Aloha kākou,
-: A warm welcome to Mokupāpapa Discovery Center's
Third Thursday by the Bay Lecture Series.
ʻO Malia Evans koʻu inoa. My name is Malia Evans,
and we're so happy to have Kevin O'Brien with us today.
And he'll be talking about "Marine Debris
in Papahānaumokuākea: A Shift in Thinking".
These webinars are provided
by NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
We are always really excited when we have opportunities
to connect with each one of you
who are interested in learning
about some of the exploration, research, and discoveries
occurring across our sanctuary system.
But first, a little housekeeping.
I just wanna double-check with Justin,
is our broadcast recording?
Justin: There seems to be an issue. Can you hear me?
-: I can hear you.
Justin: If somebody in the audience can see us,
can you please type in the chat box,
or question box, to let us know,
because there seems to be a loading issue
with our broadcast?
I'll type into the...
There we go.
One second.
-: Someone could type in, if one of you audience members
could type in that you see us, and hear us.
Justin: Looks like we do have people who can see us.
Okay, so, I apologize, it must be something on my end.
But we will start the broadcast.
Everyone, we'll start (indistinct).
-: Alrighty, thanks for hanging in there.
That's what happens, right,
technology glitches all the time.
We just gotta go with the flow.
So, we're just gonna do a little housekeeping.
All attendees are coming into GoToWebinar
in listen-only mode.
You don't have the ability to mute or unmute yourselves,
but there is a question comment box on your control panel.
There will be opportunities for you to respond
to several polls as well.
During the Q&A portion,
you'll be able to type in your questions and/or comments.
We will be recording, hopefully, this webinar,
and we'll have it publicly available online in a few weeks.
We will start off our presentation with cultural protocol.
This chant that I'll be doing sets the space
for the giving and receiving of information and knowledge.
Hopefully, by listening to the chat
and viewing the stunning images,
you'll understand why Papahānaumokuākea
is such a sacred place worthy of protection.
I'm gonna turn off my camera
and so you all can enjoy the beautiful imagery.
[Mele No Papahānaumokuākea]
Before we get into the presentation from Kevin O'Brien,
I wanna give you a brief introduction
to our sanctuary system.
You are looking at a map that highlights
the numerous underwater treasures that we at NOAA
are privileged to mālama, or steward,
for future generations.
50 years ago, the U.S. ushered in
a new era of ocean conservation
by creating the National Marine Sanctuary System.
Since then, we've grown into a nationwide network
of 15 national marine sanctuaries
and two marine national monuments,
including Papahānaumokuākea
that conserved more than 620,000 square miles
of spectacular ocean and great lakes waters.
Here in the Pacific, our protected areas
can be found in American Samoa,
here in the Occupied Hawaiian Islands,
and within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
In 2002, the National Marine Sanctuary Act turns 50.
In the year leading up to the anniversary,
we celebrate the progress made over the past 50 years
and look to the future, and the actions we need to take
to make sure ocean and great lakes thrive
for the next 50 years, and beyond.
Our theme for the anniversary, Save Spectacular,
is an invitation to discover the wonders
of our national marine sanctuaries
and work together as stewards
to conserve our ocean and great lakes.
We invite all of you to save spectacular.
One of our most spectacular and largest protected areas
is Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument,
which encompasses over 582,000 square miles.
We will be learning more about the sacred lands and seascape
and the impacts from marine debris
through Kevin's presentation.
So, I will introduce our team today.
So, I am Malia Evans,
and I work in Education and Native Hawaiian Outreach.
And my co-host joining me today is Justin Umholtz
who is our Education Coordinator.
We both work for the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
out of the Mokupāpapa Discovery Center.
Our center is located on Hilo's historic bayfront
and established in 2003,
to bring the story of our remote Northwestern-most islands,
which we refer to as our kūpuna,
or ancestral islands, directly to the people.
Our exhibits, including a 3,500-gallon saltwater aquarium
with native reef fish, and educational tours
and outreach activities,
inform and engage thousands of visitors
and school-aged children yearly.
Now we're doing it mostly virtually,
but hopefully we'll be back open next year.
The National Marine Sanctuary seek to preserve the beauty
and biodiversity of these special marine places,
while also providing a place where endangered
and endemic marine and terrestrial creatures
can seek shelter and protection.
Our system-wide sanctuaries and monuments
protect places of cultural significance,
like this heiau,
a ritual structure on Mokumanamana.
And some of the nation's most iconic marine
and cultural heritage features,
like shipwrecks and other significant artifacts.
National marine sanctuaries are mandated to conduct research
and to monitor and protect the cultural, historic,
and natural resources contained within them.
We provide resource protection and management
of America's underwater treasures
to preserve them for future generations.
Sanctuaries connect people and communities
through science, education, and stewardship.
We also provide opportunities
to connect with the sanctuaries near you
through our educational and outreach programs,
and to participate in volunteer activities.
These special cases are protected for us collectively,
and for those who come after us, who will be able to connect
with this spectacular natural world that surrounds us.
In today's presentation,
'Marine Debris in Papahānaumokuākea:
A Shift in Thinking', we will learn more
about the three large-scale debris-removal efforts
in Papahānaumokuākea this year,
and how they led to a shift in the way we think
about solving the problem of marine debris in the monument.
I'd like to extend a warm aloha and welcome
to Kevin O'Brien, President and Founder
of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project.
Take it away, Kevin.
[Kevin] Aloha kākou!
Thank you so much for having me here today.
It's a great honor, and I was really thrilled
when was asked to come and speak because I can talk for days
about marine debris in Papahānaumokuākea.
And so, I'm gonna go ahead and start my presentation now.
Let me know if you're able to see my presentation screen.
In the meantime, I'll introduce myself a little bit.
My name's Kevin O'Brien and I'm the President and Founder
of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project,
otherwise known as PMDP Hawaiʻi.
And this organization is a nonprofit
that we started about two years ago
in order to essentially be the hub
around which these large-scale marine debris projects
are able to be organized
in order to provide the driving force
for continuing this work in the monument
that's so important.
A little bit about myself, I worked for 12 years
for the NOAA Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center,
and over the course of my work there
had a hand in lots of the coral-reef monitoring
around the Pacific, but at the same time,
also a passion project developed,
which was helping to coordinate
the large-scale marine-debris removals
from Papahānaumokuākea.
And my story sort of begins
heading up their bright-eyed bushy-tailed
straight out of undergrad in 2007
and seeing this incredible place
and witnessing this place like nowhere else on earth,
where you can see this problem of marine debris
right up in your face, and you can see daily, hourly,
the interaction between marine debris
and the wildlife up there.
So, I'll give a brief outline here
of the presentation today.
First, I'm gonna start with the overview
of the marine debris issue in the monument
and the history of the removal project within the monument,
followed by an introduction to our organization,
and some thoughts on the shifting model
of how we solve this problem.
And then I'll recap our fiscal year 2021 removal activities,
three large-scale removal projects,
and then we'll look ahead to 2022.
So, thank you for joining me.
All right, we had a slight delay on the slides loading,
and so, I apologize if that's the case,
however, you should be seeing a map of the monument.
So, here's Papahānaumokuākea.
Many of you already know much about this place,
but when I'm speaking about it in terms of marine debris,
there are some specific things to know.
Essentially, most of the locations
that accumulate a lot of marine debris
exist at the tail end of the chain.
And these locations have essentially suitable habitat
for catching and retaining marine debris,
and that is sandy shorelines
bordered by shallow coastal waters,
and shallow coral reefs in calm lagoons.
And so, when you talk about places like Mokumanamana, Nihoa,
that are high rocky islands,
or Gardener Pinnacles, for instance,
there just isn't the right type of, quote unquote, habitat
for marine debris to accumulate in any large quantities.
And so, when we do this work,
we end up having to head to the end of the chain,
to Kamole, Kapou, Hōlanikū, Kuaihelani, and Manawai,
and this is where we conduct most of our work.
It's pretty far away, Hōlanikū at the very end of the chain
is over 1,300 miles from Honolulu,
and so, an ocean platform such as this charter vessel,
the Imua,
is our chariot to these places.
And it's perfect, it's like a big floating pickup truck
with tons of deck space, two cranes and an A-frame,
and can essentially handle anything we can throw at it.
And so, that's been the platform of choice this year
for our projects.
Many of you have seen this.
This is the north Pacific subtropical gyre,
and you can see here that Hawaiʻi
and specifically Papahānaumokuākea,
exists here just to the south
of the subtropical convergence zone.
And it is thought by oceanographers
that during certain cyclical events
that convergence zone pushes south,
filtering out large quantities of marine debris
into Papahānaumokuākea.
So, here's a drone shot we took a couple of years ago.
This is of the lagoon in Manawai,
and you can see that this restructure
is made up of shallow reefs
within a foot or two of the surface
and in a calm-lagoon scenario
and with a coral species,
Porites compressa, the finger coral, like this,
growing in vast coral beds.
I mean, the lagoon in Pearl and Hermes
is 18 or 19 miles across,
and so, you can imagine the amount of area here
that's suitable for snagging derelict fishing gear.
So, a study published almost 15 years ago
estimated that there are 115,000 pounds,
or 52 metric tons of derelict fishing nets alone,
washing in to these suitable, quote unquote, net habitats
in Papahānaumokuākea.
And so, that's sort of the treadmill
that we're faced with keeping up with.
Every year, another 52 metric tons rolls in
and snags up on the reef.
And so, this is a tough one
because essentially we're at the whim of funding
in terms of making these projects happen,
and so, when that funding doesn't line up with the cadence
that we need to keep up with the project, we fall behind.
And so, since 2006,
when the NOAA Debris Removal Project
in the monument entered maintenance mode,
we've been falling behind by,
I think it's 16 or 18 metric tons per year, unfortunately.
And so, when we calculate all that out, come to 2022,
we're looking at an estimated backlog
of in-water fishing nets
snagged on the reefs in Papahānaumokuākea,
of approximately 700,000 pounds, or 321 metric tons.
Now, this is an estimate that we created in-house here
based on our own more than a decade
of qualitative experience
watching what happens to nets when they snag on the reef.
They may snag on the reef and never move again,
grow a lot of algae and plaster themselves over the coral,
or they may snag on the reef
and a storm event may come along and break them off,
breaking up the coral colonies, or they may break off
and then follow with algae
and sink to the bottom of the lagoon.
And so, what's visible and accessible for removal
and still presents a hazard may not be the total here.
So, 321 metric tons is our visible accessible estimate.
So, as you can see here, here's a unfortunate side effect
of derelict fishing nets in coral reefs.
And this is not something that people often think of,
it's usually the entanglement hazards
or the ingestion hazards by wildlife
that most people think of,
but here we're looking at coral heads
that we cut out of a derelict fishing net
found on the shoreline at Manawai.
And this is what happens
when these things interact with coral reefs.
They can rip these reefs apart,
or, in many cases, and this is where we find
most of our nets for removal,
they get stuck and plaster themselves across the reef,
shading out the living coral underneath.
And so, this is kind of a big deal
and not a problem to be taken lightly.
And so, we conducted some research a couple of years ago,
back when I was still with NOAA,
using some 3D photo mosaic technology,
to try to quantify how much coral
was being impacted by derelict fishing nets.
And if you're into this,
you can go ahead and look up this paper
that we just published last year.
Many thanks to the team
at NOAA Pacific Island Fishery Science Center
for spearheading the analysis of this cool data.
But essentially, we discovered
that there is a significant impact to coral reefs
in the sense that reefs with nets on them
have a higher incidence of dead substrate, not surprising.
So, there's two sides to this problem in Papahānaumokuākea,
there's the nets that accumulate on the reefs in the water,
and that's the 52-metric-ton estimate, or 115,000 pounds,
but there's an entirely unaccounted for
second half to the problem,
which is the shoreline accumulation.
And so, right now we don't actually have an estimate
for the annual shoreline accumulation in the monument.
But when you're talking about showing up
at some of these islands to do some work
and the shorelines look like this,
or might look like this,
then you know
that that element of the problem is significant.
And I'll show some examples later of what this might be
and how significant it might be.
I like this photo because it's got all the things in it,
it has how albatross chicks, it has monk seals,
it has floats, it has nets.
And you can just see what sort of a cluttered landscape
that this wildlife has to deal with here
on these shorelines.
Here's another one of my favorite photos,
again, cluttered shorelines,
not only present entanglement hazards in terms of nets,
but also basking and resting impedance
for monk seals and sea turtles
who may be trying to find a choice spot on the beach
to rest or nest.
And the major threat,
and the big reason we do shoreline cleanups is this.
This is a monk seal
who just essentially crawled up to take a nap
but decided to sort of loop itself
in amongst the net strands of this shoreline net.
And so, it's very, very dangerous
to have this material on the shoreline,
and it's a huge focus that we need to tackle
in the monument.
Just to give you an example
of the scale of the shoreline problem
since we don't have a true scientific quantitative estimate,
here is Hōlanikū, which is Midway Atoll,
and ever since the earlier days of the NOAA Removal Project,
we have been conducting shorelines survey plots,
conducting accumulation measurements
on shoreline survey plots.
And so, you can see Midway here,
Eastern Island is on the right,
I'm going to zoom in on Eastern Island.
The section of shoreline in red that's highlighted
is a 300-meter segment,
which has been a segment of shoreline
that's been surveyed for almost 10 years
for shoreline accumulation.
And I hope that we soon will have
a shoreline accumulation estimate for the monument,
however, until such time that we can work up this data,
we're stuck with speculation.
So, that's what I'm gonna give you right now.
This is a 300-meter segment.
We just cleaned this segment back in April
on our spring removal mission,
and I'm gonna show you what we found.
So, this section of shoreline represents approximately 0.7%
of sandy suitable shoreline in the monument.
And this is our own estimate
just on the running the tape on Google Earth.
But these islands are so dynamic
that you can't really get a solid estimate
for shoreline area and length every year
because you might come back after the winter
and your island might be a completely different shape.
But this here 300-meter segment was surveyed in April,
and here's a picture of that section of coastline.
It's cluttered, it has some plastics,
a few small nets, some debris, but it's not anything
like some of those photos I showed you before
which were at Laysan Island.
And so, we cleaned this plot,
collected everything, tallied everything by debris type,
and then weighed each bag of debris.
So, we got a total tally and a total weight
for this 300-meter segment.
And what we found was that that 300-meter segment
contained over 3,700 pounds of plastics and nets.
And you can see here this boring spreadsheet,
but this is what we found on that mere 300 meters
of that island, Eastern Island at Hōlanikū.
4,600 plastic fragments, 1,300 bottle caps,
1,200 oyster spacers, 700 hard-plastic fishing buoys,
600 small fishing nets, 300 beverage bottles,
200 jugs and containers, and on down the list,
as you can see.
And so, when that particular stretch of shoreline
represents less than 1% of shorelines in the monument,
you could do the math.
Obviously, that's not statistically sound,
but do the math and extrapolate that
to the rest of the monument shoreline areas,
and what you have is a staggeringly large problem.
To further elaborate on that,
same island, same survey back in April,
this is a mile-and-a-half section of shoreline
that we surveyed and removed for just derelict fishing net.
And this is a photo,
if it will load, this is a photo of the team.
We call it storming the beach, seek and destroy,
storm the beach, find the entanglement hazards,
get them to the boat.
This is a shot of the team on that stretch of shoreline.
And what that yielded was
over 21,000 pounds of fishing net.
And this amount of shoreline represents
about 5% of the available
suitable debris-collecting shoreline in the monument.
And so, again, do the math
and look at the scale of the shoreline problem.
Can't quote me on that, it's not backed up by statistics,
but just as a qualitative example
of what we're dealing with, it's off the charts.
So, I wanted to go into a little history
of the cleanup project in the monument,
and it all began back in the late '90s with NOAA
and the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center,
sort of taking it into their own hands
to do something about this problem
of derelict fishing nets in the water
that had been accumulating for many decades, I would assume.
And so, starting in 1996, NOAA developed a removal program
that really ramped up in the early 2000s
to essentially become a very successful campaign
during which over 2.1 million pounds
of this derelict fishing net was removed
over the course of the NOAA-led projects.
And so, this was a wonderful project,
but unfortunately, it was at the mercy
of the winds of federal funding,
as most things are within the government,
and also competition with other scientific projects
for increasingly limited ship and field staff resources.
And unfortunately, to make matters worse,
it was sort of a square peg into a round hole
in the sense that
the NOAA Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center
was supposed to be conducting science to inform management
as per the priorities and mandates,
and removing marine debris from the environment
was considered itself a management action.
And so, the Science Center did an incredible job
over the years of making that square peg
fit into a round hole and doing everything possible
to make sure that this project continued,
and continue it did.
Then it became clear to me, however,
towards the later end of my tenure at NOAA,
that we needed to create an additional mechanism
to ensure the longevity of the project
and to restore a cadence of cleanups
that could really keep up with the problem.
So, in 2019, I made the leap, I left my position at NOAA
(chuckles) prematurely I might add,
much to the detriment of my nerves and that of my family,
to start a nonprofit, which became PMDP.
And so, with that,
I would actually like to turn it over to Malia
for our first set of poll questions.
Malia: All right, folks, get ready.
We have some poll questions coming up for you.
So, our first one is, how much derelict fishing gear
is estimated to accumulate
on the reefs of Papahānaumokuākea each year?
So, if you are in full screen,
you might wanna pop out of that using your control panel
to go ahead and answer this question.
So, let's see, lots of people are responding.
Your answers are two metric tons, or 52 metric tons,
or 87 metric tons.
So, go ahead and register your vote.
We've got, ooh, we got lots of responses here.
I'll give you about five more seconds
before I close the poll
and see how much attention you all were paying.
All right, three, two, one.
Let's close that out.
And I'm gonna share the results with you, Kevin.
So, here, we've got 72% think it's 52 metric tons
and 28% at 87.
What say you, Kevin?
How did our audience do?
-: All right. Everybody did great.
I'm glad it's not 87 metric tons,
that would be a much harder problem to tackle,
but the answer is indeed 52 metric tons, or 115,000 pounds.
Malia: Okay, do we wanna go ahead
and do our poll question number two?
-: Yes, let's do poll questions two and three.
Malia: Okay, so, here, we're gonna just take care
of all these poll questions for you all.
The next one, how much marine debris
accumulates on the shorelines
of Papahānaumokuākea each year?
And your answers are less than one metric ton,
40 metric tons, or currently unquantified.
Go ahead and register your vote.
And let's see, we got lots of you, folks are on it.
Very engaged.
Yes, so, I'm gonna go ahead and close this poll down
in about three seconds, two and one.
And let's share the results with Kevin.
So, 91%, currently unquantified.
Were they paying attention, Kevin?
-: Yes, they were.
-: Awesome. -: For everybody
paying attention, that was a soft-ball question,
I hope. (laughs)
And yeah, let's do question number three as well.
Malia: Okay, we're gonna go jump right into this one.
Okay, folks.
So, what are the three main threats to monument resources
posed by derelict fishing gear?
Disruption to sea bird nesting,
entanglement, ingestion, coral damage,
or spread of invasive marine algae?
Go ahead and register your vote.
And whoa, you guys are so on it.
I'm gonna close this poll and share the results with you.
So, 99% of our audience members think it's entanglement,
ingestion and coral damage.
What do you think, Kevin?
-: That would be correct, that would be correct.
Entanglement is a big issue,
and it's arguably the primary reason why we do this work.
Every year, there are more than 10 or 11, I believe,
entanglements documented by the Monk Seal Research Program,
and over 32% of all monk seals alive today
can trace their lineage back to a human intervention event,
such as disentanglement from marine debris.
And so, when we see this stuff,
whether it's in the water or the shoreline,
we know that removing it is gonna have a significant impact
on the likelihood of a mortality event for a monk seal.
All right.
Moving on here.
Back to the map of Papahānaumokuākea.
And by the way, if there's anyone listening today
that really has trouble saying the name Papahānaumokuākea,
there's a wonderful YouTube video by a local band here
on Oʻahu called the Haku Collective.
And if you're interested
in really nailing how to say the name,
go to YouTube and listen to that video.
That's what I recommend to everybody that struggles with it.
Anyway, here again is the map of the monument.
And let's look at this in the context of management
and conservation action.
So, it's a huge area, 1,300 miles long,
it's really essentially almost three quarters
of the length of the Hawaiian chain, which is a huge area.
And so, it's one of those vast, vast areas
that I don't think any one entity should be expected
to have all the tools, or the funding,
to address all the issues that may be faced in this area.
So, when we're looking at areas like this in general,
around the world, protected areas, national monuments,
oftentimes the responsibility falls on scientific
and research management agencies
who often have small budgets, small staff,
are hamstrung by top-down federal funding
or state funding, whatever it may be,
and who are not able to utilize many mechanisms
of fundraising or gathering support
for conservation work in that area.
And I think this is where we go wrong in that expectation,
essentially, that governments should be responsible
for all of the actions in the government-managed area.
So, this is where I believe,
and in practice for the last two years
since we started the nonprofit PMDP,
this is where I believe that public
and private partnerships are key.
In certain instances, this makes a lot of sense.
So, I mean, there are many benefits
to operating things under the government.
It's a juggernaut, you have insulation from liability,
you have consistency, you have a lot of infrastructure
to help you accomplish large complex tasks,
but at the same time, there are things
that are done better outside of that.
And so, this public-private partnership,
it was actually very intentionally generated
by the IRS in the tax code.
And it's somewhat of a quid pro quo
in that the 501(c)(3) section of the tax code
implies that essentially we'll trade you,
"Hey, we'll give you tax-exempt status,
you don't have to pay tax, as long as the work you engage in
lessens the burden of government."
And so, in this sense, it's built into the system,
this public private partnership.
So, PMDP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit,
and we operate here locally on the Island of Oʻahu.
And the question we get oftentimes is actually,
"Well, this is a federally and state-managed area,
why doesn't the federal government fund all this work?
Why should I as a private donor
or a local company in Honolulu,
why should I donate to this project or this problem?"
And it's because it's not actually
how it's supposed to work.
Public private partnerships
are essentially like coffee and creamer,
they just fill all the nooks and crannies
that the other one doesn't have
and ends up with a very satisfying end result.
Just to cover quickly our work as an organization,
we were formed in order to work collaboratively
with the co-managing agencies in the national monument,
which has been an arrangement
that's worked out incredibly well,
and I owe a huge debt of gratitude and thanks
to the collaborative nature of our partnerships with NOAA,
with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
with OHA, and with the State of Hawaiʻi.
But our goal at the nonprofit
is to execute large-scale marine-debris removal missions
to Papahānaumokuākea to remove the nets and plastics
from the reefs and shorelines.
And perhaps most importantly
is the second one there on the right,
engaging the greater Hawaiʻi community
in the stewardship and care of Papahānaumokuākea.
And I think this is the one that's really important.
And this is the one where as a partner with the government,
we can supplement our abilities to do this differently.
I think the Debris Removal Project,
when it was strictly run by NOAA,
in some senses, felt like it was out of our hands
in that it came from federal funding,
it was a government-organized team, and how in the world,
if I'm a private citizen who cares about this area,
am I actually able to contribute other than paying my taxes?
And so, it sort of seemed like Papahānaumokuākea
might've been the realm of the government
and it was really hard for people to get involved,
to get interested to learn about it,
to essentially get vested in helping with the problem.
And so, PMDP, I mean, we're not the first nonprofit
that operates in the monument
by any stretch of the imagination, but we like to think
that as we build and grow our organization,
we'll be able to provide your everyday people in Hawaiʻi
and around the world,
a way to learn about this amazing place,
a way to learn to love it,
and then by virtue of that, care about it,
and then also providing a mechanism to contribute.
And in the nonprofit world, everyone says,
"Ooh, we get support. We need to drum up support.
We need to create a community to build support."
And at the end of the day, support just means money,
especially for a project like this
where there are limited amounts of bunks on the ship
and despite the fact that we would love
to bring all of our wonderful community out to the monument,
it's just not possible.
So, anyway, one of our priorities
is essentially engaging that greater Hawaiʻi community
to be able to build that grassroots community support
for the project,
and to help people feel like they can become part of it.
Moving on to our organization's values,
and this is where we've been working quite a bit
with how we put together our teams
and how we structure them.
When we first kicked off the nonprofit,
and we continue to this day
to work closely with Kalani Quiocho
at the national monument office
to pilot and implement native Hawaiian cultural strategy
for the collective Marine Debris Removal Project
going forward, that essentially focuses around the idea
of the Marine Debris Project being an additional avenue
for access to the monument for Hawaiian people,
and also to work as a pathfinder
for how we can integrate cultural practices
into these sort of more Western
scientific-type projects while we're in the field.
And the monument has the motto,
"Where nature and culture are one,"
integrating these things, I think, is really important,
and it needs to be part of the motto
of how we do our cleanups, how we do our limited science,
and who we bring along to do this work.
So, in that sense, our values are engaging youth
and multi-generational communities of different backgrounds
in helping to solve the problem
of marine debris in Papahānaumokuākea,
as well as solving environmental issues
with an inclusive approach
where we pair science with local knowledge,
nature with culture, and fostering
a grassroots sense of place
and investment in the place itself.
So, here we are.
This is a photo of our office and our warehouse.
We have a physical office space and a warehouse
to house our boats and field equipment
over in Kailua at Kapaʻa Industrial Park.
So, in the spirit of building community,
anyone here that wants to come over and say hi,
chat, talk story, and see what we have going on,
you're welcome to come over.
You can find us on Google.
And so, as an organization, we like to lead with this idea
that you protect what you love.
And I think it's attributed to Jacques Cousteau,
or something like that, but who knows who really said it,
but it's the sentiment that matters.
And for our organization,
we are less about the issue of marine debris itself
and more about the place, and the sense of place,
and helping people learn about the place and develop buy-in.
So, one of our challenges really is,
especially as a nonprofit that's looking to raise support,
how do you get people to love a place
that they may never be able to visit?
And the answer is through stories.
And I think this is where we're trying to work on a shift
with how we solve this problem in the monument.
I'm not a naturally gifted storyteller myself,
and so, I usually outsource the storytelling
to other people on the team.
But I'm not a great storyteller,
and I honestly feel like most scientists are not,
and I don't wanna pigeonhole anybody,
there are wonderful science communicators, God bless you,
but I don't feel like the stories that scientists tell
are necessarily always the best.
And they always come from one perspective
and they don't always naturally reach
all the different sectors,
or demographics of our wonderful society.
So, we've been thinking about this a lot
in terms of how we do this work.
And I think we need to change the way
we think about the work.
It's changing the way we think about it
from, like, what is the work, to who does the work,
and involving people intentionally in that process
in order to accomplish the maximum outcome.
So, once we start including people of all walks of life
intentionally in the process,
they'll start caring a little bit more,
and that's the first step.
Let's introduce this place
to multiple different stakeholders.
And at the end of the day, people identify with people.
And so, telling a story with pictures of marine debris,
it doesn't do it justice, essentially.
And when you show the people
doing the work of marine debris, people can connect, relate,
and identify and bond with the story
in a way that you couldn't otherwise.
So, we all come from different backgrounds,
so, what we need to start doing
is telling different stories.
And so, bringing in a mix of stakeholders
from all different walks of life is really important.
Obviously, we've just started this endeavor,
and so, we're only two years into it
and have three large-scale projects under our belt,
but I think thinking about this process is important.
So, here's a photo of our cleanup team
from our fall project last fall.
And within this team talking about,
in terms of exposing people to the monument,
experiencing it, and being able to come back home
and tell their own story
that may provide a richer community building,
we have Danny there who's a welder,
we have Ken who is a HFD firefighter,
we have Kaiukai who was UH Hawaiian Studies student,
we have Mahie Wilhelm who is a Stanford student
who had just graduated high school
from Windward Side High School here,
among other people, Dan and Stefan
from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
in terms of exposing people from other agencies,
other resource management agencies and entities
to the work that we do.
And they can bring that back to their own groups
and tell their own story as well.
Here was the team from the spring 2021 cleanup,
our second cleanup.
And I'll get into some more of the details
of these cleanups in a minute,
but here we have people from the State of Hawaiʻi, DOFA,
who were instrumental in this project.
We have Andy here who runs Kama'aina Kids
at He'eia State Park.
And we have Drew McWhirter from Hawaiʻi Pacific University.
And again, trying to tell a diversity of stories.
This was our PMDP cohort
from our last cleanup project jointly with NOAA.
And we had Alika Garcia
who came to us from Hawaiʻi Fire Department,
or Honolulu Fire Department as well
and runs his own coral restoration nonprofit,
Kamali'i Andrade, who was a soon to be UH Hilo student.
When we put together these teams,
it's actually really important
that we are able to tell different and diverse stories.
So, we hope that this private-public partnership model
can be a model for other groups and conservation objectives,
obviously, acknowledging that it's probably not a good idea
for every crazy NGO to be operating in the monument
with extremely sensitive wildlife and environments.
So, we're thankful that we've been trusted
by the co-managers of the monument
to show operational safety and sensitivity
to this incredibly special landscape.
So, thank you for that.
I'm just gonna gloss right over this one.
This is a local initiative we have
with a local high school here on Oʻahu
where we have engineering students
grinding up plastics from Papahānaumokuākea
and melting them into their own new products.
And so, here you have a demographic engineering
and computer students who may not otherwise be interacting
with Papahānaumokuākea,
all of a sudden interacting with it intimately
with plastics as a raw material.
So, we're trying to tell a different story here.
In terms of removal for our path forward,
it's pretty straight forward.
Every year, we have 52 metric tons
to keep up with in the water
and an unknown amount accumulating on the shorelines.
And so, we can see from this fancy graph here,
this pairs the backlog of marine debris
that we have in the water
with projected PMDP removal projects
and where we hit that catch-up, and keep-up tipping point,
where we're keeping up with annual influx,
but we're catching up with the backlog.
And I apologize,
the dates are wrong on the bottom of the graph here,
but we're looking at depending on level of funding,
three to five years for being able to catch up
and enter keep-up mode.
We're pretty, pretty excited about that.
Again, just talking about the in-water debris.
All right, so, we'll go to poll question number four.
Malia: All right, friends, here we go.
So, what is PMD's target cadence for removal projects
in Papahānaumokuākea moving forward?
Go ahead and register your vote.
It's either two to three large-scale projects annually,
one large-scale every two years,
or seven to eight small-scale projects annually.
Let's see who is paying attention.
And I'm gonna go ahead and close the poll.
We've got lots of you who've been engaging with this.
And let's share the results with you, Kevin.
So, we've got, 84% say
two to three large-scale projects annually,
2% at one large-scale every two years,
and 14% at seven to eight small-scale projects annually.
How did our audience do, Kevin?
-: The audience did very well.
And they did very well for me
not actually addressing the answer to that question.
Two to three large-scale projects
is currently what PMDP has planned
in order to catch up and keep up.
Thank you, everyone.
So, I'd like to quickly cover the three removal projects
that we conducted this fiscal year
before we run out of time here.
So, project number one was
our Tern Island Hurricane Debris Removal Cleanup
in partnership with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This one was a bit of a different one,
and we were happy to be able to provide
a different capability to the co-managers of the monument
than might otherwise be available
with the scientific cohort.
But essentially, when Hurricane Walaka
hit Tern Island in 2018,
there was a massive infrastructure debris event
that happened when many of these buildings
and field-station infrastructure
was washed over the island by the storm surge.
And so, here's an aerial shot
of what this looked like on the ground
right after the hurricane.
So, it's lots of lumber, building materials, concrete,
and all sorts of things causing and entrapment hazards.
This is our team at work cleaning up this type of debris,
not your traditional marine debris,
but important nonetheless,
and that it took up valuable terrestrial habitat
for nesting and burrowing birds.
We completed some additional objectives,
and that involved cutting some escape holes
into the rusting seawall that borders Tern Island
at French Frigate Shoals there.
You can see how that could become an entrapment hazard
for any animal, seal or turtle, that winds up behind that
and is unable to get back out to the ocean.
So, over 10 operational days,
we removed 82,600 pounds of hurricane debris.
And of that, included all those different amounts of lumber,
wood, building materials, scrap metal, cable and wire,
derelict boat hulls, plastics, nets, roofing, et cetera.
Additional habitat improvement actions that we engaged in,
cutting the steel seawall,
constructing a turtle exclusion fence,
demolition of three concrete features
causing turtle entrapment, et cetera.
This was a very successful project,
in partnership with Fish and Wildlife.
Project number two, which occurred in April of 2021,
was a 23-day shoreline removal,
and this is truly the poster child
for collaborative projects in the monument.
And it included all four co-managers of the monument.
And this place is so remote and so expensive
to access that pooling resources
amongst all the stakeholders,
it will always be a necessary model.
And we really piloted that model
with this spring shoreline removal project.
We had wonderful help from NOAA
Damage Assessment Remediation Program
picking up the tab for the vessel,
from the State of Hawaiʻi Forestry and Wildlife
for contributing staff and in-kind funding,
as well as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
for helping to staff it.
This is the team here.
We focused almost exclusively on shoreline nets
to eliminate those entanglement hazards.
Oftentimes they're buried by the tide
and require hours of digging to remove them.
Here's a gratuitous shot of our PMDP logo
with a mountain of debris in the background.
Just thought that was a neat photo.
We were able to disentangle a female Hawaiian monk seal
on this project, as well as four seabirds
that we encountered entangled in derelict fishing nets.
This was the female seal
that was entangled by a thin strand of net.
Females are especially important to the population,
and so, this was a real big win for the project.
Here's one of those seabirds, oftentimes they'll have net
or a fishing line hanging out of their bill
or entangled around their feet
as they sit on the sand in their nest depressions.
Partnering with the State of Hawaiʻi on this product
was wonderful, and through this project,
we facilitated a swap
of the field camp staff at Kure Atoll or Hōlanikū.
And these are the wonderful folks there
that donated their time on the trip up and back
to help us clean up marine debris,
again, a poster child of collaboration in the monument.
So, thank you to the State of Hawaiʻi DOFA.
They had some mechanical help,
which isn't otherwise available due to the wilderness rules
on other islands, but this really helped a lot.
And it also helped that the State of Hawaiʻi
has really done a great job
of tackling the problem themselves
with their field camp staff at Hōlanikū.
On this project,
we encountered some new types of debris on the shoreline
that we suspect were a result
of the ONE Apus container ship spill in November of 2020,
and all sorts of new products
were all over these shorelines,
including these bits of foam packaging,
thousands of those, new bicycle helmets,
a lot of them were Spiderman helmets,
and so, that was interesting.
And just classically, Wilson volleyballs
were found littered across the beaches of the monument,
among other things, MMA helmets,
hundreds of Crocs, and medical vials.
That shoreline project yielded
94,472 pounds of shoreline debris
consisting of mostly derelict fishing gear,
80,000 pounds, versus 14,000 pounds of plastics.
There, you can see the breakdown of each island.
And a wonderful drone shot of the ship
as it steamed back into Honolulu
with all of that debris aboard.
Third and final project of the 2021 fiscal year
is the project we just returned from in September,
and this was in collaboration with NOAA.
And this was essentially
the last large-scale effort led by NOAA.
And they were kind enough to allow us to collaborate
and bring some of our own staff and help plan and execute.
So, you can see here, these are the locations we visited,
Kamole, Kapou, Hōlanikū, Kuaihelani,
and then Maro Reef as well.
This was a 30-day in-water removal
focusing on the nets on the reefs.
Again, all the players involved on our side,
we had helped funding this from NFWF
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program,
many thanks to you.
This is a snapshot of the people doing the work.
We had a wonderful team this year
of competent free divers and wonderful humans.
We removed a huge amount of derelict fishing net
at Maro Reef, which had not been surveyed since 2014,
and boy did it need it.
We like these over under shots with the dome camera,
really allows for any perspective.
There's the Imua
which is our platform of choice,
pulling out a large load at Kapou Island.
We tackled a few things
that weren't traditional marine debris as well,
just because we have the capability and the know-how.
It's a buoy that we pulled off of Kure Atoll, Hōlanikū,
a Panga fishing boat
potentially from the 2011 Japan Japanese tsunami
that was washed up on Manawai, Pearl and Hermes,
and a segment of a shipping container,
which could've come from anywhere, but more than likely,
again, as a result of that container spill.
It was lined with expanding foam, so, it floated,
and our team cut this up on the shoreline into small pieces
and brought it back out to the ship
to avoid re-mobilization and additional damage to the reef.
And again, one more Hawaiian monk seal disentanglement
at Hōlanikū with the help of the NOAA staff
and the State of Hawaiʻi staff on island.
So, that was another big win.
21 operational days, 123,000 pounds.
The breakdown, again,
almost exclusively derelict fishing nets, 118,000 pounds,
and you can see the breakdown from each island.
And before we close,
just some challenges here at Pearl and Hermes,
and actually now at Midway as well,
there is presence of the algae Chondria tumulosa
which is going to provide an interesting environment
for biosecurity measures
for marine-debris removals going forward.
And in closing, by the numbers, this fiscal year 2021,
PMDP, in partnership with the co-managers of the monument,
executed 59 field days of cleanups,
succeeded in removing 300,000 pounds of marine debris,
and successfully disentangled
two Hawaiian monk seals, six seabirds.
A look ahead at 2022, obviously, it's a treadmill
of raising funds and making this happen,
but right now we're penciled in for two 30-day projects,
two in-water reef-cleanup projects
on the Imua
which we'll execute in July and September of 2022,
and then an additional one or two projects TBD,
as we look to expand beyond what we accomplished in 2021.
And with that, we'll end it with poll question number five.
Malia: All right, friends, last question.
How much debris did PMDP and its collaborative partners
remove from the monument in FY 2021?
Go ahead and register your vote.
And I'm gonna close it out.
So, hopefully we have some time to answer a few questions.
Let's see what our results are, Kevin.
So, 72% said 300,000 pounds,
27% said 150,000 pounds,
and 1% said 50,000 pounds.
What's the correct answer, Kevin?
Kevin: Right answer at 300,000 pounds,
which we were extremely happy with.
Three projects in the span of one fiscal year
was already almost, well, it was nine times
the cadence of the project prior to 2021.
So, already we feel like it's been a big win
for the wildlife of Papahānaumokuākea.
And with that, I would like to say
thank you so much for having me.
It's been wonderful.
I'm always available to talk story and answer questions.
And please, take a look on our website, www.pmdphawaii.org,
or social media @PMDBHawaii.
And again, many, many, thanks
go out to our wonderful partners
who have enabled our organization
to get to where we are today
and to do the good work that's been happening.
So, mahalo.
Justin: Mahalo nui, Kevin.
Everybody hear me okay and see our screen?
I believe so, great. -: Yes, we can.
Justin: I apologize, I've been having
some technical difficulties on my end.
We do not have time for questions.
There are some really great questions in there,
and so, Kevin, we're gonna send him all of your questions
and we'll be sending out his responses
within a couple of weeks.
You've got some people asking about getting into the field,
how they can support your organization,
and also some colleagues who are doing great work
on some specific islands
who would like to talk shop with you and share information.
So, we look forward to sending that out to you.
In the meantime, we need to close to stay on time.
And so, all of these...
Hopefully, this recorded despite my technical difficulties,
and all of these webinars are available
on our sanctuaries.noaa.gov Webinar Series archive.
I will put that in the chat before I close.
We also wanted to let you know that we'll be sending you
a certificate of attendance for one contact hour,
so, if that is useful for you in your educational work.
And wanted to plug, we're not doing anything in December,
but in January, we are gonna have a speaker, Luna Kekoa,
from the Hawaiʻi's DAR, Division of Aquatic Resources,
speaking on the Marine 30 by 30 initiative, Holomua.
So, please stay tuned for our announcements
and registration for that.
Finally, some of you may have heard that Papahānaumokuākea,
in addition to being a marine national monument,
is going through the sanctuary-designation process.
So, there soon will be
a notice of intent which should be published.
So, keep it on our website
to learn more about that, exciting.
Last but not least, when you close out,
a survey will pop up and it would be a huge help for us
if you could take a moment to fill out that survey.
This is how we continue to justify
us offering these amazing webinars.
So, with that, I'm gonna put that last link in the chat
and call it a webinar.
Thank you again so much, Kevin,
both for your work and for sharing that with us today.
Mahalo nui. Aloha, everyone.
-: Mahalo nui, Kevin.
Thank you to all of you.
-: Mahalo, everyone.