The 10% Target: Where do we stand?

According to a recent report by IUCN (Toropova, et al 2010, Chapter Three):

• Current MPAs number 5878 and cover over 4.2 million km2 of ocean (1.17% of the global ocean surface).
• MPA coverage of continental shelf areas is now 4.32%, and 2.86% of waters within 200nm of coastlines.
• A few large MPAs have accounted for the greatest increase in coverage over the last 5 years.
• Only 12 out of 190 states and territories with marine jurisdictions have an MPA coverage of 10% or more of the areas under their jurisdiction.

Look at the list below (page 35 in the report). Notice that MARIANAS TRENCH MARINE NATIONAL MONUMENT is listed as the fourth largest MPA in the world. The world is showing that MPAs are important to all peoples around the world. So now, how can we get back to the top of this list? Would we want to?

Marine Turtle Conservation Fund 2011

Document Type: Grants Notice
Funding Opportunity Number: MTCF11
Opportunity Category: Discretionary

The purpose of this competitive grants program is to assist in the conservation of marine turtles by supporting the following activities: academic and technical training in the conservation and management of marine turtles; applied research on marine turtle populations and their habitat including surveys and monitoring; conservation education and community outreach for the protection of nesting and near shore foraging habitat; development and execution of marine turtle conservation management plans; habitat conservation and management; information exchange to promote international collaboration; projects to protect nesting females and eggs on important nesting beaches; promotion of networks, partnerships and coalitions that assist in the implementation of conventions, treaties, protocols and other international activities for the conservation and management of marine turtles; protected areas/reserve management of important nesting beaches; strengthening of local capacity to implement conservation programs on nesting beaches; and strengthening law enforcement capacity and forensic skills through training and equipment.

Due to the limited funding available and the desire to support diverse projects, preference will be given to proposals requesting $50,000 or less. Higher amounts may be requested with appropriate justification.

For more information about who can apply and how to make an application, please visit: Marine Turtle

Re-posted here from www.grants.gov

contact: Derek Litchfield, International Affairs Specialist
phone: (703) 358 - 2634
email: MSCF_MarineTurtle@fws.gov

First book about NMI marine monument is now available

Last summer, Dennis Chan, anchored to the shores of Saipan his entire life and freshly graduated from Marianas High School, entered an essay contest: Why I want to visit the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument. He won. Two weeks later he was on board the 105-foot Lady Carolina, skimming the surface of the Philippine Sea headed for Maug.

The story of Dennis' expedition, the first of its kind since the declaration of the Mariana Trench Monument on Jan. 6, 2009, is told in a new book, Our Northern Islands.

According to Saipan Tribune columnist Jaime Vergara, “Youthful enthusiasm and neophyte adventure jumps out of the pages of this book.”

Our Northern Islands also contains over 70 full color photos by Angelo O'Connor Villagomez. Villagomez was the Saipan coordinator of the campaign that led to monument's creation and is a director of the Friends of the Mariana Trench Monument, the organization that spearheaded the expedition.

“Since most people will never get to visit the Northern Islands, it is my hope and Dennis' hope that this book will bring the Northern Islands to the people living on Saipan, Tinian, Rota and around the world,” said Villagomez.

There are 10 mostly-uninhabited islands north of the capitol island of Saipan in the Marianas archipelago. They are collectively known as the Northern Islands. Five of the islands are wildlife refuges and the waters surrounding the northernmost three comprise the islands unit of the Mariana Trench Monument.

During the expedition Dennis visited Maug, Agrigan, Pagan, and Sarigan and circumnavigated Uracas, the northernmost point in Micronesia.

Our Northern Islands is available on Amazon.com and Createspace.com at https://www.createspace.com/3471268. Both companies ship books anywhere in the world, including Saipan. The book will be available at a location on Saipan soon.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Our Northern Islands will support the educational programs of the Friends of the Mariana Trench Monument and create more opportunities like the one Dennis had.

Dennis Chan and his Northern Islands

From Saipan Tribune editorialist Jaime Vergara:

Our Northern Islands is actually the title of a book produced collaboratively by Dennis Chan on text and Angelo Villagomez on editing, layout, graphics and publishing. The deft touch of the editor is obvious, but the youth and spirit of Dennis comes through. Subtitled The first expedition to the Mariana Trench National Monument, it chronicles a trip taken by Friends of the Monument after the declaration by GWBush of the surrounding area of Asuncion, Maug and Urucas-the northernmost islands of the Marianas chain-as a marine protected area.

One of the friends funded the trip with the caveat that a young person be chosen through an essay contest to experience the islands and return to tell of the experience to peers. Dennis Chan, 18-year-old Saipan born and bred, won the essay and this book is a coffee table conversation piece that chronicles the journey in words and pictures.

Dennis' staccato narrative from notes in a log/journal notebook handed him at the start of the trip, with the cadence and idiom of the classroom hallways, is given recognizable mainstream form by our erstwhile mayor of Saipan's watering holes, and Saipan's almost Matua with the Matachang service style of 2009 election, now within the beltway habitué of the nation's capital, Angelo Villagomez. The racy tone in the recollection like that of the two-day-old chaffy underwear is ordinary enough, but might in the telling have gotten an “R” rating from Hollywood's MPAA!

Not a few of the younger Chan siblings were in my class at SVES and their dad Norman is known for setting up refined gastronomic fan dian (restaurants, literally, rice shops). Dennis at the International School was once characterized as a “slick talker like a used-car salesman” (with no offense meant to the guys down the car lot, only to admire their marketing skills), and we did get the chance to see him perform in one of the island's debating events. He is an MHS grad.

What comes through loud and clear in the book is that Dennis is no country bumpkin. The urban comfort of globalized Saipan was not missed in his obvious upbringing and Dennis might know the principle of friction, but may not know how to kindle wood were he stuck on an island without any amenities, and his life depended on it.

A queasy stomach got him green by the gills as soon as the waves hit starboard on the navigatinal float Lady Carolina, and on the return from Maug and Uracus through Agrihan and Pagan, side-stepping the patty cakes on the ground and the buzz in the air from the bees and flies, our cosmopolitan dude bedrudgingly started fending for himself.

In one of the book's photos, Dennis holds a huge coconut crab with the mixed expression of “I would love to have this under my belly cooked and relished slowly, but do I have to hold this live one for a frigging picture?” His pose on Lady Carolina in Uracus from the southeast is priceless and would make an excellent resumé promo and an application supplement to an institution of higher education anywhere in the world!

Dennis is currently registered at the Northern Marianas College, our local and only community college. A colleague took exception to his remaining on island when his obvious talents could be challenged more thoroughly elsewhere. In a sense, the two-year associate liberal arts degree from NMC might not be a bad place for Dennis to exercise self-reliance and self-motivity in nurturing his own self-confidence for a larger field elsewhere.

Besides, the social networking that prestigious universities offer their studentry may be useful at spring break in one of the instant “student” towns, but only rarely, unless it is accompanied by aristocratic pedigree, does it lead to an apartment on Park Avenue, or a tenure at Cambridge.

On the other hand, Dennis should not be denied the resources to move elsewhere two years hence, should he so desires. SHEFA and the local Chamber of Commerce scholarship might not be a bad place to start. I would not recommend the poker house as an option!

The awe and wonder in Maug and the circumnavigation of the northernmost island Uracus (Farallon de Pajaros) is the heart of the trip: “There are so many places to see in the world, and I'm sure I'll always say I'll come back, but life, life's got so much to do and other places to go. I may never be in Pagan again or Maug or any of our Northern Islands. The thought is a sad one, but it makes the moment even more special” and the stopovers in Agrigan and Pagan, its humanness. “Pagan, the heights, the vistas, the beach, and all that beauty. I think beauty should be bought in the effort to see it, and so I did. I arrived at beauty; I roamed through it with blistered feet and sore groin.”

Youthful enthusiasm and neophyte adventure jumps out of pages of this book. Now, Angelo needs to get a sequel out from his adult and professional perspective (and encourage colleagues-two professional writers, a photographer, navigators and environmentalists-to produce their memories and recollections as well).

Our Northern Islands
The first expedition to the Northern Mariana Trench National Monument
Dennis Chan
www.AngeloVillagomez.com

WANTED: Writers from the Northern Mariana Islands

Saipan, CNMI – A quartet of local writers from the Northern Mariana Islands is accepting submissions for an upcoming anthology of local writers they are tentatively calling Stories from Wild Bills Cafe: Life, Love and Spicy Tofu in the Northern Mariana Islands.

“A number of local writers have been throwing around an idea to create a compilation of local work for years now,” said Angelo O’Connor Villagomez. “A group of us have been meeting together over spicy tofu and chiliburgers at Wild Bills these last few months and we’ve finally decided to put it together.”

When asked how long the anthology would be and how many writers would be included, Villagomez said that the book would be “about 200 pages, which will probably fit about 15 -20 writers.”

The editors of Wild Bills Café are Jane Mack, Joe Race, Jaime Vergara, and Villagomez.

The inspiration for the name of the anthology comes from Wild Bills Café on Beach Road in Garapan.

“I talked to the owner Bill about the name, and he’s allowing us to use it,” explained Race, a local novelist and former police officer. “Our idea is to focus the attention on a physical place to ground all the stories.”

Race also said that the book would promote the Northern Mariana Islands and might even turn Wild Bills into a destination for tourists, readers, and writers.

“Saipan, Tinian and Rota are home to several dozen newspaper reporters, bloggers, novelists, poets and amateur writers,” said Mack, a novelist and lawyer. “There are also a number of writers from the Northern Mariana Islands living and working abroad, but who write about home. These are the people we want to include in this first edition of Wild Bills.”

Writers interested in submitting work for the anthology can contact the editors at WildBillStories@gmail.com. Submission guidelines are available upon request. Writers whose work is chosen for submission will receive two (2) copies of Stories from Wild Bills Café.