Angelo Villagomez

I was invited to participate in a panel on deep sea mining organized by the Society for Conservation Biology.  I gave these short remarks and then participated in an hour long panel discussion . Good afternoon, and thank you for the invitation to speak with you today. I want to thank SCB and especially David for organizing today’s workshop on deep sea mining. My name is Angelo and I work for an organization in Washington, DC called the Center for American Progress. I’m going to start my talk by saying something you don’t often hear at the start of a conference panel: I wish I didn’t need to be here today. I wish I didn’t have to think about deep sea mining. Two years ago, I was working closely with the American government, imagining what was possible in ocean conservation. I served on the federal advisory board making recommendations on area based management to the government and was on a national academy of sciences panel studying how to make ocean science more equitable...

I was invited to give the keynote talk at the 2026 Mariana Islands Conservation Conference. The organizers of the conference asked me to speak of my role in efforts to oppose deep sea mining near the Mariana Trench -- which I did -- but I also took the opportunity to talk about the history of the Mariana Trench marine national monument. Conservation Tales from the Mariana Trench Before I start I want to thank the board of Tano Tasi yan Todu for inviting me to speak today, and the organizers of this conference. I’ve watched this conference online over the years, and I’m very excited to participate for the first time. I also want to wish all of you a happy National Napping Day. Hopefully you won’t sleep through my talk. I also want to thank everyone who participated in the deep sea mining RFI these last few months. Thank you to brave activisists who spoke up first and raised the alarm. Thank you to the environmental organizations and the government servants who quickly educ...

I'm speaking at a COMPASS townhall on Communicating Risk Effectively at Ocean Sciences meeting 2026 on Monday, February 23.  If you're there, please join us! Strategic Science Communication in Practice: My Remarks at the Communicating Risk Effectively Townhall Good afternoon. My name is Angelo Villagomez, and today I want to discuss how risk communication functions in practice, using the recent 60‑day campaign to oppose deep‑sea mining near the Mariana Trench as a case study. On November 11, virtually no one in the Mariana Islands had heard of deep‑sea mining. Then on November 12, the Trump administration announced a 30‑day plan to begin the process that could open areas near the Mariana Trench to industrial extraction. The timeline was abrupt, the issue was unfamiliar, and our community was completely unprepared for it. With no resources, no prepared messaging, and no existing coalitions, we had to build a comprehensive campaign from scratch—and we had to do it quickly. ...

I addressed the 2026 East Pacific Kelp Congress on January 21, 2026. Beyond 30x30: Re-Imagining Ocean Conservation Success The next time you are in one of those virtual professional settings where you are staring at a bunch of faces you don’t know and you have to do that awkward thing where you all introduce yourself, ask each person to finish their introduction by naming their special ocean place. Yesterday’s meeting repeatedly evoked memories of my special ocean place, Obyan Beach on the southern end of Saipan, the island in the western Pacific where I am from. Every time one of you spoke about purple urchin harvesting or removal, I flashed back to my childhood and my father teaching me how to gather sea urchins on the reef flat during low tide. He convinced me when I was about 8 years old that I was the world’s greatest sea urchin hunter, that nobody did it better in the history of the Chamorro people. For years this inspired me to gather sea urchins on my own, and to deliver...

I did not write this essay.  I recorded myself giving an hour long lecture at Cornell this week and loaded the transcript into ChatGPT and asked it to highlight the main arguments and recommendations from my talk. If you attended my talk, I think you would agree this is an accurate encapsulation of what I said. When I was a college student we took an honor pledge, that the work we submitted was our own.  These are my words and ideas, but they are rearranged by a computer.  I can't even begin to imagine how professors and colleges are dealing with the rise of AI in the classroom, and the nuances of what is ethical and allowed. I was reading Kamala Harris' book 107 Days this week, and in it she talks about how lawyers joke about the argument they wanted to make, the argument they made, and the argument they should have made.  The same is true of my Cornell talk.  There was the talk I planned to make, the talk I made, and the talk I should have made.  I'm givi...

Photo courtesy of John Dos Passos Coggin I was invited to give opening remarks at NOAA's Climate Connections 2.0 on October 29, 2024. Hello everybody, my name is Angelo. Like Hunter said, I live and work here in town for an organization called the Center for American Progress. I direct our ocean policy work and our work with Indigenous communities. I’m originally from the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands and plan to return there one day. 5 years ago last Friday, Super Typhoon Yutu crashed into the southern end of Saipan with sustained winds of 175 mph and gusts of 190 mph. It was the second strongest storm to ever strike the United States and caused 800 million dollars in damages. The storm killed 2 people, left thousands homeless, and tens of thousands without power for months. I had friends and family living in FEMA tents for months on end, and when they say they lost everything they owned, they literally meant everything they owned. As the ocean contin...

I was invited to speak at the 7th International Marine Conservation Congress and chose to speak about the strengths and weaknesses of 30x30 on the ocean.  Sharing my remarks here for posterity. Welcome to the Beyond 30x30 Era This is my first time in South Africa, and I just want to thank our wonderful hosts for welcoming us all here, and for treating us all so well in your home. I also want to thank the SCB marine section, the conference steering committee, and the conference co-chairs for hosting an excellent conference this year. And I want to thank all of you for getting up so early on the last day of the conference to come to hear me speak. My name is Angelo Villagomez, and I live in Washington, DC and work for an organization called the Center for American Progress. My work these days is almost solely focused on the waters of the United States, so I want to recognize that there are people from 72 countries here and that my experience may not be applicable or relatable ...