10 Years of Ocean Protection: Stories & Photos

Reserve Advisory Council Honored

Fifteen members of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve (NWHICRER); Reserve Advisory Council (RAC) were honored October 7, 2010 for their decade-long work to protect and conserve the Reserve, now part of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM), which was created in 2006. Many of those recognized at the ceremony have served for the entire ten years and were instrumental in the establishment of both the NWHICRER and PMNM. Tim Johns is the Chair of the RAC and one of its original members. Reflecting on his work and the overall work of the group, Johns said: “I think that we really are only on this earth for a short time and so the work that you do should be important work. Of all the things I have done in my career, this one will stand out as knowing I have left something; I have left a legacy, or helped other people create a legacy for future generations.”

The RAC was deeply involved in management and operational planning, in perpetuating Native Hawaiian access to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and in developing dozens of resolutions aimed at ensuring continued protection of the fragile marine ecosystems of Papahānaumokuākea.

William Ailā, another original member of the RAC, its current secretary and the chair of the Native Hawaiian Working Group, has been involved with the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands most of his adult life. He feels that while legal designations that established the NWHICRER and PMNM were critical for protection and recognition: “Equally important though is that this process included an awakening of Native Hawaiians’ connection to all of the islands of the NWHI, including a recognition that coral reefs on a worldwide scale are important to human beings as the forests of the sea and within the context of global climate change, it was sort of the harbinger that we’d better start paying attention to these resources.”

NOAA Superintendent for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, ‘Aulani Wilhelm, feels the input and advice from the RAC as stakeholders for a broader constituency is absolutely critical to making informed decisions. In honoring RAC members, Wilhelm said: “Ten years is indeed a very, very short time in the overall protection history of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, but the last decade will be remembered as the one that set the stage for all future decisions regarding the NWHI and put Papahānaumokuākea on the world’s stage. None of this would have been possible without the dedicated, passionate and intelligent input from the RAC. We and all future managers of this place are forever in their debt.” The Reserve Advisory Council was established in 2001, after the Presidential Executive Order which created the NWHICRER on December 4, 2000. Laura Thompson, who holds a Conservation seat on the RAC, and is a founding member, comments that she has learned much from her service. Reflecting on the past ten years, she said the RAC and Monument managers have really stuck to this philosophy. “We are going to bring the islands to the people, not the people to the islands because we recognized that was the appropriate thing to do,” she said.