Sunday, August 4, 2013

APASEEM Call for Presenations

The Asia Pacific Academy of Sciences, Science Education, and Environmental Management (APASEEM) is presently putting forth this Call for Presentations for our upcoming annual meeting (2013). APASEEM is also proud to announce its new website, at www.apaseem.org. Please help us distribute this announcement widely to all on your professional contacts list.

In keeping with tradition, we target using the week before Thanksgiving for the presentations conference. The tentative date(s) scheduled is Tuesday, November 19th, and if needed, also Wednesday November 20th, and Thursday November 21st, with the initial meeting to run from 3:30pm to 6:30pm. As in the past, we are reserved to hold the event at the American Memorial Park Auditorium, which seats up to 112 people.

All interested science and environmental professionals--and teachers and students of these disciplines--are encouraged to develop a 15 to 20 minute presentation on an aspect of their recent work which may be of interest to the CNMI's science, science education, and environmental management community. To get scheduled on the meetings' agenda, just contact any officer (see email addresses below). An abstract of your talk, which we began to include last year, will help us to better advertise our conference, so please send us one when able to. For examples please see past year's talks (below).

We are also using this opportunity to continue our ongoing membership drive. Spread the word we mostly operate on annually due membership fees and contributions. If you've been thinking about becoming a dues-paying active member, or if your affiliation or agency is able to do so, please encourage this and please join. A reminder--most of us remember to pay at or around the date of our annual conference and that fees for professional organizations are tax deductible. Remember speakers get half off on annual fees if they've presented sometime during the previous year. Group rates available for any organization, public or private--see website for fees and mailing address. Potential new members and/or potential group officers are highly encouraged to make contact with us.

Please contact Ken Kramer (president) via ken_kramer0886@yahoo.com; or Michael Trianni (vice president) via mtrianni@ymail.com; or Andre Kozij (secretary) via akaspn@hotmail.com; or John Furey (treasurer) via jfurey@saipan.com to get on this year’s conference schedule. The organization also now has a Gmail account for general correspondence, apaseem@gmail.com.

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The Asia Pacific Academy of Sciences, Science Education, and Environmental Management (APASEEM) is a nonexclusive professional association, initially begun in April 2004 and formally established in November 2008. The group’s official US and CNMI-recognized ‘501C (3) Nonprofit Status' was accomplished in July, 2011. The Academy’s base is in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands with most meetings held on Saipan. 

The goals of APASEEM are to serve as an advocacy-neutral hosting forum for science, science education, and environmental management presentations; to promote discussions of mutual interest amongst regional science and environmental management professionals, teachers, students, and the general public; and to help sponsor grant & donation-funded noteworthy projects within these disciplines. The addition in 2008 of “Science Education” to our group’s focus areas expanded APASEEM’s encompassing scope and potential audiences considerably. In Summer 2009, as its first major project-support effort, the group helped to host the Tinian Discovery Camp. In Summer 2011, the group co-sponsored a large group training event for monitoring reef health and coral bleaching occurrences. In 2012, the group carried out a major grant activity to develop a video production depicting the first voyage to the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. 2013 has been one of our group's most active presentations years. Presently the group is undertaking exploring a major project to articulate and display two locally preserved whale skeletons.

To date, the Academy has completed 1 major video production, hosted/sponsored 34 formal activities/meetings--combining both special meetings and sessions of general meetings--1 summer camp, 1 organized reef monitoring training session, 2 environmental expo displays, and 101 formal and informal presentations, these delivered by 212 individual presenters. Several persons have participated in more than one APASEEM presentation/activity.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Help Hawaii Win their Bid for the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Conference

Please Do All That You Can Personally To Reach Out To Your Contacts And Friends As We Need To Activate Your Networks To Help Us Get More Senators To Sign Onto The Letter. 

Aloha Friends,

Hawaii is currently in the running to host the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Conference. We believe we have an excellent chance of winning the bid but in order to qualify we need the support of the United States Government. To do so Hawaii Senators Schatz and Hirono are circulating a Dear Colleague letter asking their fellow senators to sign a letter to Secretary Kerry asking for his support.

Please help us by encouraging your senators to support the bid by signing on to the letter to Secretary Kerry.

To find your Senator click here or copy and paste the link below:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

To read the Dear Colleague letter click here or copy and paste the link below: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8Vu5qiav9BudW5aRS1Ia3h1eEk/edit?usp=sharing

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network representing more than 160 countries. This body, which is essentially the “UN for the environment,” has never, in its 65 year history, met in the US.

The IUCN has provisionally allowed the Hawaii to begin the bid process; however, a formal bid must be submitted by the Department of State. The effort is truly a national one and we firmly believe that hosting the WCC is in our national interest as a world economic, social, and environmental leader.

For the U.S., and the State of Hawaii, to host this Congress would give strong and clear global voice to the President’s commitment to the environment and to positioning the U.S. as a world leader in finding creative solutions to these most pressing issues.

Thus far we have been unable to convince the Department of State to submit a formal bid by the September 12, 2013 deadline. Help us by encouraging your senators to sign on to the letter to Secretary Kerry.

Find your senator here

Read the letter here

Mahalo for your help!

Esther Kia'aina
First Deputy
Department of Land and Natural Resources

Thursday, August 1, 2013

House renews wildlife refuge volunteers program

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Published: Wednesday, July 31, 2013

The House by voice vote last night passed a bill to extend volunteer and community partnership programs at the nation's wildlife refuges through 2017.

H.R. 1300, by Rep. Jon Runyan (R-N.J.), would allow the National Wildlife Refuge System to expand its volunteer programs and encourage environmental education efforts, the Interior Department said.

Current authorization for the programs was set to expire in 2014

The bill, which is co-sponsored by Northern Mariana Islands Del. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (D), passed under suspension of the rules.

Jim Kurth, chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System, backed the bill at a hearing in April before the House Natural Resources Committee.

In 2012, volunteer work at refuges "skyrocketed" to more than 56,000 individuals who donated more than 2 million hours of time, the equivalent of more than 1,000 full-time employees, he said. The work was worth nearly $47 million, he added.

"They help implement conservation measures, provide environmental education and recreational opportunities to the American people, organize and carry out special events, and perform many other valuable services for fish and wildlife conservation and for the refuge system and its visitors," Kurth told the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs. "These volunteers donate millions of hours of their time each year, and those volunteer hours continue to increase."

The program, which is authorized at $2 million annually, allows the Fish and Wildlife Service to recruit and train volunteers and provide them with food, housing, transportation and uniforms.

It also allows the agency to enter into cooperative agreements with partner organizations, academic institutions or state or local governments to support operations, maintenance and educational projects and develop refuge education programs.