August 19, 2021 — Nine researchers and community members recently traveled to Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument for a 15-day expedition.
It was a groundbreaking field trip. All of them are Native Hawaiians.
“Together as a group of Native Hawaiians we went up there to really assess and to learn from the place through a Hawaiian perspective,” Haunani Kane said.
Kane is an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. She led the study.
“When you look at the representation of native people that get PhD’s in ocean and earth sciences, we aren’t represented by number. We’re represented by two letters, ‘NA,’ because there’s less than 20 of us in the world that’s pursuing this research,” she said.
The team documented conditions on the eastern side of the monument that was hit hard in 2018 by Hurricane Walaka, especially East island.
Kane said the perspective is very different when you see it in person as opposed to looking at satellite imagery.
“When you go out there and you are able to stand there on the island and see it from sea level, you see that the island still is not as tall as it was before, which is really important for sea-level rise, for high tide and things like that,” she said.