-: Okay, aloha everybody.
And welcome to our special 15 year anniversary presentation
at 15 years of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
So before we get started
just a couple of technical details.
If you are having problems with your audio,
please go into the control panel on the right hand side
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That's generally where people have problems with the audio.
And if you do have problems with that
please type into the chat or the question box
and we will do whatever we can, to help you resolve that.
So thank you for joining us today
on this day is our 15 year anniversary
of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
So woo woo happy birthday to us.
We have a great presentation for you today
and also go over some of the achievements
that we've had over the last 15 years.
But before we really get started
it's proper in Hawai'i to do a protocol before opening.
And we have our wonderful Malia Evans
who will present to you a name song for Papahānaumokuākea
that was written specifically for the monument
and she will chant that for us today.
So I'll turn it over to Malia.
-: So aloha kākou, as we celebrate this 15th anniversary
of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument,
it is a privilege and an honor for me to chant
Mele no Papahānaumokuākea to honor this very sacred place.
So I'm gonna turn off my camera
and go ahead and do the oli.
(chant in Hawaiian language)
He ola no Papahānaumokuākea
-: Mahalo Malia that was beautiful as always.
So that wonderful chant is often also chanted
before we enter Papahānaumokuākea as a sign of respect,
as a request for entry among other protocol.
So one of the things we're really proud of
in our accomplishments for Papahānaumokuākea is a merging
bringing nature and culture together as one
and to incorporate native Hawaiian wisdom, knowledge systems
and all those different aspects of culture.
So at this time, I would like to turn it over
to our deputy secretary...
(chuckles)
Why am I forgetting your name, Eric.
(laughs)
-: Deputy Superintendent, Eric Roberts who is going
to cover some of the accomplishments that we've had
for the last 15 years as Papahānaumokuākea.
So you can turn on your webcam, Eric
and I'll turn it over to you.
-: Andy I apologize we're not seeing any slides.
-: Thank you Justin.
-: Oh you didn't even see the, now you're seeing it.
-: Yeah now we do.
-: And then, oh, sorry about that.
-: All right, that's okay.
We're all adapting as these things come up.
Aloha and welcome everyone, I'm Eric Roberts.
NOAA's Deputy Superintendent
for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
as Andy mentioned, in addition to having
two amazing speakers lined up today
we also have the honor of celebrating
Papahānaumokuākea 15th anniversary
as a Marine National Monument.
It was 15 years ago to the day
that the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
Marine National Monument was established.
And one year later it was given its Hawaiian name
Papahānaumokuākea, a name that truly reflects
not only the natural significance of this place
but the cultural significance to Native Hawaiians.
And for those of you that are asking, what does the name
Papahānaumokuākea represent.
Papahānaumoku represents the mother figure
personified by the earth and Wākea represents
the father figure personified in the expansive sky.
The union of these two figures represent the creation
of the Hawaiian Archipelago.
Next slide please Andy.
Papahānaumokuākea stretches 1,350 miles
Northwest of the main Hawaiian islands
and remains the world's largest, fully protected area
at over 580,000 square miles
made up of numerous islands and atolls.
It is a home to the endangered green sea turtle.
I'm sorry, the threatened green sea turtle
and the endangered Hawaiian monk seal
as well as 14 million seabirds representing 22 species.
It is also a place of great importance to Native Hawaiians
where a number of cultural sites remain to this day.
And as many of you know,
it is a place of great historic
and maritime heritage significance associated with both
the Battle of Midway and 19th century Commercial whaling.
Next slide please.
The care and management
of these important resources truly takes a village,
I'd like to recognize and thank our co-managers
from the State of Hawaiʻi,US Fish and Wildlife Service,NOAA
and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Next slide please.
I'd also like to point out
that although we're celebrating the 15th anniversary
of Papahānaumokuākea as a Marine National Monument,
various levels of protection
for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
has existed for over 118 years
and involves specific actions of six US presidents.
Next slide please.
So what have we achieved over last 15 plus years?
Here's just a few examples of those accomplishments.
One of our accomplishments was the launch of Big Ocean
a community, a large scale Marine protected areas
that began with six initial sites in 2010.
And today there are over 33 sites from 16 countries
protecting nearly 5% of the world's ocean.
Next slide.
Since 1996, NOAA and a number of important partners
including the State of Hawaiʻi,
US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Coast Guard
and the non-profit Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project
have collectively removed over 2 million pounds
of marine debris.
Debris that not only impacted the landscape
of this amazing place,
but remained a serious threat to living resources
including corals, Hawaiian monk seals,
sea turtles and birds.
Next slide.
And here's a great example of what our NOAA fisheries staff
and partners have done to protect the endangered
ʻĪlio-holo-i-ka-uaua the Hawaiian monk seal.
After decades of population decline, today the species
is seeing an average growth rate of about 2% annually
with an estimated 1100 seals in Papahānaumokuākea.
Next slide.
Ulūlu the Nihoa millerbird is another example of where
US Fish and Wildlife Service
and the American Bird Conservancy partnered
to support the recovery of this endangered species.
In 2011 and 2012 50 millerbirds were translocated
from Nihoa to Laysan Island
to extend the range and survival for this native species.
Today, there are more than 165 Nihoa millerbirds
on Laysan Island alone.
Next slide.
Another example is the endangered koloa pōhaka
or Laysan duck.
In 1911 only 11 ducks were observed on Laysan Island,
and through the work of the US Fish and Wildlife Service
there are almost 1100 Laysan ducks in the monument today.
Next slide.
And there's a long list of marine discoveries
that have been made through the work of NOAA
and our partners,
including the identification of new species of fishes,
octopus and algae found nowhere else in the world.
New seamounts, the world's largest known sponge
comparable to the size of a minivan
and some of the largest and oldest
known corals in the world.
Not to mention reefs that remain today with 100% endemism
have been discovered within Papahānaumokuākea.
Next slide.
NOAA and partners from the Schmidt Ocean Institute
and the Ocean Exploration Trust
have also mapped previously unexplored areas
of the monument including over 30 seamounts
that harvest some of the most diverse communities
of deep sea corals and sponges known to man.
Next slide.
And we've located 31 maritime heritage sites
including nine World War II era shipwrecks,
five World War II era sunken aircraft,
five historic whaling shipwrecks
and the list goes on and on.
Next slide.
And Papahānaumokuākea has supported a cultural
resurgence within the monument
through the continued access of Native Hawaiians,
for various cultural and spiritual practices
that continue to reinforce their kuleana,
advanced Hawaiian knowledge
and informed the collective stewardship
throughout both the Northwestern
as well as the inhabited Hawaiian Islands.
Papahānaumokuākea has also supported the revival
of Polynesian practices for voyaging and wayfinding
or double hulled sailing canoes,
where the next generation of apprentice navigators
continue to train in this ancestral training ground.
With that I'll stop, I'll say mahalo
to all once again for joining us today.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the webinar
and happy birthday Papahānaumokuākea, thank you.
-: Great, thank you Eric.
There are many, many more accomplishments by ourselves,
by our partners.
One of the greatest things about Papahānaumokuākea
is that we have so many people
that have been involved over the years.
All of which feel that they have had a significant role
within the protections of the place
and that's exactly what you want in conservation.
You want everybody to feel involved
and I feel very fortunate to be part of this project
and to be one of those people.
So thank you again for coming today.
This webinar is part of our Office
of National Marine Sanctuaries webinar program
and the National Marine Sanctuary System protects many sites
across the country in the Pacific, in the south Pacific.
So you could see on this map, we have numerous sites
and we even have a new site in Wisconsin Lake Michigan.
So that's a great achievement,
the shipwreck trail on the coast there in Wisconsin
and our other newer site is Mallows Bay
in the Potomac River that highlights some of the
early 1800s wrecks in that channel, in the Potomac River.
Out here in the Pacific, we have the Hawaiian Islands
Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary and of course
our site Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
And last but not least,
we have National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa
down in the South Pacific
as well as Rose Atoll Marine National Monument.
So today our hosts are myself, Andy Collins,
Malia whom you heard before
Education and Native Hawaiian Outreach,
Education Specialist and Justin Umholtz
and we're your webinar host and handling questions
and anything else that comes up today.
We all work at a wonderful facility in Hilo,
our 20,000 square feet Mokupāpapa discovery center
on the Bayfront in Hilo.
And we have wonderful exhibits
a 3,500 gallon saltwater aquarium.
And unfortunately we're closed still due to COVID
but thatʻs looking like we're gonna be reopening
sometime soon, maybe late summer
so we hope to see you if you are able to visit us in Hilo.
But all the sites around
the National Marine Sanctuary System
protect incredible biodiversity.
Many of these sites were designated
because they are so special and unique.
They had maritime heritage sites, many shipwrecks
in these sites, including Papahānaumokuākea
as we mentioned earlier.
Some of those are incredibly
well preserved 18th century whaling vessels
and a 19th century whaling vessels
that are in almost pristine condition.
Also cultural heritage, this is a picture
from Mokumanamana one of the heiau
or the sacred sites on that island.
They also provides shelter and protection
for many threatened and endangered species
such as this Hawaiian monk seal and green sea turtle
enjoying a non COVID moment in the monument.
And also education, which is primarily what I focus on
and Justin and Malia we try to share this wonder
with the next generation.
And we use a lot of volunteers to do this
through outreach events, all across the country.
We also conduct quite a bit of research
across the National Marine Sanctuary System
on the flora and fauna and our sites,
and have documented some very interesting things
and humpback whales and the patterns where they live,
where they go to and other things.
We also monitor these sites for changes over time
particularly due to climate change
and other impacts from shoreline development
to other things that impact the near shore environment.
And we also protect these resources.
This is a great picture of a coral restoration project
that's ongoing in the Florida Keys
where they outplant corals that are grown in a nursery.
But in today's day and age, where we're struggling
with a lot of changes, it's important to have
these special places where we can reconnect with nature
and re-understand what nature does for us
and why it's so important to us.
And if you want to volunteer please put it in the chat
and let us know that you're interested.
Our volunteers are the backbone of our program
and they support a lot of our education outreach projects.
But without further ado
we have a couple of wonderful presenters for you today,
I'm going to introduce them.
The first is Enric Sala,
who is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence
and Founder of Pristine Seas,
a project that combines exploration, research and media
to inspire country leaders
to protect the last wild places in the ocean.
To date, the Pristine Seas has helped to create
23 of the largest marine reserves on the planet
covering an area of 6 million square kilometers.
Enric earned numerous honors for his work
including the 2008 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader,
2013 Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Award,
2013 Environmental Media Association Hero Award,
2016 Russian Geographic Society Award
and the 2018 Heinz Award of Public Policy.
He's a fellow at the National Royal Geographic Society
and earned his B.S. in Biology
from the University of Barcelona
and a Ph.D. in Ecology
from Aix-Marseille University in France,
sorry for butchering that.
Alan Friedlander, who I've known for over 20 some old years
has been involved with Papahānaumokuākea
through that entire time.
And over the past 35 years,
he spent greater than 10,000 hours underwater
from coral reefs to poles
and the depths for 1000s of meters.
He's Chief Scientist
for the National Geographic Pristine Seas Program
and a researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi
His expertise to marine, ecology, fisheries and conservation
and his work on a marine protected area
ranges from small local community managed areas
to some of the largest protected areas on the planet.
Alan is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society
and Fellow of the Explorers Club.
He received his PhD from the University of Hawai'i
and was the National Research Council
Postdoctorate Associate at NOAA in Monterey, California.
So without further ado,
gentlemen you can turn on your webcams and unmute yourself
and I will turn the presenter over to you, Alan,
for you to share your presentation.
-: Thank you so much Andy for the introduction.
First of all, congratulations to all who were involved
in the creation of
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Sanctuary,
including my friend here, Alan Friedlander.
And thank you to all of you
who have been doing the more difficult part
which is managing it
and ensuring that the sanctuary continues strong
but also congratulations on the extraordinary recovery
of the endangered species that Eric showed us before.
Really you are heroes of the planet.
So thank you very much the world is in your that.
And also thank you for inviting us
to be part of your celebration today.
So Alan and I are going to talk about the ocean
and how much of the ocean we need to protect and why?
So I'll start with a global picture and then Alan will focus
mostly on the Hawaiian Archipelago.
So let's start with reminding ourselves
what the ocean does for us.
And there are many things that we have been for the ocean.
The first one is produced just by the water,
forget about marine life for a second.
It is marine water that has prevented
the earth to be like Venus.
And let me explain that
during the time since the first industrial revolution
our activities have really so much extra heat
on our planet that the ocean has absorbed 90% of that heat,
90% of all the heat produced from our activities
since the industrial revolution.
The goals of the Paris Climate Agreement
is not to exceed two degrees Celsius
above pre-industrial levels.
Well, if that extra heat had not been absorbed by the ocean
the temperature here where we are now at sea level
will not be two degrees Celsius,
Ii will be 36 degrees Celsius higher.
So we need to thank the ocean just for that
just for making earth inhabitable under our pressure.
But then when we think about life at the ocean,
Marine life in the ocean provides all of the conditions
that we need to survive on this planet.
For example, oxygen, most of the oxygen in the atmosphere
has been produced by bacteria and microscopic algae
in the ocean over many millions of years.
And today the ocean produces over half of the oxygen
that we breathe, but also the ocean produces food
and the main source of animal protein
for over a billion and a half people around the world
and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people
and that also in addition to the food security
and income for local communities provides the ocean life
like coral reef or a mangrove forest for example,
provide protection from the destructive power
of storms that have become more intense
because of climate change.
And that ocean biodiversity also provides
countless opportunities for medicine.
And so everything we need to survive is provided
by the work of other species,
many of which live in the ocean.
However, we have treated the ocean like garbage.
I know we have thrown everything that we don't want in it
but also we have taken out so much.
We have taken fish out of the ocean faster
than they can reproduce and today actually
90% of the large fish in the ocean
Tuna, sharks, are gone
because of our fishing.
And also over three quarters of the populations
of fish and invertebrates that are exploited commercially
are over-fished meaning we are taking them
out of the water faster than they can reproduce.
So we are conducting all of these activities
where we are threatening the ocean
threatening our life support system.
Now, what are the solutions?
And there are multiple solutions to this problem.
But if we think about the three main problems,
climate change, pollution and fishing.
Now for climate change, of course
we need to go to carbon neutrality.
We need to reduce our carbon emissions,
replace fossil fuels with renewable energies
but at the same time, we'll need to draw down
much of the carbon pollution in the atmosphere
much of the excess carbon that we have released
expelled into the atmosphere.
And we cannot fabricate,
we cannot create a technology to do that
but nature has this technology.
It's called trees, forest, wetlands, mangroves, peatlands,
but also kelp forest and healthy ocean ecosystems.
So we do need the help from nature, from the ocean
to be able to draw down
to check how much of the carbon pollution
that we have expelling to the atmosphere.
The problem is that today's ecosystems
have been so degraded by our activities
and we are releasing so much carbon into the atmosphere
the nature and the ocean cannot absorb our impact anymore.
So while we fix the issue of carbon emissions
through technology, innovation, energy, efficiency
and regulation, at the same time
we need to protect whatever wild is left
and also restore much of our degraded land and oceans.
And there's one thing that we can do in the ocean
that we can start today and have an impact tomorrow
and help us buy time,
which is restoring marine life through protection.
Papahānaumokuākea is a great example
of what happens when an area is protected.
And we have seen the example of the benefits
of protected areas around the world.
And for many people have not seen what happens
when you protect an area.
So I like to show a couple of photographs
about the place called Cabo Pulmo in Mexico.
Cabo Pulmo is this little village
on the coast of Baja California, Mexico.
I started doing a research there in the mid '90s
and in the mid '90s, the local fishermen were so upset
with not having enough fish to catch
that instead of doing what people will do
which is going after the few fish left
they decided to stop fishing completely.
So they asked the Mexican government to create
a national park in the sea a no-take marine reserve
covering 70 square kilometers over the coast.
As you can see in the late '90s,
right after the national park was created,
there was no life there.
You can see a couple of damsel fish on the background
but the place was kind of mediocre.
There was nothing there that made it stand out.
But when we return 10 years later, everything had changed.
And so this is the same place.
10 years later is the same place
we saw it come back to Pristine in only 10 years.
The abundance the biomass of fish
increased almost five times in those 10 years.
And we saw the return of the large predators
the fish that we thought were gone
like these groupers and the sharks and jacks.
And you know who else is thriving now,
those visionary fishermen, who are making far more money
from diving tourism inside the park
and better fisheries around.
And because of what we have seen all over the world
is what happened when you fully protect an area.
Next please.
When we fully protect an area from fishing
and all the damaging activities
we see on average an increase in the biomass of fish
in the tons of fish per hectare of 600% on average,
while protected areas that allow commercial fishing
are not even able to double the biomass on average.
And in many cases, there is no difference
between the protected areas that are partially protected
and the unprotected areas nearby,
actually a new study from Australia shows that
the marine protected areas that allow commercial fishing
have no social or economic benefits,
they are not different from unprotected areas.
And we have seen these on our studies also
in the Seychelles Archipelago
Alan's work in the Hawaiian Islands that are cases like this
and the Sea of Cortez in Mexico,
in the Caribbean, in the Mediterranean.
So if we want to restore marine biodiversity,
fisheries management, will not do it.
Doing less bad is not good enough
if we really want to restore marine life,
the most cost-effective solution is fully protected areas
where all extractive damaging activities are banned.
And in these areas, the physical more abandoned
but also become larger.
And because of question of physics
when the fish increase in length in one dimension,
they increase in volume in three dimensions,
which means that they produce a disproportionally
larger number of X, the larger females.
If we let the larger females become large
they produce so many more eggs and larvae
which together with the spillover of adult fish
help to replenish the areas around.
And we have seen examples from small reserves to large ones
from a small species that don't move like scallops in clams
to species that move thousands of miles like tuna.
And a small reserve in Fiji
the abundance of scallops increased 11 times
inside the reserve and seven times outside the reserve
in only three years because of the spillover.
In the Mediterranean lobsters which move just very little,
have increased the abundance of lobsters in the catch
around a no-take area
and same thing that has happened in Southern California,
where 35% of the fishing grounds
have been closed to lobster fishing.
The commercial catch around these no-take areas
has increased to 225%.
Whereas in areas without no take marine reserves
the lobster catch continues declining.
So these areas not only have an effect in the recovery
of marine biodiversity within their boundary
but also they have benefits around their boundaries.
And also we have found that the ocean,
marine life can also be provide resilience
to climate change.
Alan and I have been in coral reefs
in the middle of the Pacific that are uninhabited
and fully protected with large abundance of fish
and those reefs suffered during only a years
especially during the last massive warming event
that affected the entire Pacific Ocean in 2016.
And we have seen what happens in reefs
that are not protected,
where the biomass the abundance of large fish declines,
in this reef the coral died.
They were overgrown by sea weed or slime
and they haven't come back.
But in places where we have the entire ecosystem,
the entire biodiversity, all of the species,
large animals including the parrotfish and the surgeonfish
that eat the algae.
They have kept the reef clean
allowing for the recovery of the coral.
So in these protected places
that have these large abundance of fish,
that corals are coming back.
But not only protected areas can provide resilience
the global warming, but also reducing our activities
can help mitigate climate change.
And the next one please Alan, so and our recent research
that we published a couple months ago,
we found that the effect of bottom trolling on the bottom
of the ocean, the sea floor, and these huge and heavy nets
disturb a lot the sediment on the sea floor
and the sea floor is the largest
carbon store house on the planet.
The top meter of the sea floor contains twice more carbon
than all the soils of the land
which would be great we'll think why
the ocean stored more carbon than we thought, great.
The problem is that today bottom trolling and dredging
in the future maybe marine mining
disturbs a lot of the carbon.
And when that carbon is available,
it remineralizes, it turns into carbon dioxide,
which is a greenhouse gas that even the atmosphere
will be there for a 1000 years
contributing to the warming of the planet.
So we estimated that bottom trolling
turns much of this carbon into CO2
at a volume that is larger than the global emissions
of aviation every year.
So if we protected carbon rich areas
and reduce bottom trolling also,
we would be avoiding carbon emissions
that are very significant at the global level
and also help to mitigate climate change.
And so I have been very lucky to work with Alan since 2005
when we did our first scientific expedition
to the Northern Line Islands.
And for the last 12 years, we have been working
on our Pristine Seas Project and National Geographic
where we have visited over 30 of the most wonderful
and wild places around the ocean.
And thanks to Alan and our fantastic science team
with a bunch of scientific publications
also documentary films, and working with local communities,
indigenous peoples and governments.
We have helped protect like I was mentioning before
we have helped to protect
23 largest Marine reserves in the world covering
an area over half the size of the United States.
This is great, but it is not enough because today
only 7% of the ocean is in marine protected areas
but less than 3% of the ocean is in this fully
or highly protected areas that ban extractive activities.
Only less than 3% of the ocean
is in areas that actually would allow
for marine biodiversity to recover
and help regenerate the rest of the ocean.
And the science is very clear.
We need at least 30% of the ocean protected strategically
the right places fully protected by 2030,
if we are to prevent extinctions
to prevent the continued collapse of marine ecosystems
and the collapse of our life support system,
if we are to help replenish the ocean
and increase the catch of fisheries
to increase food security instead of continuing
the ongoing depletion, the ongoing collapse
of fish species around the world
but also to help us mitigate climate change
because it will be impossible,
it will be impossible to achieve the goals
of the Paris Climate Agreement
unless we protect the wild that is left
and restore much of our degraded land and ocean.
And I will pass it now to Alan, thank you.
-: Great, thank you Enric, so yes you set it up well.
And what I'd like to talk about now is,
how we can look at what Enric talked about
at the large scale and give some case studies
of what we've learned from these last wild places
and what we've learned by better management.
And the first thing is that,
marine ecosystems exists on a continuum from being remote
and highly protected places that we've got to work
over the last decade or so with Pristine Seas
to places that have been moderately impacted
to places where the wheels have pretty much come off.
So extensive exploitation, coastal development,
pollution led to Marine ecosystems that don't have
the same benefits and functions
that Enric talked about at very beginning.
So we need to figure out where we are on this continuum
so that we can figure out the best way to manage resources
where there are people,
where there's a modest number of people
and where we have huge human impacts.
And natural systems actually are dominated
by large predators.
Unfortunately, these are the first things
that go from any ecosystem.
I think this is one of my favorite places in the world
Caroline Atoll in the Southern Line Islands of Kiribati.
And this is what a natural occurring
ecosystem should look like.
A vibrant reefs, healthy ecosystem with everything intact.
Yet most of the research that we do
is around ecosystems that are heavily degraded.
So we don't fully understand how these ecosystems function
and we need these natural baselines so that we not only know
how the natural systems function
but know what we've lost
and how we can try to replenish and rejuvenate those places
so they can provide all the benefits that we need as people.
So, first of all, happy anniversary to Papahānaumokuākea,
it stretches for 2000 kilometers
from the populated main Hawaiian Islands to Kure Atoll.
And it represents one of the largest intact
marine ecosystems on the planet.
I started working up in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
in the 1990s, I was one of the original members
of the Northwestern Hawaiian Island
Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve Council.
And over the past 20 years, I've seen Papahānaumokuākea
grow from a bold idea to one of the most successful
and important marine conservation areas on earth.
And lots of efforts have been done by NOAA,
the US Fish and Wildlife Service,
Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the State of Hawai'i
and others to help understand
and manage this incredibly unique
and irreplaceable ecosystem.
The first thing you notice when you jump in the water
in the Northwest Hawaiian Island
is you are definitely not at the top of the food chain.
This is what the natural system looks like.
Whether you're surrounded by dozens of Galapagos shark
or the 100 ulua or trevally jacks
that come in and move the sharks out.
The Native Hawaiian monk seals
one of the most endangered pinnipeds
on the planet yet is showing signs of recovery.
They hunt synergistically with the giant trevally
and you see how the entire ecosystem kind of fits together
and functions with this dominance of large predators.
That's fairly unprecedented and fairly unknown until some
of the first work done in Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
So some of our early work was with kind of groundbreaking
in a number of respects.
We've got this great natural experiment here
where we've got uninhabited islands that stretch
for several 1000 kilometers
and populated main Hawaiian Islands
all in the same bioregion.
What we first found was
that you can have more predators than prey in the ecosystem.
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
is dominated by large predator sharks and jack's
account for more than half of the biomass
that we see on the reefs.
So how's that possible?
It's possible because they cause
all the other ecosystem components to turn over much faster
fish basically live fast and die young.
If you're not a predator species
in the Northwestern Hawaiian Island.
And this leads to a greater resilience of the ecosystem,
it can absorb impacts, bleaching events,
storms and things like that.
But it really shows how this inverted biomass pyramid
is really the natural state.
That this figure those bubbles are proportional,
so what it also shows is the overall biomass
in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands
compared to the main Hawaiian islands
is three to four times greater.
But what's more amazing is that only 3%
of the biomass and main Hawaiian Island
consists of large predators, sharks and jacks.
Basically these species had been extirpated
from the ecosystem and the main Hawaiian Islands
and that results in an ecosystem that's less intact
and less functional and less resilient to impact
such as climate change and other types of perturbations.
So this was pretty groundbreaking at the time
but we've seen this repeated over and over again.
When we look at natural systems around the world
through our Pristine Seas project
I will turn it over to Malia now I think.
Malia: Yeah so, all right friends
we have our first poll question, gonna launch that poll.
So our question is,
why are top predators important to marine ecosystems?
So if you are in full screen mode, you'll wanna pop out
using your control panel and go ahead and vote.
So we have answers, maintain the balance
of the entire ecosystem.
Lead to rapid turnover of prey species.
Weed out weak, dying animals and slow spread of disease.
Increases resilience to climate change.
Or all of the above.
So we have about half of you who have voted.
We'll give you another five seconds to get your vote in.
We'll see how good you've been paying attention.
All right, so 3, 2, 1, I'm gonna close up the poll
and see what we got.
Okay, so Alan, are you able to see our results here?
-: I am not right now.
(laughs)
Malia: Okay so I will share them with you.
So 96% of our audience members said all of the above.
How did our audience do?
-: Everybody was paying attention.
It was a bit of a softball question,
but I just wanted to highlight
how important these things were.
So I am glad that everybody figured that out.
Okay, am I out of slide mode now?
Oh, there we go, okay.
Yeah, okay so we're back in business.
Now as Enric mentioned earlier marine protected area--
Justin: Hey Alan we're just seeing the slide mode.
So you need to pop back into a presentation mode
and get back to your slides, there you go, yeah.
-: Sorry about that, yep I got a couple things going on here.
All right, so as Enric mentioned,
marine protected areas are essential management tools
not just for conserving biodiversity
but also to enhance fisheries
through adult spill over and enhance reproductive output.
So we look at the main Hawaiian Islands
and we look at the myriad protected areas.
We think we're doing a pretty good job
and there's 80 some areas
within the main Hawaiian Islands that have some form
of Marine protection associated with them.
However, when we look at how well they're protected
it's not as impressive, nearly 90%
of all the main Hawaiian Islands
allow pretty much open access to all fishing.
And another 9% allows various activities to take place.
They have limited protection as Enric showed
limited protection is not that beneficial.
So areas that are fully protected and highly protected
account for a little bit more than 3%
of the main Hawaiian Islands.
And that's just insufficient to get where we need to be.
We're trying to achieve 30% through the governor's
30 by 30 initiative and also globally and nationally.
Those are goals that are being set
to help maintain the oceans balance
and provide all the benefits that we've been talking about.
So we have a long way to go.
We need to be realistic
about what counts and what's being protected
and how much of it is being protected.
As Enric showed at the global scale we see similar results
within the Hawaiian Archipelago,
areas that are highly protected harbor high fish biomass.
In fact, it's twice as high
as we see in areas that have low amounts of protection.
And in fact, areas with low amounts of protection
are pretty much no better
than areas that have complete open access to fishing.
So while some of these areas with low protection
were designed to kind of reduce user conflict
and for various other reasons,
we shouldn't think that they are providing the benefits
that fully and highly protected areas provide.
Okay, so let's switch oceans here for a minute.
And we have a similar setup here in the Seychelles
in the Indian Ocean that we do in the Hawaiian Archipelago
the Northern Islands
of Mahe La Digue, Praslin and Silhouette
have pretty high human population densities.
1000 kilometers to the south of that,
we have islands Aldabra Atoll, Assumption,
Astove, Cosmoledo, these are recently part
of the Aldabra Group Marine National Park
which has just been established 400,000 square kilometers.
And this area is remote.
And what they do is they protect areas that are unique.
We've got the endemic Aldabra tortoise here,
we've got giant groupers.
These areas seem to have been more resilient
to climate change than other areas within the Seychelles.
And they have healthy shark populations
which are not common throughout the rest of the Seychelles
and the rest of the Indian Ocean as well.
And what we see is areas that aren't protected
in the Seychelles have very low fish biomass
those small bars there on the left-hand side of the screen.
Marine protected areas have slightly higher biomass.
And you see a few predators starting
the show up that those red portions
of the stacked bars there represent groupers
and snappers and some of the shark species
and even no-take marine protected areas
while better than areas under no protection
we do see slightly more predators.
They all pale in comparison
to these remote areas that are now part
of the Aldabra Marine National Park.
So an order of magnitude difference in the fish biomass
but more importantly, those large red bars,
the groupers and snappers and sharks are highly abundant
in these remote areas that are now protected.
So why is that the case?
Mainly because most of the marine protected areas
in the Seychelles in Hawai'i and elsewhere around the world
are just too small to have the full compliment of animals
we need to have a healthy ecosystem.
So these big protected areas like Papahānaumokuākea
really are effective because they allow all the species
to thrive within the entire ecosystem
and that's really a key consideration.
Okay, another key aspect of natural ecosystem
is endemism or species with restricted ranges.
This particular photo here from Midway Atoll
from Keoki Stender, shows species that are found only
within the Hawaiian Archipelago,
the morwong the aʻawa
the Bodianus, the big eye, ʻāweoweo.
These species are found nowhere else on earth
and they're irreplaceable.
And so it really highlights the importance of these species
and these places for biodiversity conservation
because they're found nowhere else
and that genetic diversity is lost
if those species would go extinct.
Some recent work we just finished highlights
the important of endemism in the Hawaiian Archipelago,
but also the importance
of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
particularly Papahānaumokuākea for endemic species.
If you look at those four bar graphs there
on the X axis, it represents species range distributions
and the red bar is species that are endemic.
So species found only within the Hawaiian Archipelago
as you move further away from one to nine.
These are species with broader distributions
throughout the Pacific.
At the three Northern Atolls, Kure, Midway, Pearl and Hermes
we see almost 80% of the individuals
that we see on the reef are found nowhere else on earth
except the Hawaiian Archipelago.
As you move down the chain,
you see that endemics are still important
in the middle part of the chain,
between Lisianski and French Frigate Shoals,
over 50% of the individuals you see there
are found nowhere else on earth.
And then we move into the main Hawaiian Islands
and particularly around the islands of Kaho'oleve
and Hawai'i Island,
where endemics are not nearly as important
as they are in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
And these breaks of endemism line up really closely
with breaks that researchers
at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology,
Rob Toonen and others have shown for genetic
diversity throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago.
And it really is important for considering
ecological function within this large Archipelago
but also how best to manage this large Archipelago.
Since we see the distribution of endemics
is not uniformly distributed.
So considering endemism is also another important
consideration when thinking about Marine conservation
because of its important biodiversity implications.
Some work by Randy Kosaki at NOAA
and others have shown that Kure Atoll
the most Northern Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
they found a 100% endemism on mesophotic reef.
So mesophotic reef are deeper water reefs
between about 50 and 80 meters
where only a little bit of light penetrates.
And these mesophotic reef are becoming very important
as of late, because they seem to be a refuge
for climate change, but they also harbor
a number of new, unique, unknown species.
They have not been well studied to date
in virtually any ecosystem,
NOAA and others in Papahānaumokuākea
have put a lot of effort
into starting to examine these reefs.
And what they found is new species all the time.
What they found on this one particular reef was that a 100%
of all the individuals that they found
on this deep mesophotic reef
were found nowhere else on earth.
And so that's really important
for biodiversity conservation because obviously that reef
and those species are irreplaceable.
Back to Malia for another question.
Malia: Alrighty, so here we have our second poll,
and the question is what are mesophotic reefs?
Your choices, reefs where light does not reach.
Middle light reefs between 30 to 150 meters.
Deep reefs greater 300 meters.
Or shallow reefs where corals dominate.
So go ahead and register your vote.
What are mesophotic reefs?
Here we have about 40% of you have voted.
We'll give it a couple more seconds
for you folks to register your vote.
And I will close it up in about 3, 2, 1.
Alrighty, I'm gonna be closing that poll
and let's share the results with you, Alan.
So here we go.
5% said reefs where light does not reach,
79% of our audience said middle light reefs
between 30 and 150 meters,
11% of our audience at deep reefs greater than 300 meters
and 4% of our audience said shallow reefs
where corals dominate, how'd our audience do Alan?
-: Not bad,
so the answer is the middle reefs between 30 and 150 meters
that we just sort of starting to understand.
That seems really important for biodiversity
so good work most of you.
And I will keep going then.
So it should be on full screen mode.
And so--
(mumbles)
-: Great.
So I want to talk about endemism in another region
of the world now off of the coast of Chile.
And recently two large marine protected areas
the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park
and the Mar de Juan Fernandez Marine Park
were recently created by the government of Chile.
And these are over 800,000 square kilometers of real estate.
They're unique,
they're not that far off the Chilean mainland
yet they look nothing like coastal Chile.
The Humboldt current moves from Antarctica up north
and it's a strong biogeographic barrier.
So you see this species of kelp here
in the right hand panel,
which is found nowhere else on earth,
endemic fishes found nowhere else.
The endemic Juan Fernandez lobster
which is an important fishery species to the fishermen
of Juan Fernandez that I'm holding up grows extremely large.
And so what this shows and what this shows is that
endemism resides in a number of different places.
It can be remote, but it could also be places
that are just biogeographically and oceanographically
isolated from other places.
So despite its proximity to the Chilean mainland
these two protected areas and the ecosystems here
look nothing like coastal South America.
And in fact the fish species
look nothing like coastal species.
They look like Indo-Pacific fish for the most part,
you've got butterfly fish, you have wrasses, anthias.
And so what we found from our work was that 80% plus
of all the individuals and species
that we see on the reef here are found nowhere else on earth
making them irreplaceable.
And so, again, another important biodiversity hotspot
just like Papahānaumokuākea and just highlighting,
endemic species biodiversity
is found in a lot of different shapes and forms.
It's not just about the most,
the greatest number of species out there,
but it's also about unique species
with restricted ranges that are really important
because of the risk of extinction
but also because of the genetic diversity
and all the stories that these species have detail
and can provide benefits to society.
And back to Malia for another question.
Malia: Okay, so several of our audience members
were asking this exact question.
So what are endemic species?
Go ahead and register your vote.
You've got four selections here,
species that are broadly distributed,
species with tropical distributions,
species with restricted geographic ranges,
or species that mate for life.
Go ahead, what do you think?
What are endemic species?
So we have about almost 60% of you have voted.
We'll give you a couple more seconds to register your vote
and it looks like we're gonna go ahead and close that poll
and share the results.
So I would say 99% of our audience members went with species
with restricted geographic ranges, how did they do Alan?
-: That is awesome, everyone was paying attention,
I'm stoked.
That's an important concept to get across,
so that's really good.
Okay, now let's keep moving here.
And I wanna talk about the US Pacific remote islands
and Papahānaumokuākea, 'cause these are some of the last
intact marine ecosystems on earth.
They account for most of the protection in US waters.
And they're really jewels in the crown of what
Pacific biodiversity looks like.
These are intact ecosystems
that range from Papahānaumokuākea in the north to Rose Atoll
in South Pacific, the deepest spots in the ocean
the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument
number of places along the equator
as well as Wake and Johnson, which are incredibly unique
but they also show us what protection can be like
if we just expand protection elsewhere
we've done a really good job of protecting these places
in the Pacific, our hats off to NOAA Fish and Wildlife
and the United States in general
for recognizing the value of these places.
But we really need to expand protection
to not just these places, to places that provide benefits
to people in a lot of different places.
And like all the other places I've shown,
they're dominated by large predators.
They have healthy coral reef ecosystems that are luxurious
and they seem to survive past bleaching events.
When ocean temperature has warmed in the past,
the corals bleach, they get white they lose their algae
that live inside them,
they lose their color and they can often die.
When you have all the pieces of the puzzle there.
When the entire ecosystem is intact,
they tend to be more resilient to climate change.
And these places have really bounced back much better
than any other places we've seen around the planet.
And another example is 1500 kilometers south of Hawai'i.
We have the Northern Line Islands
and they consist of a gradient of human impact as well.
So we've got Christmas Island part of Kiribati
with eight to 10,000 people, Fanning and Tabuaeran
with 25 to 3000 people.
Palmyra Atoll which is US National Wildlife Refuge
and co-managed by Nature Conservancy with a few researchers
and staff and then Kingman reef which is essentially
a barely emergent Atoll with zero people.
So it sets up a similar example to what we saw
between the main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
And what we see is it's not just about fish, right?
If you look at that figure there,
and it says fish remember Kingman reef has zero people,
Christmas Island has eight to 10,000.
So fish biomass declines from zero people to lots of people.
And the amount of top predators in the system
go from being dominant by top predators
to having very few top predators in the system.
And also corals and what we call CCA, Crustose Coral Algae
This is the pink stuff that holds the reef together
and they also go from being very light cover and luxurious
in places with no people or few people
to being more degraded and lower coral cover
around Christmas Island and less
to a lesser degree on Fanning
Conversely, we see some of these ecosystem components
that aren't as desirable like algae
and particularly macro-algae increase
as we get more people into the system,
we remove herbivores the species that eat algae
and then the algae proliferates
which can overgrow the reef.
Also bacteria and viruses
particularly the pathogens increased dramatically
when we have more people.
So it's not just about the fish
the entire ecosystem responds to human influence.
And so we need to think about that
as we manage these resources.
Okay, so what have we learned from visiting
the last wild places in the ocean
and Enric showed that great map of all the places we've been
over time and there's five, three key things
that stick out to me,
they're all dominated by large predators,
sharks and jacks and so forth.
They have iconic charismatic species that are emblematic
of these last wild places.
Polar bears, whales,
things that you think of as natural and wild.
Endemic species like I talked about from Juan Fernandez
this butterfly fish here also architectural species
whether it's kelps or coral reefs
they create the three-dimensional structure
that creates all the biodiversity
that allows these ecosystems to be intact
and allows them to be resilient to things
like climate change, hurricanes,
other types of disturbance events.
So all of these elements together really provide baselines
for what is natural.
And then we need to think about that
as we try to manage systems where we have people.
So in conclusion we can, oops sorry.
So in conclusion, we've got a couple choices here.
The ecosystems in the past were vibrant
and full of predators and healthy ecosystems
that provided a lot of benefits to people.
Our present ecosystems are pretty degraded
and they don't provide the benefits
that we need for society.
We can choose, we can continue on this same path
with lightly and minimally protected areas.
And we won't get all the benefits
that the ocean can provide for us
and is essential to life on earth.
As Enric mentioned, oxygen, food provisioning,
cultural connection, all of these things
that the oceans provide are not doing their job right now
because we're abusing the oceans.
If we go to fully and highly protected areas
it's been well shown that these areas can bring back
all these benefits that people need and we want
but we have a long way to go with only 3% of the world
currently in fully high protected.
We really need to step up our game
and we don't have a lot of time.
So 2030 for 30% protection should not be aspirational.
It should be a minimum and we really need to get there
and get there soon because time is running out
and the ocean can only absorb so much abuse.
And we're all gonna be a lot better off
if we have healthy oceans.
So mahalo and I will end it at that.
-: Great, mahalo Enric and Alan wonderful talk.
We do have a few questions and I know Enric
has to leave in about 10 minutes.
So we'll try to target questions for him,
but Justin what do you think
of the questions we have on hand?
-: All right, here's one that came in early.
What are the most effective methods Pristine Seas team
uses to identify the best quote unquote places to protect?
-: Well, that's a good question.
When we started, we looked for places without people
places that are uninhabited and remote
and from far from a large population centers
because we wanted to make sure that these wild
near Pristine places were safe no before too late.
But now we choose a combination of places that are still
near pristine and places where protection would give us
the biggest gains, places that still have
some by representative biodiversity
where all the species are there
and protection will really help them go back
to close to where they were.
So that includes places usually
within the 10% of priorities from our research.
And these are places as far apart from each other
like the Arctic, Antarctica, temperate seas, coral reefs
and so a little bit all over the planet.
We want to make sure that we target
representative marine ecosystems all around the world.
-: Do you wanna add anything, Alan?
Or should I move on to the next question?
-: No, he hit the nail on the head.
-: All right, thank you.
(laughs)
Okay so this is going back to your reference
to the 30 by 30.
What are the keys to making 30 by 30 succeed?
We need more science, people power to respond to powerful
commercial fishing lobbies or what?
-: All right.
-: Well all the above right and--
(laughs)
It's always good to have more science
but we don't need more science to know
that if we protect the right places
marine life will come back
and produce all these benefits,
and there is a lot of education to be done,
of course for communities, so they understand
that protection of part of their fishing grounds
is actually going to benefit them.
Actually, we know that when the fish come back
the divers come in, and economic prosperity
and livelihoods have been much greater
in places that are near fully protected areas
and in places that are over-fished.
But also what we need to continue this discussion
with the industrial fishing lobby.
And we hear these myths from the industrial fishing lobby
that we cannot protect more ocean
because we need to catch more fish to feed more people.
Well, today less than 3% of the ocean
is fully protected from fishing.
So 97% of the ocean is open to fishing
and the fish catch global fish has been declining
since the mid '90s, we reached big fish 25 years ago
and over three quarters of the fish stocks
fish and invertebrate stocks are over fished.
So the worst enemy of fishing and fishing livelihoods
is over fishing, not protected areas.
Actually there is no future to fisheries
without reducing the fishing effort, reducing the capacity
and also creating these refuges, these no-take areas
that are going to help regenerate the ocean.
So it's a multiple prong strategy
but the political will is there.
As we mentioned before, now that is this as Alan mentioned
there is this push for 30 by 30,
and actually the G7
the seven richest countries of the world
had met last week and on Sunday they made the statement
they released their nature compact
including their commitment to protect 30% of the planet
30% of the land and 30% of the ocean by 2030
and there are 62 countries now
supporting that global targets.
So we are kind of a hockey stick moment
where the hockey stick
the increase is not in relation to temperature
but there's this increase in political momentum.
So we've never been at a worst time for the ocean
but also we have never been at a time where
the political commitment is so strong.
-: Yeah and I just have two things to add on that,
yes more science is great, it keeps us all employed.
It's a lot of fun, but really the beautiful thing
about marine protected areas is
we don't have to have absolute knowledge
for these ecosystem to function.
Ecosystems function very well on their own.
You just have to give them a lot of space, right?
As I talked about large protected areas are a lot more
effective than small protected areas
that don't have the full compliment of species there.
So letting nature do its thing is the best science
we have out there.
The other point is that, we're terrestrial creatures.
So we take the ocean for granted.
And I think so education at all levels
need to highlight the fact that we can't exist
without the oceans even though we don't live in, on
or under the sea without healthy oceans, the game is over.
-: Well said.
Okay, the next question is indigenous knowledge
and wisdom is present in all indigenous cultures globally.
So how are you involving that important resource
with important resources in these challenging times
of climate change, how's it being integrated?
-: So I started out my career in Tonga,
back in the early 1980s, working with fishing communities.
And I learned an amazing amount about how people interact
with the ocean on a daily basis
and how important healthy oceans are to people.
I work with a lot of Hawaiian communities and learned a lot
from these people about how traditional knowledge existed
in the past, learning when to fish
but more importantly, when not to fish.
So understanding the natural rhythms and processes
of the ecosystems and a lot of that has been lost.
There's a renaissance of it in Hawai'i
and throughout the world about trying to reincorporate
traditional knowledge into contemporary management.
What we have to realize is we can't just go back in time.
We're dealing with a much more complex
and larger global system.
So we need hybrid systems that incorporate
and acknowledge traditional knowledge and understandings
of systems and having that work in conjunction
with larger protected areas and more effective management
to deal with the scale and scope of contemporary problems.
-: Okay, this goes back to the carbon sequestration.
The viewer was wondering
does the ocean sea bed sequestrate more carbon
than the sea grass or wetland areas?
Are there any ways or studies to increase the capacity
or capability of wetlands sea grasses
or other areas to sequester carbon from the atmosphere?
-: Yeah, sure so hectare by hectare,
those coastal habits
That's what people call call the coastal blue carbon.
Salt marshes, mangroves, seagrass beds.
They can capture hectare by hectare and store more carbon
than tropical forests, right?
But because their special extent is so small
and limited to a narrow fringe of temporary
and tropical seas, the global storage of carbon
is not as large as the sea floor
which is 70% of the planet, right?
It's the largest feature in our planet
is the largest carbon storehouse.
The best way to enhance this sequestration potential
to have this coastal blue carbon is two things.
One is let's not cut more mangroves,
let's not trawl more seagrass beds,
let's not drain more wetlands, right?
Let's protect all of these coastal habitats that are left
and let's restore many of the areas that have been degraded.
We've lost how much
between a third and half of the mangroves
in some areas in some regions.
So let's reforest let's restore
much of this mangrove forest and salt marshes
because we know there is no way for us to enhance.
They have been evolving for millions of years.
And what they do is a very efficient machine
for the carbon sequestration.
Some people are dreaming of this technology
that there's going to be very cheap
and be able to absorb carbon at scale.
Well, we don't have something to say we don't have the time
and these ecosystems do it very well at scale
so it's very simple.
Let's protect what wild is left
and let's restore much of what we have degraded.
-: Alan, did you want to add anything?
-: Or just quickly just jump in.
I know Enric has to head out, he's got...
Are you okay?
All right sorry, we'll keep going for a couple more minutes.
-: All right, Alan did you wanna add anything
or should I move to the next question?
-: No let's keep going, that was perfect.
-: All right, you guys are a good team.
All right, so there were several questions along this area,
So I'll try to paraphrase,
what are the best practices you've developed
or found for balancing the needs
kinda working in more populated areas,
balancing the needs of conservation with local use?
-: So it's a challenge, right?
When we first started out, as Enric mentioned
we went to these last wild places
and it was a challenge to get these large areas protected
when Papahānaumokuākea was established.
People were like, oh, that's too big.
It's beyond the scope of what has happened in the past
it was the first large scale remote protected area.
But as we've seen, it's amazingly effective
and there's been a lot of places
that have followed suit since then.
When you get to places where there's more people
it obviously becomes more complicated.
But as I talked about with indigenous
and traditional knowledge, you need more hybrid systems.
So strongly and fully protected large areas
should be the core of any type of protection.
And then associated with that, we need to figure out
what are the least destructive
and most sustainable practices that can be done
in conjunction with that whether it's fishing
or other types of coastal use.
We need to consider all the players that are utilizing
those ecosystems not just the fishery sector
or the people who are screaming the loudest.
And because everybody's got a stake in the game
like I talked about before, without healthy oceans,
we don't have healthy society.
So everybody's got a stake in this,
if it was clear cut and simple
it would've been done already.
But the fact of matter is we all need to work through this
and we've got some good models
for how to protect large parts of the ecosystem
and then working with people
and trying to recognize where there's trade-offs,
that can be most beneficial
and most sustainable is where we need to go.
So I don't have the definitive answer on that
but that's pretty much the framework.
-: Great, Enric I did wanna check in on time.
I think we're right about when you said you needed to leave.
-: We're good.
-: All right, you're getting to most of the questions here.
Have there been any studies around spill over
and connectivity in the Northwestern Hawaiian
and Papahānaumokuākea?
-: So I guess that's me, one of the first thoughts was,
so if we protect Papahānaumokuākea,
the main Hawaiian Islands are gonna look
much better as a result,
but in fact, it's just the opposite.
The current patterns go east-west.
And when it's wind-driven circulation for the most part
and also large oceanic currents are moving east to west
and in our general region.
So in fact, as the main Hawaiian Islands degrade
it could have a detrimental effect
on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
So we need to be careful and it's more reason to redouble
our efforts in the main Hawaiian Islands
and protect them better
because there are some potential implications
for the Northwestern Hawaiian from Papahānaumokuākea.
And because Hawai'i has such a unique ecosystem
with so many endemic species, they are more threatened
in the main Hawaiian Islands because of all the human uses.
And they are in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands,
even though they aren't as abundant,
there's always gonna be connectivity among islands,
but we find like for some species like
Grey reef sharks and Galapagos
even within the Northwest Hawaiian Islands
they don't move as much as we thought.
Many of these islands are self seeding for the most part.
So we need to consider more localized management
particularly in the main Hawaiian Islands,
Nortwestern Hawaiian Islands.
So yeah, I mean there's animals are moving up and down.
So sea turtles are nesting up in Northwest Hawaiian Islands
coming to the main Hawaiian Islands.
Tiger sharks are doing their thing monk seals as well.
So there are animals moving around.
I don't say there's no connectivity,
but there's different scales of connectivity.
And it may not be going always
in the direction that we assumed.
-: Great, continue to learn every season it seems like.
Okay, if we have time for another one,
you focus on tropical environments.
What does a temperate, intact ecosystem look like?
Is it also a predator dominated or shark dominated?
-: Actually would be been everywhere from the Russian Arctic
to Antarctica, to temperate, to Cape Horn
And yeah, like Alan showed before these intact places
they have a three-dimensional structure that is provided
by living organisms could be kelp forest
or it could be coral reefs, but also, yeah,
this is a pattern we've seen everywhere.
When you donʻt have people, you have large animals.
When you have lots of people the large animals are gone
and the ecosystem has unraveled and many builders collapsed.
So this is a particular...
This is a characteristic that feature of intact ecosystems.
Everybody is there and in large abundance
including self-sustaining populations of the large animals.
-: All you gotta do is be chased down in water by polar bear.
And you'll know that there's top predators in the Arctic.
(chuckles)
-: Or walruses.
-: Yeah.
(laughs)
-: All right so maybe I'll close Andy, Malia
unless you're seeing other questions that are missing.
I think I will close with
this message is so powerful and important,
how can we expand the audience?
-: Right Enric.
-: I think that's for Andy.
(laughs)
-: What you're doing, Andy is great.
-: Yeah, education exactly.
Inspiring the next generation, that's what we need to do.
We need to continue to do the great work that we do
and show these impacts,
show the effects of protecting these places.
Like you've shown them that's really the icing on the cake
and shows that it works and can work.
And I think the most incredible aspect to me of a lot
of this is how quickly a lot of these systems bounce back
once they are fully protected, it really is.
And in Papahānaumokuākea we're seeing that
with the impacts from Hurricane Walaka
and the post recovery from that at French Frigate Shoals.
So it's really incredible how quickly ecosystems come back.
And I know you've done a lot of work on that, Alan,
but that's the silver lining to all of this.
I don't know if you wanna comment anymore on that.
-: When we have chronic impacts
like in the main Hawaiian Islands
or the Caribbean places where there's a lot of people
when you get hurricanes have been happening
since the planet's been rotating
and there's been water in it.
So, these are part of natural systems
but when you superimpose these chronic things like pollution
and overfishing on that, the systems just can't recover.
And like what we found in Papahānaumokuākea
or in the central Pacific if all the herbivores are there
and the whole ecosystems intact you're right.
You know these things, they may bounce back.
Nature is resilient
but when we start to lose that resiliency
that's when we have the downward spiral.
-: Yeah, all right so thank you again, gentlemen,
for joining us, it was wonderful to have you
for our anniversary today 15 years of Papahānaumokuākea.
-: Congratulations. -: For a very great talk.
So thank you-- -: Congratulation,
-: And am going share my screen, we have some closing slides.
Hopefully it will show this time
'cause this things rather fickle for whatever reason today.
So let me...
There we go, okay, so this webinar is being recorded
and we will have the archive up on that page.
So you can watch again in the future
and probably about a week or week and a half
we'll have that up on our webpage.
And also for everybody attending
you will be getting a certificate of attendance
for a one hour or actually one hour 20 minutes of contact,
professional development
for whatever you might need that for.
So we'll be sending that out via email within a day.
And also we've got some, it doesn't end here,
we've got some amazing events coming up in July.
We have the premier of a wonderful film
we put together called "Voices of Papahānaumokuākea"
this will be premiered on two Hawai'i television stations
but we'll also post it to our website.
And it's just a testimonials
from a lot of particular Native Hawaiians
who've been involved in the process of Papahānaumokuākea
and their experience, it's a really amazing film.
So keep an eye out for that in July.
And we also have a blue beacon event
with our National Marine Sanctuary Foundation Partners
live on Facebook on July 15th, celebrating our anniversary.
And please, when you sign out
don't forget to take the survey.
This is how we know what kind
of content you're interested in.
And if you want us to bring any other particular speakers
or content on, so we'd like that information from you.
So don't hesitate to don't skip that, please.
And again, happy birthday to us
mahalo everyone for attending today
and celebrating marine protection and wherever you live
and doing what you can to be an ocean steward.
So mahalo everyone for attending
and have a wonderful rest of your day.