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| A sailing canoe inside the Pohnpei lagoon, Federated States of Micronesia |
In the time of the ancestors, the world must have seemed static and stable. That consistency, over centuries, allowed my people to develop
systems using the stars, the winds, and the living Creation to navigate their world. From father to son, mother to daughter, chants and songs were passed down that told us how to provide for our families on a small island, and how to cross an ocean in an outrigger canoe.
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| This was a long time ago, on an island far, far away. |
Pacific identity is strongly influenced by the natural world. All aspects of our unique way of life are derived from the ocean and our islands, including songs, dances, myths, stories, economies, world views, and governing systems. Our culture is the environment; our environment is our economy.
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| My grandparents on their farm in Saipan. |
But today, as Pacific Islanders emerge from the shadows cast by five centuries of western colonialism, we must navigate a modern world that is constantly changing and confusing for everyone. The traditional structures that kept our families, communities, and cultures tied together are coming apart. In an uncanny parallel, the same thing is happening to the integrity of our natural world, as warming oceans become increasing devoid of fish, yet full of plastic.
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| A school of whitespotted surgeonfish (Acanthurus guttatus) in one of the marine protected areas around Saipan. This was my father's favorite fish. |
This change has come fast. Young people scarcely believe stories of the abundance of life I remember so clearly from my childhood in Saipan. There were more fish, sharks, and turtles; there was simply more of everything that swims in the ocean, crawls on land, and flies through the sky.
I have dedicated my entire adult life to protecting the ocean, yet this loss has continued unabated. It seems at times as if our efforts to protect the ocean are always three steps behind our technological capacity to harm it.
If we are going to survive, Pacific people must learn to read the signs in our modern world just as the ancestors did in their time. But where their navigation markers were the waves and the stars; our lodestar must be scientific knowledge informed by the values we hold as Pacific Islanders. A great start would be to follow the scientific advice to protect 30% of every ocean habitat.
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| My father Ramon G. Villagomez helped put in place some of the first protected areas in the Marianas as a delegate to the Northern Mariana Islands First Constitutional Convention. This is a photo I took on the shores of Maug Island in 2009. The island was first protected in 1977. |
Marine protected areas, as a concept, are not new to Pacific Islanders. For millennia, we have recognized when reefs have been fished too heavily and set them aside as no-fishing zones until they returned to their former richness. Across Micronesia, this concept has a few different names: mo in the Marshalls, for instance, bul in Palau, sil and meshung in the Federated States.
The modern science which demonstrates the effectiveness of protected areas is also clear.
Well designed and managed protected areas result in more fish, bigger fish, and higher levels of biodiversity. And the most effective areas are large, isolated from human activity, fully protected, and well-enforced over long time periods.
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| Sustainable fishing requires science and funding for management and enforcement. |
It is also important to remember that while we are trying to protect thirty percent of the ocean, we must also address sustainable fishing in the remaining seventy percent. And, we need to prioritize the reduction of the carbon warming our atmosphere and the plastic polluting our oceans, all of which add pressure on marine ecosystems, pushing them toward their breaking points.
While there is a long journey in front of us and much work needs to be done, I maintain hope. A nascent renaissance wherein culture and conservation are intertwined is taking place in the Pacific. As our people lead global efforts to end nuclear proliferation, reverse the effects of climate change, and make new and larger marine protected areas, there is an equal and parallel effort to bring traditional voyaging back to Polynesia, breathe new life into the arts, and promote the practice of speaking in indigenous languages. Our futures as the Taotao Tasi – the people of the ocean – depend on this movement growing.
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| I did a lot of beach cleanups early in my career. We're going to be doing this for the rest of our lives, and we need to figure out how to dump less plastic in the ocean in the first place. |
Barely five percent of the global ocean is safeguarded within the confines of a marine protected area today. This may not seem like much, but it represents a five-fold increase over the last decade. This is an excellent start, but we need to do more, and we need to do it better, and we need to do it faster if we are going to protect thirty percent of every ocean habitat by 2030.
Future generations of Pacific Islanders deserve a resilient and healthy ocean.
Protecting the ocean is a reclamation of our cultures and our identifies and is one of the most important things we, as island people, can do for our survival and our legacy. My great hope is that the ocean my generation passes down to our children looks less like the ocean as it was handed to us, and more like the ocean as it was known to our ancestors.
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| Angelo Villagomez (that's me!) is an indigenous conservation advocate from Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands. |
For further reading:
Other Saipan Blog posts on culture and conservation:
