Speaking at Our Ocean A few months ago, a colleague put me in contact with the editor of Smithsonian's Native American magazine.  She asked me to write something about my Chamorro culture and how that relates to ocean conservation and my career. I wanted to tell the story about how everyday Indigenous lessons learned growing up on an island developed my sense of values and ethics.  My first draft was just over 1,000 words, then the editor had me fill in more of the story, growing it to 2,000 words.  Then she told me I had to slash it back down to 1,000.  The result was  Dreaming of a Protected Ocean .  There's a longer version of this I'd like to write one day. I also wrote an article for the annual Our Ocean conference taking place in Greece this year.   Now Is the Time to Secure President Biden's Ocean Leadership Legacy  calls on the Biden administration to do the same things I also called on them to do in 2022 and 2023 . I will freely admi...

I spoke at Our Ocean Greece 2024 yesterday.  I think it went well. I had prepared remarks, but none of the other panelists were reading or using notes, so I figured neither would I.  In the preceding week, I spent a good amount of time preparing for what was supposed to be a 3 minute speech followed by a panel discussion, but every panelist went well beyond their allotted time, and we never actually got to the discussion part.  I spoke last -- as the least distinguished speaker -- and was thrown for a bit of a loop when the moderator asked me what was supposed to be my follow up question.  Earlier in the day I was talking with my friend Sheila about our recently deceased friend Cinta Kaipat , so I started my story with her.  Everything else just poured out as I thought of my friend. There were a couple of other things I wanted to say, so I'm posting my remarks here for no other reason than I spent a lot of time on them.  I had wanted to get in a talking poi...