Senator Carlotta Leon Guerrero from Guam penned this essay in May 2019. I'm sharing it here in the hopes that it inspire you, the way that it inspired me.  This piece was first published by Grist . More than a dozen Pacific countries have created ocean sanctuaries that help marine species -- and coastal communities -- survive. Last week, a global scientific assessment found the business-as-usual approach to conservation is not delivering the critical action needed to safeguard the future health of our planet. Over the last 30 years, a growing global population has doubled the demand on our planet’s resources, according to the report, which was released by the United Nations, and nature just can’t keep up: As many as 1 million species are threatened with extinction in the coming decades. This is a threat well understood by the people of my island, the small Pacific territory of Guam. In the last few decades alone, development and invasives have led to the extinction of the Gu...

I published this essay on The Saipan Blog in 2018 when President Donald J. Trump was considering downsizing, eliminating, or opening monuments to fishing, mining, and grazing.  It's a bit out of date for the issues we face in 2022, but I touch on issues of colonization and some of the cultural connections between Micronesians and Polynesians, and how geography plays a role. The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument promotes biological and cultural connectivity between Micronesia and Polynesia The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a marine protected area comprised of five large expanses of ocean surrounding seven mostly uninhabited American territories in the Pacific. The combined area, which is nearly twice the size of Texas, spans over 1.3 million sq km (490,000 sq mi) and prohibits all commercial fishing and deep sea mining, while allowing for sustainable recreational and noncommercial fishing. Wake Atoll, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Palmyr...