diplomatic, but could you be blunt with us for a moment? What can we do to help specifically from a policy perspective? Just pivot into the Pacific. I mean, we have a presence there. You know, just a small point that I forgot to say. Underwater drones. They've been using that to relocate the sunken ships and, you know, to be able to get the remains of US soldiers back to the US. And that's a technology that actually has been helpful in getting pictures of underwater submerged corals and getting a picture of what is happening out there. So a technology that came for the purpose of relocating remains of World War II actually has contributed much to what science is finding out about underwater, although they don't go as deep as it is. But that's a great way of, you know, merging the technology and the work that is available now to do further work that really needs to be out there. But if I can be very blunt, you know, we are very proud to say that Palau is the United States closest friend and ally for small islands in the Pacific. The reality is that the other countries are aggressively coming into the region, whether it's economy, whether it's fishing, whether it's territorial claims, whether it's addressing partnerships with the region. And so this is, I talked with Senator McCann this morning and I said, please, let's showcase the pivot into the Pacific. Let's showcase the partnership and the leadership that needs to be there because while we're talking about this, efforts are made every day that may be very costly at a later date. Thank you. Anyone else want to comment on that? We just had a change of command that gave me a great deal of confidence in our leadership in the United States forces. Admiral Harry Harris, who's been for a couple of years now the commander of the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet is now the overall commander of the Pacific Command. We just had the Pacific Fleet taken over by Admiral Scott Swift, who was a former Seventh Fleet commander. So just using those two individuals with tremendous amount of knowledge and experience at sea and working with all of the nations in the, especially in the Western Pacific, we've got some leaders that really understand this linkage between national security, environment, economy and the need to prevent illegal activities. So I'm encouraged that we have that kind of leadership. We talk with them on a regular basis and we'll continue that conversation and try to bring some detailed plans to the present from what we've learned from the pilot program, for example, on the MDA, but also in every other dimension of partnership, not just inside the Department of Defense, but with other organizations and nations as well. And I'll, does it matter that the United States has not signed UNCLOS? Should we sign that? Yes, yes, yes, yes, we should. And I just, I am amazed at someone who has served 35 years in the uniform of the United States Navy and many years since working in various fields. Why we cannot get our act together to sign that. And I know that this great leader, Senator John Warner, has been laboring in that vineyard for many, many years and we just need to get on with it. It makes so much common sense. There's no downside and I strongly, strongly encourage as does the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretaries of Defense and all of the services. Let's get on and sign UNCLOS. Senator, any chance we can get you to say a word about that? Josh, could you get him a microphone? Well, it's very interesting. I've worked on this since I was Secretary of the Navy back in 1971, two, three, four. It's extremely puzzling, but they liken it to Woodrow Wilson's 14 points and how he was going to undercut the possible sovereign rights of this nation by promulgating that epical document. And that aura still hangs in up there, it's a mystique. But I do believe, and you might say to my good friend, if John McCain got into afterburner, it might happen. That's a scary thought. Okay, I'd love to take your question here in the second room. Thank you. I'm Karen Sack from Ocean Unite, which is an initiative to build ocean conservation decisions through amplifying voices and driving conservation action. And your question, Mr. Bauer, is something I'd like to address. In the early 2000s, when I'm gonna shift to a different ocean, I'm afraid, when the issue of piracy arose in Somalia, the stories go that it arose because of illegal fishing in the Somalian EEZ by distant water fleets that were stealing the fish, and the Somali fishers, the local fishers, went out and actually one of the first vessels that was pirated was a fishing vessel. When they realized that there wasn't that much value from a fishing vessel, they went after more high value vessels. And the international community, as soon as it became oil tankers and container ships came together, put a lot of money and effort and assets into identifying what was going on, navies working together, technology being applied to combat that maritime security issue across the region. How about using some of the knowledge learned from the application of those assets, the human capacity and the technology to look at what's going on in the Pacific in particular, we have the leadership of a great president through President Romanga Sao and others in the Pacific who are asking for help on this issue. It isn't just about fish, although for some of us fish are really important, it's about that national security and some of those lessons could really be learned for not, you know, kind of used for not very much money and those partnerships already exist. So moving from the Indian Ocean across to a Pacific Pivot again could be an interesting thing to do. Great comment. Anybody wanna address that? You know, why not fishing and why not the Pacific? And what's the, why not? Why are we not responding? Seth, let me put you on the spot here. Sure, I don't have an answer, why not? Working with Palau, it's clearly a threat and there are fishermen who have been detained sitting in Palau right now that they have to deal with. And it is clearly a threat beyond illegal fishing for Palau and the president mentioned the other transnational crimes that are problems and having the porous borders that Palau does have with Indonesia and the Philippines in two high seas pockets, it's not just about fishing, it shouldn't just be about fishing and so we shouldn't just deploy fishing, legal fishing enforcement assets to it, we should be deploying more assets to it. A question here in the back. This will be our last question. Thank you. I'm Tomokishan, a visiting fellow of the ESIS. I have two questions. Thank you very much for the high excellency, the president. The majesty's Japanese emperor and empress visited Palau and got very warm hospitality. It's broadcasted as good news and many Japanese people were moved and engraved where the Palau's very good image. So would you tell me about the current and the future relationship between the Palau and Japan? This is the first question. And the second one is that Chinese navies presence and power is getting stronger and stronger, especially in the Southeast Asia, China seas. And they seem to go forward to Pacific Ocean. So how do you assess Chinese navies and the Chinese forces? On the first question, let me just say to this year was the 17th anniversary of the end of the World War II in famous barrel of Pelliliu and of course throughout the Pacific. So we were very honored that his majesty, the emperor and the empress took the time to come and really not only pray for the souls of the soldiers of the war, but preach the message of peace, of learning our lessons from the tragedies of World War II and really solving the international conflicts through peaceful resolutions. And I think that was a very important message and very much supported by the peaceful countries of the Pacific. We went through a terrible, terrible part of our history during the war and we're very happy that Japan and the United States are actually the ones taking the leadership in making sure that it's a peaceful century for us, not just in the Pacific, but throughout the world. And so that is the same spirit that I want to address these also jurisdiction overlapping and conflicts and aggressive illegal fishing activities that are coming into our world. I hope that we continue to address this in a peaceful manner, but it comes down to respect. That's the key word that respect should not be because the big boys or the small boys respect the big boys, it should be a vice versa. The big boys have to also respect the small boys. If we can all be respectful, then this world will be a lot better place to live in. I can't think of a better note to close our conference on. Thank you very much.