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By Lori Tighe
Star-Bulletin
They are Aleuts from Alaska, Micronesians from Yap, Filipinos from the Marshall Islands, Samoans from American Samoa and they have one thing in common -- trash.Twenty teens from islands strung across the Pacific brought boxes of trash to this week's International
Marine Debris Conference at the Hawaii Convention Center to show how it reaches their shores.
They are proof that no island, no matter how remote, is immune.
Sponsored by a federal grant spearheaded by Sen. Daniel Inouye, the teens came to the Hawaii conference to talk trash, ask questions and offer solutions.
Francine Manibusan, 17, has picked up 20 bags of trash on a single beach cleanup on Rota, an island with a population of 1,600 about 30 minutes north of Guam by plane. She has helped with dozens of beach cleanups.
"I get so upset about it, so we go out and help," Manibusan said.
"Our island is called the 'Treasure Island.' I don't know why, but my theory is it's peaceful, the beaches are so nice and the people are friendly. It's not a dump, we should treasure it. That's how I want to keep it," she said.
Manibusan, the only girl in a family of six children, wants to study marine biology in college.
Most of these Pacific Islander teens have never been off their islands, have never seen a farm fair, or, as hard to believe as it seems, "eaten at McDonald's," said Patty Miller, the teens' guide and teleschool teacher for Hawaii. She teaches science and environmental issues to children on television.
Miller is acting as den mother to the Pacific teens with Claire Cappelle, Maui liaison for the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, which is sponsoring both the teens and the conference.
"The whole point is to not blame anyone, because we're all responsible and we're trying to find solutions," Cappelle said.
Duran Duran, as he's called by family and friends, said he doesn't want to exaggerate how beautiful his home island of Palau is: "It's one of the Seven Wonders of the World."
But Palau is getting trashed, he said.
Duran, whose birth name is Ngirmeriil Ngirmeriil, said Palauans are "very concerned" about the marine environment because tourism is the No. 1 source of income.
"Most of the trash comes from the island. The tourists aren't well informed about how to keep their trash," said the teen, named after his grandfather. (His father nicknamed him Duran Duran because he didn't want to say his own father's name out of respect.)
Every Earth Day communities come out in droves to pick up trash on Palau's coastal areas, and that's how he became involved, he said.
The children were selected for their aptitude in oceanography and the environment, Miller said. Yesterday, they presented scientists at the conference with their data analysis of trash collected on their once pristine beaches.
On Thursday, the teens will share their views with scientists on ways to reduce trash.
"The ocean is a place for meat," said Venatus Choay, 18, from Yap, a Micronesian island of about 5,000 people who still live within the caste system. "That is the main food, fish."
The trash kills Yap's corals, he said.
"It turns white, and then the fish don't come around," said Choay, whose father and all his brothers fish.
"On the plane (to Hawaii) I was thinking of a way to reduce the trash. Most of the trash is from the open sea, not from islanders. I get mad." He said he's still thinking about solutions and hopes to have ideas by Thursday.
The teens will also study ocean currents swirling around their islands to find out how the trash comes to their home isles.
"We have lots of plastic," said Maybelline Ipil, 15, from the Marshall Islands. "The ocean has been abused by people. The trash destroys beauty, coral and fish. Almost half the population doesn't care."
But, Ipil added, "Some people are trying."
U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye calls marine debris by a simpler name -- "rubbish in the ocean." Inouye urges prevention,
cleanup of ocean debrisBy Pat Gee
Star-BulletinWe must make a national priority of "work(ing) together to clean up and pick up after ourselves," he said yesterday at a conference on marine debris at the Hawaii Convention Center.
The United States is facing "frightening statistics" on the effects of marine debris on the nation's food supply, economy and ocean environment, Inouye said.
"Oceans have been treated as 'second-class citizens' compared with the more glamorous, such as the space program. We have invested billions of dollars to explore outer space, but have starved our missions to explore and understand our ocean space," he said.
But things are changing, Inouye said, announcing President Bill Clinton signed the Oceans Act of 2000 into law yesterday. The bill authorizes a national action plan, Inouye said.
Commercial fishing gear accounts for only five percent of total debris found in the ocean. But discarded fishing gear, particularly synthetic fishing nets, causes the worst damage to the marine environment, according to Mark Minton of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council.
Most of the damage is not caused by Hawaii's longline fishermen but by trawl nets which are carried by ocean currents into Hawaii waters, Minton said. They come from boats from Pacific Rim nations such as the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia and China, he said.
Samuel G. Pooley, an economist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, added that most nets are lost during fishing expeditions, not cast away deliberately. The nets catch on shipwrecks or on underwater ledges, or slide overboard during rough weather, and fishermen won't spend valuable time diving to retrieve them, he explained.
Tax incentives should be given to encourage fishermen to dispose of equipment at designated sites on shore, providing a reason to retrieve lost gear, Pooley said.
He also suggested that equipment be developed to "make gear that doesn't get lost," with radio beacons and beepers, and that fishermen be made liable for the damage done by debris.
Dr. Charles W. Fowler, of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said monofilament nets are responsible for half of the deaths among northern fur seals.
"We've seen a decline in population since the 1970s, and it hasn't recovered since," Fowler added.
"What we see is just the tip of an iceberg," he said. While resources are not available to study the effects of marine debris on all types of species, "I am betting it's a daunting problem," he said.
Inouye was the keynote speaker on the first day of the weeklong International Marine Debris Conference on Derelict Fishing Gear and the Ocean Environment.
Other members of Hawaii's Congressional delegation scheduled to speak this week include Rep. Neil Abercrombie and Sen. Daniel Akaka. The conference was funded by a congressional appropriation and sponsored by several national environmental agencies.
About 200 people representing academia, environmentalists and members of the fishing industry were in attendance.