Posted on: Friday, January 10, 2003
Students on ship come to workshop
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
Participants in tomorrow's Sustainability Workshop are flying in from across the country, but one group made a splashy entrance yesterday sailing into Honolulu Harbor from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
The crew and undergraduate college students aboard the SSV Robert C. Seamans, a two-masted sailing vessel, just completed a semester-at-sea, following a curriculum of oceanographic research, maritime studies and nautical science. One of their concerns has been ocean sustainability — preventing overfishing and pollution of the coastal zones.
John Bullard, president of the Sea Education Association and one of the guest speakers at the workshop, had to leave the vessel last week for a funeral, but will be present for the workshop. He will join Gov. Linda Lingle, Mayor Jeremy Harris and University of Hawai'i President Evan Dobelle in discussing sustainability issues.
Bullard, who headed the sustainability office during the Clinton administration, will look at sustainability from a national perspective and discuss the Sea Education Association.
The input at this workshop and those to follow will be included in a sustainability master plan that will protect O'ahu's natural and cultural resources into the future, Harris said at a press conference yesterday at Aloha Tower.
He added that sustainability issues are more evident on an island where resources are finite.
"When you live on an island, you realize that you have only so many acres of land, you only have so many acres of forest, you only have so many acres of agricultural land," he said. "There is only so much resource to use and unless you use it in a wise way and recycle it so it can be used again and again it will run out."
The series of workshops will help inform the public about sustainability issues in the areas of economy, land use and agriculture, energy, natural resources and transportation.
"We want to make sure that our future and the island that we turn over to our children is as clean, as beautiful and as sustainable as when it was turned over to us," Harris said. "In order to do that we need to change many of the things we do, both as a government and as individuals.
The workshop will be held from 8 a.m. to noon at the Dole Cannery Ballroom. It is free and open to the public, but there will be a $2 charge for parking.
This gathering is scaled down compared to the Islandwide Sustainability Workshop last June, which was held aboard the Norwegian Star Cruise ship. All speakers but one are donating their time. As a result, the workshop will cost the city about $1,100 for the ballroom rental and one honorarium. The event is sponsored by the city and the University of Hawai'i Office of Sustainability.
For more information, call 523-CITY or e-mail sustain@hawaii.edu.
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
